No time to rest! Arriving at our home in Ste Foy on the 18th of June, we had just one full day to get ourselves and our chalet sorted out before driving to Lyon on the 20th to catch a flight to London. The occasion was our friend David’s 70th birthday, held in a traditional London boozer, and celebrated in style. It was good to meet up with David (who we often ski with, but missed out this year), and also to reconnect with many shared friends. The event may have been officially a lunch, but it was close to 10pm before we stumbled out of the pub and back home! Thankfully, our return flight the next day was not an early start, so we had a little time to recover.
Back in France, we soon got to work. Cate had bought a mass of plants from a garden centre outside Lyon (a stopover on our return journey), which all needed planting in our terrace garden, but before that could be done, we had another go at fixing an annoying and persistent leak from the terrace onto the garages below. Armed with concrete and sealant we plugged any and every conceivable gap – hopefully we have fixed that problem! Inside the chalet there was plenty of cleaning, washing, restocking, fixing etc. to do – the inevitable consequence of returning after a break of over six months.
France, and indeed most of Europe and the UK, has been basking in a sunny heatwave. In Lyon temperatures were well over 30ºc. Fortunately, the climate has been a little cooler in the mountains, and the sunny weather has given us plenty of incentive to get outside. Having built up our fitness cycling across France earlier in the month, we decided to keep up the training and cycle up to the Petit St. Bernard pass. We set off early, keen to avoid the heat, and successfully got to the pass by midday. The ascent was 1150m, a distance of about 23km, and rewarded by a long descent back home – oh, and a stop for lunch in La Rosière.
A couple of days later we drove up to Val d’Isère for one of our favourite walks – from Le Manchet chairlift up to the Refuge du Fond des Fours. As always, the scenery was stunning- particularly at this time of the year when all the mountain wild flowers are in bloom. It is also an interesting reminder, seeing the sheep graving in the hills, and the cattle around the foot of the chairlift, that there is more to Val d’Isère than just a ski resort! As an extra bonus, the refuge is open at this time of year – a perfect excuse to stop for lunch and enjoy a glass of wine before the walk back down.
Cate has now returned to the UK. She has a packed programe: visiting her Mum, sorting things out in the London flat, and seeing assorted friends, including celebrations for 60th birthdays. I have been left in Ste Foy, and have a long list of jobs that I have been entrusted with. Most challenging is keeping Cate’s plants alive, and I have been studiously watering them each day (not too much, I hope – only two look unlikely to survive). I have completely resorted the garage, including taking delivery of, and stacking, a whole winter’s worth of logs for the wood burners. We are now also linked to the internet through Starlink: this worked so well on the boat, and we have had such problems with our landline based internet, that we decided to switch. I have been up the ladder fitting the system to the roof and feeding the cables through the wall ready to plug in. The installation has tested my electrical skills: the Starlink cable comes ready fitted with proprietary plugs that do not fit through the hole in the wall through which the cable passes. The electrician who fitted the Starlink system on our boat had shown me how it was possible to cut the cable, route it as needed, then reconnect the multiple strands of the cable using combined heat shrink with solder – something I had never even heard of until he used it. So I have tried the same on our system here in France and… it works!, and we now have super fast internet!
Thankfully, it has not all been work. I have repeated the cycle up to the Petit St. Bernard pass, and most recently done a lovely walk up in Val d’Isère – walking to the Refuge du Fond des Fours as before, but this time following the ski touring route we do in winter. This starts at the Col de l’Isèran (which entailed me hitching a lift from Val d’Isère) and following our ski skinning route to the Col des Fours, before descending to the refuge and then on to the Manchet chairlift (where I had left the car). As always, the break at the refuge – this time for a cool beer, was very welcome. I even took a little video of the route…
