Mapping the past

Son 1 (he’s 16 now – perhaps I could actually name him???) bought his Dad a really fantastic birthday present last month. Admittedly, I helped, but the present was so ‘him’ that we decided he should be the one to give it.

 

It’s a huge early 20^th century school map of France. Son 1 stunned the seller by telling her he could date the map by the presence or absence of various French border regions – see what I mean about it being his kind of thing? The combination of maps and history really suits his interests. And you can see that I liked it, too…

 

Ben is also very pleased with it. Of course he’s interested in this kind of thing too, and he’s also been looking for large hangings to fill the empty space on our ‘barn-style’ walls. Everyone’s a winner!

Single-portion Puddings

I mentioned the individual portion desserts that Ben was making when I talked about our Rentrée Resolutions. The idea is to reduce costs (a little) and processed food (more than a little) in my packed lunches and the boys’ snacks/evening meals.

 

The cheapest, probably most ‘natural’ and certainly most popular desert chez nous is the individual rice pudding, which Ben makes in these little earthenware yoghurt pots which are easy to pick up from Vide Greniers in France. I was chuffed to find a set of seven with plastic lids, which make them perfect for my packed lunches! Ben also uses little individual pudding tins (surely from Lakeland Plastics decades ago…) to make crème caramel – this photo doesn’t show his best version, as he’s still experimenting to get the temperatures right, and these ones went into the oven in their bain mairie at too high a temperature…

You can also get yummy ‘entrement’ powder in the supermarket, which you stir into warm milk, to create chocolate, vanilla or speculos (yum) puddings! This isn’t really additive-free, of course, but is a little bit more economical than buying the cheapest ‘pot puddings’, so is probably worth doing. At UK prices jelly with cake pieces or fruit would also be a good option, but we have to pay import prices here, so that only works when someone’s been visiting!

Ben is having enormous fun producing all these puddings for us at the weekends – I think he likes to feel (just like his mum) that he isn’t leaving us without sustenance when he heads off to Lyon for his studies.

My contribution is the home-made yoghurt. Ang showed her excellent yoghurt maker on her related post the other day. Mine is different – it plugs in and you put seven individual pots (with lids again, hurrah!) into it overnight. My recipe is very like Ang’s – 1200ml of UHT milk, a little skimmed milk powder and an Actimel drink, whisked together, fills the pots and produce a week’s worth of yoghurt for very little cost. Ben, as a biologist, is generally sceptical of ‘health-foods’, but he is convinced of the superior nature of the lactobacilli they put into Actimel, and thinks that it’s worth buying that brand rather than supermarket’s own live yoghurt.  And now we’re on the lookout for a second yoghurt maker (they’re very easy to find second hand here) so that he can add yoghurts to his own, equivalent selection of individual puddings in Lyon. Ah, an excuse to visit some Troc shops… sigh…

C'est la Rentrée - Resolutions and a Giveaway!

Well, actually, it was the Rentrée, rather than is, but better late than never! We've been busy but I finally have the delightful chance to offer one of my readers this beautiful French magazine in a giveaway:

It's up for grabs because my kind local friend picked up a copy of Country Living for me when she was in the UK, so now I don't need to offer Campagne Décoration as an exchange (see post below). Therefore it's my now traditional C'est la Rentrée gift for one of you.

To enter, you don't have to be a follower or anything, although you are welcome to follow if you don't already! Just leave me a comment here to have a chance to win. - I'll post anywhere in the world. If you'd like to share any of your Rentrée Resolutions with us in the comment, feel free, but it's not essential.

Rentrée Resolutions are traditional in France, where Back to School means a really positive New Start for adults too - resolutions made in the sunshine and after a good rest tend to be a lot more active than the ones we make in the New Year! Ben and I have particular resolutions this year based on the fact that he's living away during the week while he studies for an MBA in Lyon.

