Explore europe in a campervan

During the last two weeks we’ve been fairly busy with work - honest!  But we did make time to get out once or twice -

We joined Mike and Linda, Vicki and Mike with their respective Mercedes vans for a barbeque to celebrate Linda’s birthday. I have to say that when they first suggested this I thought they were joking, but no.  In the Ardent car park near Montriond, which has fantastic views, but no shelter from the clear, cold sky, we had a BBQ!  It was great to catch up and food still tastes great outside - even in well-below-zero temperatures - but we are soft now and were very pleased to get back to the chalet and the relative warmth!

We were treated to some typical French cuisine in the chalet after the earlier ‘British’ night that featured toad-in-the-hole and apple crumble.  I was a bit surprised that, with their culinary reputation, the French guys who were cooking arrived with FROZEN snails and frogs legs!  But to be fair I don’t think they’re every-day fayre for most French folks these days and I haven’t seen them on the deli at Carrefour.  I had a few snails but, like shellfish, I really don’t like the texture and the taste didn’t compensate.  Frogs legs I drew the line at, but Simon had a taste, wasn’t too impressed and was also slightly pressurised into trying a snail, which I don’t expect him ever to order in a restaurant!

Once or twice when I’ve been to the doctor Simon has been snowboarding on the Morzine side of the valley where we haven’t spent much time previously.  He found a small snow park that was really quiet.  It’s in the Nyon area of Morzine, which is accessible by gondola, so I got the gondola up the other day and spent a couple of hours reading, drinking beer and watching/photographing Simon tackling the red jump and board-sliding the box in the sunshine.  Actually we’ve hadsome beautiful weather - the day after that I went walking for a couple of hours then sat outside in short sleeves because it was far too nice to sit inside!

This week I visited the doctor….again!  There is some progress but my wrist hasn’t healed enough yet to take the plaster off.  So I’m on a much more strict, mainly dairy diet to build up a bit more calcium.  They did try to make me a bit more comfortable by cutting my thumb out of it’s ’spout’.  Well the special circular saw for casts that can’t cut skin CAN!  She nearly cut my thumb off!  There was even blood - a tiny tiny drop of blood.  Can’t wait until next time!

It’s getting warmer which is good for the roads but not for the snow.  Simon’s snow park outside the house is unrideable now.  Right now we’re having horrendous rain and wind - it’s so windy that the roof is making awful noises and we’re delaying going out to the shops because we don’t want to get blown away!  The weather can change so fast in the mountains though - maybe we’ll see the sun before the day is over…

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 28th, 2010 at 5:04 pm and is filed under Diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.