Domestic Bliss & a Visit to Chamonix

1/ Mike on gourmet duties

2/ Not so squeezy around our little table

Weather still dismal. Graeme in a fit of depression! But we've kept him medicated with French red wine and Swiss chocolate.

We have settled into domestic bliss with the Bartons. Despite our rather cramped circumstances we are mucking in well. Our morning routine is a well oiled machine, although finding volunteers for the early morning baguette run is getting harder!

Today we headed into Chamonix village to have a look around and to visit the Alpine museum. And find a place for coffee or two! But lunch proved a little more challenging! In the bad weather, finding a place for a picnic was almost impossible. At one stage we accidently drove onto the cross-country ski course, nearly getting bogged and having irate skiers gesticulate at us. Fortunately, Pepi with her snow tyres saved the day, although we did have to perform a high speed long distance reverse manouvre while veering backwards through the forest. Leanne seemed to enjoy this snow rally driving more than I. Finally we gave up and found somewhere legal to park in the forest and tucked into our soup, bread, sausage and cheese. Poor old Pepi was showered in crumbs and soup drips as we shared our food.

3/ Girls in Chamonix village centre!

While all the exhibits in the Museum de Alpin were in French, there was some interesting things to see. The history of the Mont Blanc Guiding Company, the expansion of tourisim in the Chamonix valley and a special exhibition to celebrate the 100th birthday of an amazing Chamonix local woman - Margette Bouvier. She was the first woman to do a ski descent of Mont Blanc in 1929!! She's still alive and last married at 94!! [Go Girl!!] A skier, ice skater, climber and glider pilot, she was also a renowned journalist during WW2. What stories she must have for her grand children!

Feeling thoroughly humbled by the amazing achievements of Margette...there was only one thing to do....go for another coffee!!

4/ Coffee in the morning, coffee in the afternoon!

Thank Goodness for the Rain!!

I can't believe I'm saying this! But thank goodness for the miserable rain! As predicted, the bad weather has arrived. Fingers crossed that the rain turns to snow before too much damage is done. The good news is that at least Mike and Leanne get a chance to recover from a big night and even bigger day. Jetlag is a sneaky thing ...it creeps up on you when you least expect it. Leanne's feet are returning to their normal size and we all could enjoy a leisurely breakfast of bread & pain au chocolat from our local boulangerie.

Lounging around Le Refuge, we swapped stories, read books, listened to music, wrote postcards and blogged. The boys also caught up on their reading! Take a closer look!

1/ Hmmm, three guesses which article they are looking at.

French Observations

Leanne learnt a very good little french lesson today. The french do not appreciate overt handling of their shop articles. You are welcome to wander around their shops looking at the goods, but don't pick them up and play with them. If you do, be prepared to buy whatever you have touched. Otherwise brace yourself for icy stares and muttered curses which I am sure translate to "Uncivilised Anglais Oaf !" Most definitely a french etiquette faux pas, as Leanne found out this afternoon at our favourite little Salon de The in Les Carroz.

Leanne took a fancy to a cute little souvenir teaspoon with a doggy resembling Millie (her terrier) perched on its end. Taking it with her to our table, she thought nothing about it until a girl behind the counter came rushing over to her with a very concerned look on her face. The girl obviously thought that Leanne (the uncivilised Anglais) was going to use the teaspoon to stir the hot chocolate she had just ordered. Faced with a very blank look from Leanne at her protestations, she quickly brought English speaking reinforcements. Given the level of anxiety that we seemed to be creating in our delightful Salon de The, I came to Leanne's aid and explained that "Elle voudrais l'ashter". This was all fine and well, but the proprietor insisted that Leanne hand over the offending item for gift wrapping. I think they were still concerned that we were going to stir our drinks with it!!

Leanne is now fluent in french and can now read all shops signs that say that you must "Not help yourself to the goods!"

3/ The offending teaspoons!

4/ That "helpful" sign!

More Rain!! But French & Yoga save the Day!!

1/ "Muesli" Liz's cute french kitten.

Much hand-wringing and moping from one Mr Graeme Oxley today. The rain has continued unabated today. "Aaah...there's not going to be any snow left!", he says. "Look Andy!" as he stands by the window (for the 12th time this morning). "It's washing down the road!". Hmmmmm ...thank goodness for the Ipod!!

Lots of french homework completed today. A good thing too, as Liz is back from her visit to the UK and we have our 2 hour lesson this afternoon.

Liz is a fantastic teacher. She prepares really well for every lesson and makes it fun. The time just flies by. As from today however, she no longer speaks to us in English (or at least 95% in French). However, when she is confronted with two completely cretinous blank faces, she has to relent and explain at least partly in English.

I am certainly getting better at blurting out a "semi" understandable sentence. My theory is ( much to Liz's horror!), don't worry about all those pesky, a's, aux's, la's, du's and les's etc, but just get those verbs, nouns and adjectives going. And if you don't know the french word just use the English one...but keep blundering on. They usually get the drift! More often than not, the person I am speaking to will concede and usually reply in english (really well, darn it!!). But my biggest problem is understanding the language when I receive a reply in French. Fortunately Graeme is much better at understanding the spoken language, but he is less confidant about speaking. As his mother describes the Oxley trait, "He's just like his father..afraid of his own voice!" I had hoped that watching copious quantities of French TV while we were sick might have helped me. Alas no!! (For the record, Graeme watched way more TV than me!!) Alors, Liz's new rules might help!

2/ Our lovely Liz with Muesli checking her work!!

The only other highlight today, was our first yoga lesson! Yes, you heard correctly! And moreover, it was Graeme's idea! Yes, I was surprised too. We are booked in for classes every Monday night, from 7 - 8pm. I had advised Antoinette our teacher - "Desole, mai mon mari et moi sommes debutantes. " I hoped she understood?

