Let the Packing Begin!

Hmmm, time to start the dreaded task of packing. It is amazing how much "bidule", "truc" and "machin" (our 3 favourite french words for STUFF), we have managed to accumulate over the last 5 months. The miserly economy class baggage limit was foremost in our minds today as we began the daunting task of clearing Le Refuge of our detritus.

After discovering that it would be cheaper to pay Marie to personally fly to NZ with our skis, we have decided to rely on the old fashioned solution. La Poste!! Still frightfully expensive, especially if you do the conversion to NZ $. Nevertheless a check of the Lufthansa website revealed that excess baggage was charged at E30/kg...making La Poste seem positively reasonable.

A typical morning of hilarity ensued at our local post office as we endeavoured to work out the most cost effective and secure solution to our postal problem. Our charming madam La Poste was wonderfully helpful, but as always our "..orrendous francais" presented the usual confusions.

Eventually, everyone queuing in the post office helped us with translation as we searched for the right box, mailing option and insurance decision. It will never cease to amaze us how often the wrongly maligned french have come to our assistance when we are making a huge botch of things. Contrary to the popular opinion, we have consistently found our french locals to be wonderfully patient and helpful. Everyone from the bank manager to the fromagereuse, the apothecary to the publican has been very kind and welcoming to us. We have been humbled by the amount of help we have received over the last 5 months. It will certainly give us pause for thought when we return to NZ and hear someone struggling to find their feet in our little town.

This evening we have been treated to a delicious "slap up" meal in Chamonix with the usual anglo suspects. Part farewell for us and Dave & Sue who leave Les Carroz for a new chalet in Les Gets, and part celebration to mark the end of the winter season, we enjoyed a delicious meal at the golf house restaurant in Chamonix. The food was totally delicious and for France (fairly reasonably priced). Joining us were R&L, welsh G&S, irish D&S and also english friends of R&L - Tania and Brian. Tania is a physio and Brian is a builder working with Rick in the summer. Keen ski tourers, it's a shame we didn't meet up with them at the beginning of the season rather than right at the end. But that's been the way of things as the reality of our imminent departure is really starting to sink in.

All About Eating

1/ Yumm! Dry stale bread & smelly fish!

The weather has finally changed & it's raining heavily outside. While the temperature has dropped it's still not snowing at 1000m, but we can see that about 200m further up our hill, the trees are being dusted with snow.

A perfect day for eating and taking a rest from skiing!

For lunch, my dear husband pulled out 2 food items that he had insisted buying during one of our very first Carrefours shopping trips. I warned him that he would hate the Biscotte and questioned why on earth he would want to buy some sardines. In our whole married life, I don't think I've ever seen him eat a sardine! But no, Graeme was adamant. He knew they were both going to be delicious and couldn't wait to tuck in! Hmmm. Really? Since then, after one experimental taste of the Biscotte, the open pack has languished at the back of our pantry along with the can of sardines.

But today, the Biscotte packet arrived at the lunch table. He decided to use them to make croutons for his soup. Out came the sardine tin too! But somehow it still remained unopened. Graeme has vowed to eat these sardines before we leave...hmmm...11 days and counting.

2/ Our dinner game score suffered from a lack of appropriate napery!
A ripped half of kitchen paper towel didn't cut the mustard I'm afraid.

And tonight was our return dinner party with the Irish couple - Dave and Sue.

Way back in January Irish Dave & Sue invited us to a delicious dinner at their chalet. But since then, due to a combination of their busy winter season at the chalet and our hectic social whirl in February and March, we have seen very little of them over the winter. Feeling incredibly guilty, it has taken us until now to return the favour!

But the pressure was on. We had to put on a good meal for our Irish guests. D&S's meal was delicious and after being introduced to the UK reality TV Show - "Come dine with me", we had awarded them 10/10 for their dinner party.

Ours was a simple menu: -

• Smoked salmon & herb fromage canapes,
• NZ Roast Lamb with figs & roast vegetables accompanined by spring green beans, and
• Fresh strawberries, raspberries and blueberries with Oriellettes Glace and vanilla bean ice-cream.

A couple of weeks ago, Rick had been out shopping and had found a big leg of (affordable) NZ lamb and bought it for us. Since then we have been waiting for an opportunity to roast it! Of course, we first offered to have our kind procurers, R&L for a NZ roast lamb dinner. Politely declining they explained that they had bought 3 or 4 legs themselves! We were going to have it for dinner with Hubert & Marie last weekend, but they had just consumed a BBQ Cote de Boef for lunch that day! So our dinner party with D&S, & G&S was a perfect opportunity.

Graeme & I were surprised when Welsh Sue confessed to having never eaten lamb. A reformed vegetarian, she explained that the lamb in Wales was typically boiled, grey, smelly and really strongly flavoured. She bravely tasted my lamb and proclaimed that it tasted totally different than anything she could remember from Wales. Perhaps Sue had been eating mutton, or hogget rather than true lamb. Even D&S, said that the flavour was much more mild than what they were used to.

We did the lamb proud! There was very little meat left on the bone after we had finished with it...or red wine in the house, for that matter! And somehow we managed to eat the dessert.

And the score? Well I'm excluded from casting a vote, but I suspect, while the meal was well received, the lack of proper napery caused points to be deducted? A scrap of ripped kitchen paper towel, doesn't really impress - does it?

3/Irish Sue, Welsh Sue, Cheeky Dave & Gav

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