So my Rentrée Resolutions this year are to keep up the good work on the exercise front but to add some further healthy penny-pinchers to our already wholesome, thrifty ways. (Lol- I can't say the word 'wholesome' seriously, you understand. It's just too, well, wholesome!) Here goes:

We have resolved to buy one bottle of wine for the weekend to share between the two of us - no alcohol to be consumed alone when the other one isn't there! When Ben announced his side of this resolution I felt miserable, and that worried me. I should be able to cope with evenings without a glass of wine. And indeed I can...

Take a packed lunch every day, instead of giving in to the occasional panic trip to a boulangerie - if you had access to lovely French bakers I bet you'd be happy to pop into them at lunch time too, so this is a harder one!

Make 'portion' desserts at home instead of buying yoghurts and cakes. I think this should be the subject of my next blog post!

So, please enter my giveaway and do tell if you have any resolutions - best of luck it all!

Ben's Rentrée

Ben's lectures in Lyon start today! He's taking a break from work (partly funded by them) to do an MBA. He's really fallen on his feet for accommodation, as a new colleague owns a flat near the university which he can't currently live in - so Ben is his paying guest! It's a whole lot nicer than a student flat, I can tell you... He's coming home every weekend, but the boys and I do hope to pop up there every now and then, to get to know another part of France. We will keep you posted!

Countryside images

Our mantelpiece is rather calm at the moment (for me) but it seems to draw people to study the various images...

I asked Son 2 the other day: "Are you OK? Are you LISTENING to me?" (classic mother question...) He replied vaguely: "Yes, but I'm just looking at those badgers..."

Well yes, I think they are worth gazing at too! They're from an English book of nature through the months.

This French dressing-table mirror is my latest find, from the charity shop. It's sitting with a few other favourite French discoveries.

The little jug is also a September find - it has cows in a field on it. I guess I've grouped together various countryside scenes, French and English, and am rather pleased with the results. The large feather in the jug comes from a Spanish bird - Son 1 picked it up in the Picos de Europa last month.

Hmm, a peaceful, countryside display. Just what we need for la rentrée!

Rentrée Roll-call

As it's la Rentrée (back to school), I thought I'd just give you the run-down of the current residents of our home!

Youngest first: Wilson the kitten arrived approximately four hours before we left on our Spanish holiday. He mewed and mewed in our neighbours' empty garden (they were already on holiday) until we took pity on him and presented him to our house/garden/animal sitters, who took the adoption of an untrained kitten in their stride! He must have been over 2 months when this photo was taken by them, but we all thought he was younger - he must have been rather malnourished. Lots of kittens get abandoned around here, but young Wilson has landed on his feet - we've already had him vaccinated and chipped, and Raja has adopted him as a playmate! We are all in love with him...

So next up for age must be Son 2's guinea pigs - if I get more time, I will add more photos. His piggies are called Lysandra, Catrina and Hester (well, what else do you call guinea pigs?) and he loves them very much.

The three big hens are next in age - we are getting three eggs a day from them at the moment! Wilson is wary of them...

Then come the two ornamental hens, who were adopted when a friend returned to the USA. One is just a smaller version of our big ones, but China, the white silky bantam, is a sight to behold... they also lay fairly well, but less than the biggies. We eat a lot of omlettes, here!

Chanel the adult cat comes next. He is at least 9 years old and is theoretically an invalid, as he has broken his hip twice. He has calmed down a bit, and we keep him inside a lot, but he still slopes off to visit neighbours, and, I am sure, gets fed by them... Six Dinner Sid! He was most unimpressed when Wilson arrived, particularly as Wilson was missing his mum and tried to get some milk from Chanel!

Raja is a few years older than Chanel. She is Son 1's adopted cocker spaniel, and has changed his life for the better in so many ways. I mentioned 'hen therapy' to Lola Nova a while ago (she agreed it exists) but dog therapy is wonderful, too...