After french lessons, we "frocked up in our yoga garb", grabbed our yoga mats (aka known as foam sleeping mats that we picked up for E$4 each at Carrefours) and headed up the hill to gym. Quite a tricky exercise given the icy state of our driveway and the roads in general. Fortunately, Pepi Peugeot is unstoppable when we slip some chains on her!

Given the constraints of our severely limited wardrobe, and to give a very clear mental picture of what I mean by "yoga garb", let me explain further. Graeme chose to bring a Treble Cone branded windscreen ice-scraper and his ski waxing gear rather than a tracksuit. Consequently, the only pair of pants that's flexible enough for yoga was his long underwear! Now I'm not saying that he didn't look very striking in his form hugging stripey polyprop numbers... a bit like Rudolf Nureyev I thought! But unfortunately, Graeme was the only bloke in our yoga class and I couldn't help but notice that he was attracting quite a deal of extra attention from our lovely instructress Antoinette. She was very keen to help him get the stretch exactly right. All the other ladies also seemed very keen to help Graeme !

We will be buying Graeme tracksuit pants before next Monday night's lesson!!

And so ends a wet and soggy day in the French Alps. Please Lord, turn the temperature dial down, so all this grim rain turns to lovely snow!!

What? It's Sunday? And Where's the Snow?

1/ The "drive-in Boulangerie" at Sallanches

Well, it's official..we've finally lost touch with reality. We forgot that today was Sunday!

After a very late start to the morning, as a result of another night socialising with those party animals..Rick, Gavin & Welsh Sue, and Dave & Irish Sue, we had decided to head down the hill to Sallanches for a spot of shopping. It was grey and dreary when we awoke and the weather report predicted the arrival of a storm front with heavy snow by mid afternoon. We thought we'd better get going!!

In addition to Au Vieux Campeur (Graeme's favourite shop) there is also another a good outdoor outlet in Sallanches. Called "Quechua" the store mainly specialises in clothing. We had heard from Welsh Sue that they were having a sale. Maybe..just maybe...if there was a sale we could actually afford to buy something?

Unfortunately, we forgot that aside from ski resort areas, France pretty much closes down on a Sunday. So our drive was really for nothing. Quechua was closed, along with pretty much every other shop in Sallanches (even Carrefours!!). Although we did discover a neat "drive-in Boulangerie" on the way home. We had passed this converted fuel station several times on previous visits to Sallanches. There has always been a good number of cars parked outside, so we thought that it might be worth a try. The bread, and according to Graeme, the "pain au chocolat" were delicious, and about 25% cheaper than what we pay for the same thing here in Araches! The french obviously price according to altitude!!

2/ Pepi on her ice skating rink!!

Arriving back to Le Refuge for lunch we were excited to see the snow pleting down around us. Our delight was shortlived however! The snow turned to heavy rain and kept up all through the afternoon. Graeme was beside himself. Predicting an early end to the ski season he worked himself into a right frenzy.

Despite the rain, the temperature was still hovering around zero and our driveway and the local roads transformed to treacherous ice-skating rinks. Very disconcerting.

We were saved from total depression by an outing to visit Irish Dave & Sue, who had kindly invited us to dinner at their cute little chalet. Check it out at www.alpexperience.com They cooked us a delicious dinner. Prawn cakes on salad, a mild thai curry and lemon delicious pudding. Scrumptious!

The conversation flowed and flowed. Dave & Sue can hold a good cracking convesation. Somehow we got talking about TV programs and we ended up watching the latest episodes of "24" and then a British reality program called "Come Dine with Me". The idea of the show is to get 5 people who have never met each other to cook each other a dinner party. After each meal and privately in front of the cameras, each contestant then scores the meal out of 10. The winner gets $1,000 GBP - whoopee!!!??

Of course, all the participants are suitably odd. In the series we watched, there was a very attractive young Scottish mother who had a bit of drinking problem, a born again Christian African- American woman from Texas, a very wealthy landed gentleman wine critic who was obsessed with all things Tuscan, a Felicity Kendall look-a-like retiree who also enjoyed a "tipple" and a pasty looking "20-something" scottish cocktail waiter with a chip on his shoulder. All I can say is that it made morbidly good viewing. The alcoholic yummy mummy and the cocktail whipper snapper fell out, the born again christian nearly set her kitchen on fire and the wine critic bored everyone rigid with endless Tuscan tales. Felicity Kendall won.

As soon as we got home in the early hours of the morning we sent Dave & Sue an email. 10/10 we declared!! The pressure is now on!! We will no doubt be required to return the favour.

Speaking of getting home - what a challenge! While Pepi handled the slushy / icy main roads well, it was all too much for her on our side street, when Graeme gently applied the brakes in preparation for turning into our drive. Pepi hit sheet ice and continued to sail gracefully down the hill past our driveway. Hmmm what to do next? We managed to pull off the lane (not that there was any traffic) and slipped on the chains. Not a fun thing to do at 1am in freezing rain! I held the torch and gave appropriate moral support. But with chains on, we were now in business! Pepi crunched her way back up the ice and into our skating park driveway.

Parking safely in our driveway, we were mystified by the presence of an unknown vehicle. We thought that it might have been Rick & Liz's old car or Olivier's (our french neighbour). But no, it was not there's. It was still there mid morning and vanished just before lunch. We didn't catch the owner, and all we can assume is that they hit the same patch of ice and decided to park their car in our driveway and walk home? The mystery remains.

We cross our fingers and toes for snow tomorrow as predicted!

3/ The Mystery Visitor