Explore europe in a campervan

For anyone arriving at this blog with the intention of reading about travels relating to the title I must apologise.  We’re not kiting right now, I’m not boarding and we’re not living in our van.  We are in Europe though, in the French Alps and it’s been snowing a lot.  Hope that’s cleared things up and saved a couple of people some time.

I went to the doctor’s this week for the 21 day xray on my broken wrist, when I might have had my huge hand-to-upper-arm plaster removed.  No luck.  The xray showed the bone hasn’t healed enough yet, so I have to go back next week.  Quite a quick visit for €120!  I should think myself lucky though - while I was waiting in the xray room I heard a girl at the front desk -

Girl (posh English voice) “I, er, seem to have hurt my leg”
Doctor’s assistant “In French please”
Girl (rather impatiently) “I don’t speak French.  Does the doctor speak English?”
Doctor’s assistant “No”
Girl “Er, well, thank you, goodbye”

It has been noted before that the French can be less than helpful if you don’t speak French but I thought that was pretty cold-hearted seeing as she was injured!  Especially as I know that the doctor and his assistant both speak English to me when I can’t understand them.  Moral of the story - bring a phrase book and at least TRY!

We’ve settled very well into village life - just like Kimmeridge we don’t venture out too much!  We did go into Morzine with Rab and Sophie for a couple of drinks and some drum and bass, but were too tired the day after to go out in St Jean d’Aulps for more beer and music - just as well as sophie rolled in at 6 after trying to sleep in Vicky and Phil’s Sprinter van!

The owner of the chalet we’re staying in, Rab (he’s Scottish) has lived here for around 3 years now so has a wide circle of friends, including those he works with at ski-mobile, a mobile ski and snowboard hire company in Morzine.  So it was decided that everyone would cook a typical national dinner and this week was British night.  We feasted on toad in the hole, apple crumble and custard.  Even the discerning French had second helpings so it must have been good!  We’ve got French and Czech to look forward to then need some ideas for the next English night - anyone ever made a Lardy Cake?

The venue for the rest of the evening was the sweat hut which was constructed in the garden a couple of weeks ago.  Not much to look at from outside it’s pretty impressive inside, with benches on three sides and a pit for rocks heated in the fire outside.  I didn’t fancy sweating inside my great big plaster - had visions of it collecting at the elbow and trying to explain to the doc next week!  But everyone else sweated it out while I kept a bottle of red nice and warm by the fire.

We had loads of snow yesterday - must have been a good 6 inches, so Simon’s outside perfecting his kicker in the garden.  Pictures to follow.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 30th, 2010 at 3:11 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.