January 6th, for us, means Twelfth Night  - time to take down the decorations and put Christmas behind us for another year. My mother and grandmother were very superstitious about this and would get very upset if one small piece of tinsel was left behind.

In France, there is a much nicer custom for Epiphany: the visit of the Three Kings is celebrated with a Galette des Rois. What started as a religious festival has become more of an excuse to indulge in eating nowadays. The favourite recipe is flakey pastry filled with a marzipan type mixture - frangipane (invented by an Italian noble, the Marquis of Frangipani in the 14th century) but there is also a plain version (without frangipane) and there are even recipes with apple or other fruit filling. In the south it can be a brioche filled with frangipane.

Anyway, from what I've seen in French households, the idea is for the youngest child to hide under the table while the cake is cut. He or she then decides who is to receive each slice.

Why? Because there is a token hidden in the galette and the one who finds it gets the crown. Originally the tokens were based on the nativity but nowadays they can be of anything.

Pascal phoned us yesterday to ask if we'd like to go round for Galette des Rois. I dare not say yes because Bear is still not well so I invited them to come to ours instead.

That meant a last minute search for the necessary cake (Jay bought one in town) and also a baking session, as Pascal is rather partial to mince pies.

They arrived just after three o'clock bearing chilled champagne . Conversation was a bit slow  - or should I say fast, as it is difficult to follow Pascal at the rate he chatters and I aften have to ask him to repeat what he said. Bear sat sullenly in his armchair and 'switched off' but when the champagne was opened he allowed himself to be persuaded to have some.

The galette was warming through in the oven. Jay, knowing what to expect disappeared upstairs so CC had to allocate the pieces of cake - fortunately not from under the coffee table: we let her stand behind the settee. Pascal and Florence were a bit taken aback when we provided cake forks and soon everyone was resorting to fingers: sticky but so much more satisfying.

So guess who won the crown (with a  monkey token)?

Yes, it was Bear.

I plonked the crown on his head and he grimaced.

"It's very quiet here," said Pascal, "How about some music?"

Bear reacted to this.

"No way. I'm not having that row." he decided.

"What about my CD of Cyril?" I suggested. (Cyril won the French Star Academy last year and has a really good voice.)

"Not if you want to avoid World War Three," muttered CC, so I let it drop.

Despite Bear's silence we opened another bottle of champagne, gave Pascal some whisky and brought out the mince pies. Conversation began to flow and we finished off the afternoon with coffee (Pascal had tea!) until they got up to leave at about 6.30 with a dozen mince pies to take home for the rest of the family.

P.S. In view of Bear's reaction to listening to music I was amazed when during the evening he changed channels and found a Proms concert of not terribly attractive music, especially when played at full volume. I looked up from the book I was trying to read.

"Are you enjoying this?"

"NO, but I'm forcing myself to listen to it."

So I went upstairs and finished my book in CC's room.