Then comes Son 2 - at 14 he is two years older than Raja! He is in his exam year, the final year of collège. It's all a bit much for a kid who is juggling an enthusiasm for Pokemon with spots and adolescence, but we're confident he'll get through it.

Son 1 is 16 now, and in his second year of lycée. It's a better place than collège. He's specialising in science, with as much history as he can do on the side, but sadly, from his point of view, he still has to read French literature!

There's a really big gap now until you get to the adults in the household. Probably the youngest adult is Achilles the tortoise. I've roughly counted the rings on his shell and he seems to be in his 30s. He's got the wisdom of age, certainly - he gets out of his enclosure and goes for wanders, so now we've written my mobile number on his shell, and we get the occasional phone call from an excited family who've found him chomping through their garden...

And now we come to me, vintage-loving English teacher. You know me!

And finally Ben, who has an adventure of his own starting next week. His work is funding him to do further studies - he'll be off in Lyon during the week for the next nine months, coming home at the weekend to see how his family and other animals are getting on! We're all very pleased that he's got this opportunity (it's to do an MBA) and hope to be reporting on a little bit of life in Lyon, as well as in the Toulouse area, over the coming year.

Bryony, Brambles and Honeysuckle

Son 1 and I took the increasingly elderly Raja for a walk on the Coulée Verte this evening. After a cool day (not above 25°C) she was full of energy and we had a great time - and the combination of these wild climbers was a beautiful sight.

My mum loved 'things climbing through things' in her garden, and I feel that these three live up well to her philosophy of gardening! They were very high up - we won't be able to pick the blackberries when they come, but they do look like they're going to be juicy...

Surfacing...

Hello friends!

Oohh, surfacing here, after a long time of busy work and trying to sort difficult things out. I did manage to buy the enamel mug, above, at a rainy Vide Grenier, though! We are all well and enjoying a bit of sunshine, finally... How are you all?

"Un peu spécial..."

If you're an English speaker, I bet you think you know what the title means, but the French give "a bit special" a different spin - here are some lovely variations of its translation, which range from "a little strange" to "a bit unique"... including some positives but frequently putting a more negative spin on the whole concept of  "special".

My family has been having a bit of an interesting, not to say "spécial" month, and there have been moments when I have wondered why we are just all so weird. Surely normal people don't have such a bizarre series of things to deal with?

Well now, of course they may, and the fact that they may deal with them in different ways does't necessarily mean that our way of coping is worse, or that someone else's is better.

I have been forcibly reminded of how parents think that their children's problems are all their fault by a chat with a wonderful mum, whose child is one of my many dyslexic pupils. Without going into too many details, I can tell you her first reaction when she realised that her child was struggling to learn. She told me, "I thought: It's all my fault! I've indulged my child too much and now s/he's too lazy and undisciplined to learn like the other children!" The discovery that the child was in fact trying very hard, but had a genuine block, freed her up to love and help her child - and this is something that I can identify with too.

Then I read this post today - by a mum whose eldest has just turned 18, and who talks with a beautiful, poetic honesty, about the beauty of their life together but also about the hard years. I hope it's OK if I quote her here. She says: "Hard to know I can’t fix any of the times I dented up your heart with my ridiculous white-knuckled steering-wheel control and big Buick idols."

There we are - we think that everything that goes wrong is our fault, and that if only we keep harsh enough control, our children will be "normal", whatever that is, and not "un peu spécial". But actually, I think everyone's child is special, don't you? After all, I am a Special Needs Teacher...

And one rather sweet thing about the "specialness" of my family was brought home to me again today, as we drove to church and the boys and Ben were yet again discussing what colour words and letters are. And the colours of sounds, smells and feelings, too - I didn't even know they saw colourful feelings, even after all these years of living with them! The ability to do this is called synesthesia, and it's certainly quite special! It's inherited from their dad - I really am the odd one out in this family.

Bank Holidays in France

In France, Bank Holidays don't move around to the nearest Monday like they do in the UK. Sometimes, this means they all fall at the weekend, and we get no extra days off.

