Tardiness

I have been remiss in my blogging,
I accept there is no excuse,
I can only mitigate by confessing that I seem to have temporarily misplaced my work ethic,
I suppose that's an inevitable consequence of taking a sabbatical.
In my defence, I have been tweeting quite liberally, I encourage anyone who isn't yet part of the Twitterati to give it a try.

Since my last post we have had many visitors at the chalet. Russell and Will arrived at the end of January, along with some fresh snow, and we introduced them to Socca (with beer and rugby on the side) and morning yoga. Let's just say they liked the Socca and leave it at that. Hopefully these two busy Dads went home feeling a wee bit rested and revived.

Next was Hammy, Emma, Lewis and Sophia. They arrived in the middle of a vicious cold snap, minus 18 C most nights. This meant there were some challenging living conditions as various water and drain pipes froze at various times. However, Hammy worked his magic, and set up a thermostat controlled pipe heating system and we've had no trouble since. We enjoyed a great meal with them at a local restaurant which included a knockout palate cleanser of thyme ice cream, delicious.

Paul and I then nipped off to Bordighera on the Ligurian coast for a couple of days and enjoyed the warmer weather. Bordighera is a lovely little coastal town near San Remo. It is stuffed full of all kinds of citrus trees, which in Feb were all heavy with ripe fruit. A really lovely
place to wander around. We went to San Remo for the day and there was a huge music festival taking place. I discovered later that the whole focus of the festival is to choose the Italian entry for Eurovision. It is an X Factor type elimination process that takes place over a few days. I have no idea whether Italians generally take it seriously, but San Remo was buzzing with people, tv crews, stretch limos and red carpets.

We got back to the chalet a couple of days before our next visitors arrived. Simon, Louise and Sam stayed with us for a week. They are all very experienced skiers, but had never been to Allos before. The weather had warmed up by the time they arrived and the snow was thinning out. Early morning skiing was better so they were up at the crack every day to catch the first lift. They were all really taken with the ski area, and could appreciate the off-piste opportunities which are available when there's more snow. Whilst they were with us we were all invited to tea by an English couple who had a chalet built 3 years ago.The chalet is very modern and is absolutely gorgeous. It's got the best en suite I've ever seen with a claw foot bath facing a large window, giving the bather uninterrupted views of the mountains.

By Saturday 25th Feb we were all on our own again and the chalet seemed very quiet. However, the quiet was brought to an abrupt end when we had an earthquake at about midnight on Sunday 26th. It apparently measured 4.7 on the Richter scale and it lasted for about 10 seconds. Neither of us has ever experienced an earthquake before, surprisingly, our dog didn't even wake up. The chalet is completely made of wood, so there was no real risk to us, but it did rumble, wobble and sway a bit. The whole village was discussing the quake the next day and it clearly doesn't happen very often. Thankfully, no damage at all to any people or property.

Since Sunday the weather has got really warm and summery. The local view is that the ski season is finished for this year and it has been a really dreadful year snow-wise. Nevertheless, the village is very busy as it is French half term. I think the holiday makers are just treating it as a summer break rather than a ski break, I saw a guy walking around the market today in shorts and flip flops.

Our next visitors are Russell and Edie who arrive on Saturday. There won't be much skiing for them but there's plenty of other activities for them to enjoy in the sunshine.

So, lots of news and I promise I won't leave it as long before my next post. I am also trying to sort out adding pictures to my blog but the iPad seems to adopt a 'computer says no' stance on that, however nicely I try and ask. No doubt some tecchy-tiff between Apple and Google.

Bye for now.