escaping the heat: the Champsaur

Juan did come home, and I arranged for him to hook up to the internet at a kind friend's for the second half of the week. Having him around in a more leisured way than in our usual pressure-cooked weekends was a reminder of the "good ol' days". It raised the obvious question: why not work from home on a regular basis? Having just one day a week extra at Vaulnaveys would transform our situation. So I am allowing myself to hope that Juan will negotiate this with his boss at a propitious moment.

With more time than usual to play with, going away for a night felt possible. The scorching heat meant that rivers and bathing were higher priority than getting up hills. So we headed for the Champsaur, in the south-eastern Ecrins, finding a shady camping site where we could boil up some pasta and home-made pesto.

fine dining at Le Pont du Fossé

Next day we headed up the Drac Blanc valley, rewalking the route up to the Chaumette refuge last done in 2010. What a glorious valley it is. The river isn't swimmable (either too little water or too fast flowing) but we paddled and I skinny-dipped in pool on the way back.

The icing on the cake was, on our return, getting back online (when we arrived home the replacement modem was in the postbox). On reflection I feel rather embarrassed at how badly I've coped without ready internet access but (as per my comment in another post) plead rurality, expectations, language issues, self-employment meaning I have to be able to connect at home, and lack of back-up (ie smart phone). Next time I will take it easier.

an unbelievably boring SFR saga (and blog entry)

Tell me, English readers, is it France, or could the following scenario happen in the UK?
Sunday evening: I phone SFR to say I have no internet connection. They say I have a faulty connecting cable and arrange for it to be sent by post, which I am told will take around a week. “How can you expect me to function like that in 2013!” I rage and, at my prompting, they say I can pick it up at an SFR shop.

Monday morning: the shop assistant tells me that they can’t provide any equipment without a “customer file” being open – despite what I was told the previous evening. In any case they don’t stock accessories; I will have to go to Fnac. At Fnac I wait a further half hour for the shop to open, only to discover they don’t stock accessories.

Back home I recontact SFR and make sure I am properly in the system. They tell me that the cable will be available at the Echirolles branch in 2 hours’ time. I drive across Grenoble to the shop. I ask them to test the cable with the modem. It doesn’t work and – incredibly – they don’t have any modems in stock. I drive back across Grenoble to the first branch and, after waiting half an hour to be served, drive home with the new modem.

At home the box doesn’t work. For several hours it’s impossible to reach SFR (merci de renouveler votre appel). When at last I do, late evening, they say the box must be faulty and I will need to wait a further 48 hours for one to be delivered to a shop. When I explode (loss of internet has already resulted in me waiting for a client shiatsu rdv when the client had cancelled by email, and Juan – supposedly and uniquely working from home this week because of his company’s annual shutdown – is in CH waiting for me to get the thing fixed) they say they will contact me the following morning. 

Tuesday: SFR don’t call. I wait until midday then phone them. “Oh, didn’t you know – the box is waiting in the shop”. I ask them if they are sure – the previous two occasions a text message had alerted me but I hadn’t received one this time. I fear being asked, again, at the shop “Do you have a customer file open?” I can’t check as no one at the shop picks up the phone. Off I go again, into the heat. And once again I wait 20 minutes before anyone can speak to me. I am then asked the dreaded question – and we then discover that the file has been closed and no order for the modem put through. My “FUCK!!” causes a ripple of shock. The file will need to be reopened. We are surrounded by publicity for high-speed connections. But just getting through to set up the file takes a further 30 minutes.

Three hours later, and the 4th 30km round trip and there I am again. The same assistant tells me (after I wait yet another 30 minutes for them to get through by phone) that the modem has been sent by post. The assistant doesn't prostrate himself with embarrassment at his cock-up but - as he is on the welcome desk and has other customers waiting - invites me to take a ticket in the queue to speak to a colleague. I cut my losses and head home.

km driven so far: 120

hours on phone or waiting in the SFR shop: 5

energy lost: 10000 k calories

stress level: unmeasurable

Saturday: The second replacement modem arrives by post. And – unlike Monday's model - this one has software and instructions – with a completely different set-up from what I had been told in the shop. It works, praise the lord.

pesto fest

Coming back to Vaulnaveys was strange, having had such a people-intense couple of weeks – no internet connection/landline increasing my solitude. The garden looked parched; weeds choking what little remained in flower. But there are some winners: the basil watered by Juan the previous weekend is at full power. I cut a first crop and froze numerous pesto portions.

 

a weekend in the Bernese Oberland

From Sheffield I diverted to Macclesfield to visit another lovely friend, Bruna, from my very first shiatsu weekends in 2001. In Macclesfield I counted twelve charity shops – where you can buy second-hand novels for a mere 25p, clothes are less than half the price of well-heeled B on Avon, and you can buy my regular French cheese, comté, not to mention manchego. Cheese. The barometer of life.