But sometimes, they fall in the week and we get crazy amounts of time off - hurray! This last week we had VE day (Wednesday 8th May) and Ascension Day (Thursday 9th) - it was a weekend in the middle of the week, and we enjoyed it to the full, despite a bit of rain.

Son 2 and Ben worked together to construct a small hutch for the new guinea pigs. They came with all their accommodation, but we think that the garden they were in before was more sheltered, and we feel happier now that they have a proper bit of 'indoors' to go into at night, when they are in their run on the lawn. They love the new home, and Son 2 is so happy that his work has been appreciated... and it's fantastic for Ben to have shared projects with the boys.

An ABC of my life in France, right here, right now!

A is for animals – I have been thinking a lot about hares recently - I love them. I spotted one in February, went looking in March but didn’t see any, and then sadly found a dead one on the road this weekend. They are all around us here, but almost completely hidden from us. Wonderful, reclusive, animals.

 

B is for birds – they are singing again, and the hoopoes are back. Last week they were hoo-hoo-ing from the top of tall posts as they looked for their mates. Now they are quieter, so I think they found them!

C is for crutches – Son 2 ended up on them last week, just as Son 1 is reaching a complete recovery after his knee operation…

D is for Downton Abbey – we borrowed the first DVD from work, bought the rest at Christmas, and I have now even made a new local friend (American) as we unite in search of someone in the area who has a copy of the 2012 Christmas special. No spoilers, please (I’ve seen enough on my friends’ blogs, anyway…)

E is for eggs – we have plenty, and the boys seem to be capable of eating as many as the hens produce! I find that I’m buying less meat now that so much of our protein is provided by eggs.

 

F is for Facebook, which is proving a very convenient way for English speakers in the Toulouse area to keep in touch – my last four pupils have all found me through Facebook!

G is for the garden, which is water-logged but blooming!

H is for the Hunger Games books, which Son 1 talked me into reading over the Easter period – very impressive, and addictive too!

I is for ironing – I taught Son 2 to iron shirts a few weeks ago, as he’s looking for extra pocket money! This is going to be very convenient…

 

J is for jaune – a yellow packet of licorice sweets which a trainee gave me this morning, because they are traditional to Toulouse!

K is for keeping a record of all the good things that happen – however busy I am, I am glad that I have my gratitude journal for a daily record of the good times, and my blog for a chance to share and keep photos and stories of our life here together in France.

L is for lessons – I am enjoying work with pupils and trainees aged between 4 and 54, so there’s never a dull moment!

M is for Marriage – we’re going to a good friend’s wedding soon, and are so excited for her – more to follow…

N is for nest box – China the funny hen has been shut out of hers, as she is broody again! She goes broody so often that it’s tempting to get her some eggs to hatch one of these days… but then what?

O is for ordinary. This is just ordinary life – same old, same old, you could think – but how pleasant it is to think about all the interesting things that happen in an ordinary life.

 

P is for blog posts– I really don’t seem to manage many at the moment, but still enjoy reading those of my friends, and even meeting some new blogging friends - hello to my newer followers!

Q is for Queen Elizabeth II – I have a jubilee tin or two on display in the living room, and realised how very British it all seemed when my new American friend came to visit…

R is for really muddy – that’s our front garden, including the path! It’s forced us to act on something we’ve considered for ages, so we should soon be getting some work done to have a driveway and path put in to the front garden.

S is for the Simnel Cake I made on Easter Day, with the British marzipan left over from Christmas!

 

T is for Achilles the tortoise, who is out of hibernation but still seems to think that the days are made for hiding indoors – no summer-time rambles round his enclosure yet!

U is for growing Up! Our boys are growing up like wildfire – even little Son 2 is approaching my height now, and losing some of the puppy fat that has ‘dogged’ him (did you see that, Ang, did you notice it?) for the past few years. And Ben and I are appreciating getting more mature in the good ways, whilst holding on to the fun side of youth, obviously… no point in being TOO grown up!

 V is for Vide Greniers, of course! They are starting up again now that the weather is, in theory, more spring-like. We have a lot of weekend projects and not much spare money, but I shall visit a few and shall share my finds with you, friends!

W is for washing machine- ours has broken down again! Fortunately, Intermarché is only 2 minutes away and has a launderette, while we wait for someone to come and sort out the machine for us…

 

X is for X ray – Son 1 has what might just be a final check-up in June, so hopefully all will be quiet on the leg-bones saga from now on.

Y is for yellow – the daffodils were severely hit by our late snow (not as late as the UK’s I know!) but the yellow tulips are just fantastic this year!

Z is for our local zoo/safari park – just a wonderful place to visit whenever the boys and I are looking for a wander. How nice to have a local tiger family…

Happy Easter!

Spot the tortoise!

Achilles the tortoise, adopted last autumn, has emerged from his self-made hibernation hole! I was quite anxious about him, as we had a fairly cold winter with a lot of standing water, and I imagined him drowning... but not to worry, here he is and he has been fed fresh dandylions by the boys, which seem to suit him just fine. Now he just has to gradually get rid of the 'mole hill' which he is currently carrying around on his shell!

A Pause in Lent

Phew!

Life is slowing down a little - we still don't know the cause of Son 1's Friday rash, but it doesn't seem to have been anything scary related to his operation. He's feeling pretty good now, and is currently cooking tortillas (from scratch - slowly...) ready for a Hairy Biker's Mexican feast that's planned for Son 2's return from the Pyrenees this evening.

Like Ang, I've been thinking of certain key verses from the Fast/Feast Lent poem:

• Fast from thoughts of illness; Feast on the healing power of God.
• Fast from negatives; Feast on affirmatives.
• Fast from unrelenting pressures; feast on unceasing prayer.
• Fast from discouragements; Feast on hope.

And like Elizabethd, I've found the order of the seasons really encouraging:

• Fast from worry; Feast on divine order.

Ben bought me these beautiful hanging vases for Christmas. He suspended them from our little chandelier on Saturday and put the first two daffodils from our garden into them - a wonderful sign of the changing season!

 

And another really positive thing that happened to me this week reminds me of the power of random acts of kindness:

 

I was hurrying home to give the boys lunch (it's the holidays!), and really didn't have time between lessons to manage this and also eat myself. I popped into Intermarché to pick up some simple lunch supplies and rushed to the checkout. The woman in the queue ahead of me (in her early 60s) looked at my smart clothes and said: 'Are you working? If you need to get back to work, please go ahead of me. I don't work now but I remember what it was like...' Phew! One little act of kindness and thoughtfulness saved my day and has been on my mind ever since.

An update and a dotty bowl!

Thanks for your kind thoughts and prayers - Son 1's rash and fever are still a bit of a mystery, but both have reduced under the onslaught of medication that our doctor prescribed last night.

The very good news is that the blood test passed this morning with only mimimal panic and teenaged-grumbling, which given his state last night is a real relief! And the even better news is that the results indicate that his operation wounds, which a just a little infected, are not causing any trouble to his general health, so that there is no fear that the rash indicates something serious related to the operation. Therefore the mystery remains, but we have antibiotics now to add the the medical attack if his temperature goes up again, and there's no real fear for his health.

In fact, Son 1 was cynical about the whole 'being ill' thing, and spent some time in the hen run observing the spring-crazy hens. We decided to take Raja the cocker spaniel to our local safari park, where she is allowed to watch the animals from the enclosed car - Son 1 talks to her as though she is a small child, and she whines and barks. It's an odd way to spend an afternoon, but it seems to satisfy the invalid! We had a quick drive-past the troc shop on the way home, eyed up some interesting possiblilties, discussed Son 1's tastes (he likes glass and dark wood, so I told him to start buying while it's still unfashionable!) and I just happened to buy this cute dotty chocolate bowl for my collection...