But it was a fleeting visit and my time in the UK was at an end. Flying from Manchester to Geneva was a mini culture shock. And from there, via Juan’s flat and out to Selden, a tiny hamlet in the Bernese Oberland valley of Gasterntal, another one. I knew I was in Switzerland because the farmers were vacuuming up the grass cuttings that fell on the road alongside their meadows, and we were staying in a picture-postcard auberge at the beginning of the Loetschental pass–Goppenheim track.

As we climbed up the valley, the views into the upper Gasterntal opened out and the Kanderfirn glacier came into view:

We walked without a map because GRs in Switzerland are like motorways: the two-metre cairns and half-metre red-and-white waymarking standing out unmissably.  At times, though, it was nerve-wracking as we plodded in blind faith across serious stretches of snow, not knowing quite where we were heading.  

The flowers were sensational: at mid altitude a generous explosion of colour…

profuse as we’d never seen them…

Higher up, around the refuge (2690m) they showed up as jewels in an alpine desert:

As usual, Juan had a happy time photo hunting while I stayed at the refuge, watching the sublime panoramic view that shifted every second as clouds, rain and sun came and went:

The best was only revealed the following morning:

And then came the long descent, 1500 knee-jarring metres, and a wonderful traverse of the lower Loetschental valley marred only by Juan’s anxiety about making our train connection back to Kandersteg – and (fate worse than death) a Swiss parking penalty. But we nevertheless enjoyed sumptuous vistas towards Koncordia hut, where we stayed 2 nights on our 2011 glacier walk (see link). At that time we had no idea that Juan would end up working in the country. How unexpected, therefore, to be seeing it again, from such a different perspective – in all senses. (And yes, we made the train.)

and so to the north

And another wonderful coming together with friends from over 30 years ago (ouch!) in a part of the world I had almost forgotten about: the Peak district. Arriving at Sheffield, Clare Relton and I started with some indulgent shopping at White Stuff (and Decathlon where I was devastated to find I needed an Extra Large bikini!), then had a curry supper with Bridget at Clare’s centrally located house…

where neighbours talk over their garden fences, lodgers can be taken in according to need, and life is largely within walking distance.

The following day we linked up with Clare Deg for a sumptuous and very sweaty stomp up Claire R’s favourite, Win Hill (sorry, Bridget, you are the loser in the pic below – I promise you don’t really look like this!):

shiatsu weekend at Gaunts House

As usual, my UK trip was built around a shiatsu training weekend, once again with Bill Palmer at Gaunts House. Here, too, the extraordinary weather played a role in three wonderful days in good company working on the “third family” of meridians. On a physical level we used the relationship between agonist and antagonist movement to help connect “sulky” (= resistant) muscles. It was particularly pertinent as I was certainly out of relationship with my painfully tight neck-and-shoulder muscles. The broader theme, including all aspects of the self, also spoke volumes, as did being part of a group – or not. But in the therapeutic world everything is ok. I felt part of this family.

 

 – and then, re-joining my own family shortly afterwards, especially at home.

blimey, wotta sizzler – Bradford on Avon

A quintessential English summer greeted me as I arrived for a fortnight in the UK: Mum and Dad’s exquisite home-grown strawbs, a Wimbledon win, vintage elderflower fizz, a session in Bradford on Avon’s awesome second-hand book shop…

"The Seven Pillars of Wisdom" sold to this man...

 a National Trust garden (which we reckoned inferior to 1 Sandy Leaze in terms of flower power): 

versus

excitement as a hot-air balloon flew so low we thought it would land in the garden…

and family gatherings in all permutations, culminating in the original nuclear configuration, which surpassed itself with one very virtuous deed…

In Bath we had a delish pre-performance supper …

before seeing GB Shaw’s “Candida” at the Theatre Royal. What a nostalgic treat.

The exceptional sun and heat continued throughout my entire visit – and beyond. Mum and Dad were bemused – what can you do in a 30-degree inferno? The daily routine of hot soup for lunch clearly had to give way to myriad salads. Enforced sloth ruled as we sought shade, even to the point of cowering indoors, continental-style. In this most idyllic of settings the three sisters couldn’t resist telling Mum and Dad at regular intervals how lucky they were to live in such a special place – the garden a celebration of their joint and many talents, and the house just a stone’s throw from the historic town centre with all its charm and sense of community.

This part of my hol ended with an extended photo shoot, of which this is my favourite:

because Buff isn’t looking funkier, funnier and more gorgeous than me. Ha ha. Ok, here’s another one:

Lac Lauvitel

With an extra long weekend (Juan took holiday and time in lieu) we were able to take advantage of a wonderful Monday. Minimising the drive we chose Lac Lauvitel, expecting it to be deserted. Not so. The holiday season is beginning to swing. That and several disaffected youths posing as path maintenance workers meant the route was busy. But we escaped up the path beyond the lake towards the Col du Perrier to get a new view back to the Grandes Rousses, Aiguilles d'Arves and Deux Alpes.
Flowers a visual feast the whole day. The walk just what we needed after 2 days of difficult conversations about Juan's commute and related matters.