Have a great weekend, friends!

Friday

Hmm, it's been a nice week, and the magnolia is coming into furry little bud!

The boys have been on holiday - now Son 2 is off skiing with friends thanks to the town youth club. He tells me that one of the organisers is rather fed up with his questioning everything... hmm, English children are just different, and I've warned him to behave 'French' for the duration! Son 1 has had a rather horrid afternoon. Possibly related to his operation wounds, possibly not, he has a fever and a huge rash over parts of his body. Four hours' wait at the doctor's got us very good medical attention, and we have medication and are awaiting a blood test and swabs to be taken tomorrow morning. Son 1 dreads needles, and with the fever to make things worse, got rather anxious about the whole business. Two paracetamol later he's calmer, but your prayers for a quiet night and a quick resolution to the problem would most appreciated.

Reflection at the end of a busy week...

The rose I was given in Intermarché on Valentine's day is still looking wonderful on our table.

The new-to-us stove (once belonging to Ange) is warming the back of the house (including the room where I teach),

and the big fire at the front is necessary too - it's -1.6° outside!

The hellebores don't like the sudden cold snap.

And the violets aren't too convinced, either.

Rosie, Holly and Annabeth are just fine in the cold,

but next door to them Valkrie is sulking, mainly because her friend China the silky bantam

 

has been broody all week! Pook, pook, pook, she says...

There are daffodil buds and a muck heap in the garden - lots of work to do!

Non-essential things (like housework) have been put to one side this busy week, which started with Son 1 and me spending three days in hospital, and has continued  with normal working hours, nurses' visits and new brace-care for Son 2, who has had his own medical intervention to deal with! Ben had a migraine yesterday - everyone has taken the strain in their own way...

But we're beginning to put it back together! The boys are on holiday now, Ben is taking some muck to a friend before starting to spread it on our own garden, and I'm off to keep on with the housework catch-up! Tomorrow or Monday - my first Pause in Lent. The catch-up continues!

Canine Companion

Thanks for all your well-wishes! I am really staggered at how nasty this flu has been - I am now on my last day before going back to work, and am still so tired! But better every day...

Son 1 has finally gone down with it, but finds his faithful hound Raja a helpful pillow/companion. Son 2 is back at school, along with an entire box of tissues and a hacking cough. Fortunately, he finishes early today, and I'm off to pick him up soon, as both cycling and walking set off his cough.

I took the photo of sick teenager and pet on my new phone! I'm still new to the whole business of having a phone which does more than allow me to talk to people, but there are clearly advantages!

Olive green recup'

While we were still in the process of  buying our house, the vendors generously allowed us in to start some decorating - sounds crazy, but it worked, given the drawn-out French system. Ben and I chose pale cream walls throughout, as the house is dark in the traditional heat-reducing way, but we did decide to paint the walls of the brighter bedrooms in actual colours - hence our bedroom has pale green walls, which was pretty much Ben's choice.

When we moved our furniture in I put all our old blue-themed bedroom accessories into the green bedroom, and spent the next few years disappointed with the room: nothing seemed right, and I felt cross that I hadn't stood up for blue. A few years later, I decided that the answer was to give up on blue and buy (yes, buy) some green duvet covers and use all our other green accessories - I have adored the room ever since!

To me, the two duvet covers I bought back in 2008 are still 'new', and I am still very fond of them as they set me off on the discovery that this house was going to work well for us. This one is partly bamboo fibre, too, so it's green in two senses, and very comfortable. However, it suffered a mishap this summer when some guests got a peroxide-containing product onto the pillowcases and the lower half of the duvet itself, so it's been out of action while I hunted for green cold water dye in enough quantity. As you may be able to see, I dyed the pillow cases solid colours, and dip-dyed the duvet cover so that the intact top part retained its pleasant two-tone stripe, while the bleached lower part gets increasingly olive, neatly covering up the pale patches.

It's all worked swimmingly, and the olive green goes ever so nicely with the walls and the two édredons whose enormous, feather-filled weight are keeping us warm this winter.

This bed owes a lot to blogging friends - the lavender heart in the first photo was made by Dandelion Beck in Australia, the French-ticking heart bag on the bed head is a Lululiz creation and the way to tuck in a French duvet was taught to me by Penny at Violet White!

I told you about the eiderdowns the very day I got them, but here's a find I haven't shared with you before - last year I was lucky enough to find two embroidered draw-string bags, one in France, the other in Edinburgh.

This is the Edinbrough one, and, as it contains green, it's allowed in the bedroom and is now holding my handkerchiefs from the handle of my bedside drawer. Although green is Ben's favourite colour, not mine, I now find our green bedroom incredibly refreshing and peaceful. I had to make my peace with what we had (green) and not try to force it into something we didn't have (blue). A valuable lesson!

 

What Son 2 and I have to make peace with today is that we are both ill. I've just taken some ibuprofen to go with this morning's paracetamol and I'm feeling rather better now! What a relief - but it's a day of racking coughs and tissues thrown onto the fire, and I'm grateful for a cosy house and good medical care, and a warm dog snuggled up next to one, or both, of us.



From snowy Toulouse to the sunny mountains!

I published my magical photo of the evening sun on Pyrennean snow yesterday - thanks for your comments! I was so happy that it captured what we'd really experienced. As promised, here's the story of our day out:

The weather at home was horrid on Sunday morning. Unforecasted snow had fallen over night, and was still landing on about 20cm of flooding and slush when we left our poor hens (well-provided-for)at 8am...

We followed snow ploughs around the pérepherique of Toulouse - over the last few years the local authorities have had to take on a few snow ploughs, as every winter has had one or more snowy days recently, which is quite a new departure.

Once we'd headed south off the payage, the weather actually improved, and we drove over clear roads and through green fields for a while before reaching the turning to the Plateau de Beille, an area which specialises in the more unusual snow sports - cross country skiing, snow shoe walks and even husky sledging! The snow chains went on and we followed a slow trail of cars, vans and buses up to the station.

We hired snow shoes and set off up a track which promised a pleasant short walk before lunch. See the frozen Spanish Moss on the tree?

We'd never used snow shoes before, and both Son 1 and I, who aren't skiers, really took to this more gentle sport. It's hard going uphill in the high altitude, but well worth it. Ben really enjoyed the experience too, but unfortunately Son 2 was feeling ill and decided to spend the afternoon in the car, well wrapped-up with his book and his DS game... the only low point of the day, but he stayed snug and warm. We cooked lunch on the camping stove in the car park - sausages and baked beans ('La classe!' as someone commented, admiringly) and then set off without Son 2 to do a longer walk.

Under the trees it was quite shady, and we followed the distinctive shapes of snow shoe tracks past a small igloo and up out onto a higher shoulder of the plateau.



Son 1, staples in his knee, tires quite fast despite his impressive level of fitness:

Oh, but we had fun!

The sun was already quite low in the sky as Son 1 and I entered into negotiations with Ben - explore much further (the Dad Option), take a long route that swept us back to the car (the Mum Option) and go straight back (the Teenager's Choice). My suggestion, as a compromise, was quite easy to achieve!

This was when we saw the sun breaking through the clouds, giving us the view I shared with you yesterday.

We followed the orange trail tags down through a forest, which was clearly from a fairy tale or childrens' story - but which one? I asked Son 1 if he thought we were more likely to find a lamp post or meet a wolf, and he suggested that a wolf weeing on a lamp post seemed reasonably likely...

We got back to Son 2 a little after the station had officially closed - we were actually met by staff on skidoos who wanted to get us back into the fold before they closed down! We headed back on down the road in the gathering dark, passing the 1606m hut on our way back down. It was a beautiful and very happy day.