a man a woman and four languages: February 2014

26 February 2014

and then it was white

Yesterday I sneaked in a couple of hours of cross-country skiing at the Signaraux - stupidly leaving my camera in the car, so must imprint on memory the view of kite-snow-boarders weaving drunken trails up and down the hills, as the late afternoon shadows played against the Dévoluy peaks behind them...

On the way home I snapped the Obiou, just for the record... (Juan and I have wanted to climb it - in summer, of course - for years but are our days of 1500m ascents over?)...

and the Piquet de Nantes, across Lake Pétichet...

Today I grappled with the complexities of editing with a template - having recently returned to freelance editing in a bid to regain autonomy and re-balance our finances. Since my glory days in publishing, advances in technology and the perennial drive to save money have pushed the job of coding styles from the typesetter to the editorial function. So - yuk - it means hours and hours of concentrated, difficult, boring, fiddly clicking and highlighting of secondary maths exercises, plus neck pain, back pain, soul pain.... Whinge whinge whinge.

Having spent most of the night reliving the keyboard strokes, I watched spring turn to winter. Yes, we all knew it could happen but...

23 February 2014

spring wins over winter - today

Today was the first day in 2 weeks I didn't work at all. (I recently re-started freelance editing and it has entailed several painful learning curves and a general deterioration of well being!) Boy did I appreciate the time off, especially as the sun graced us with its presence - an almost unique event at the weekend, this winter. Just being outside in the garden was enough (even though the original plan had been to head for the snow).

I know about ne'er casting a clout and all of that (especially in our region) but it was boiling... and clouts were thrown in all directions.

As we weeded and clipped and pruned we could see snow on the hill at the end of the valley through trees that are not even beginning to bud. But in the garden the small dashes of zingy colour confirm the miracle of spring, once again. It's almost as exciting as as a ski run...

Living dangerously, perhaps - it was crazy hot for late Feb - but we enjoyed every minute of it.

09 February 2014

Alpe du Grand Serre - where was everybody?

At the Grand Serre - almost our nearest resort, after days with no sun - we were braced for motorway madness. But it was sublimely empty:

dreams

Juan:
"I was in a warehouse full of suitcases, looking for mine. I knew I'd put it on one of the shelves - but at that point it was the only one in the warehouse. Now the warehouse was full, and I couldn't remember which shelf I'd left it on. Eventually I realised it had gone. So, when I found a suitcase that resembled mine, I ran with it - back to the dirty clothes that I'd left under a tree, that needed to be packed and transported from A to B..."

Rebecca:
"I was in the Berlitz office and I the director confirmed that they were going to sack me. I suggested it might be better if I handed in my notice, instead. And they agreed. But there was no paper in anywhere for me to write my resignation letter. When I finally found a sheet and starting writing, my words dissolved and morphed into a different text. I kept writing and rewriting - and got nowhere."

we are at the epicentre of an earthquake!

At breakfast the house shakes - as though a truck has run into it. THUMP! But no truck, no avalanche, no log delivery - nothing that could explain it.
Later in the day we read in the news...
"Une très légère secousse sismique s’est produite ce matin à 9 h 15 au sud de Grenoble, entre Vizille, Uriage et Eybens. La secousse de magnitude 2,3 sur l’échelle de Richter, selon le réseau, n’a pas causé de dégâts mais a été ressentie par les habitants du secteur."
As habitants we can confirm this. (The red blob is our house, I think!)

03 February 2014

Arcelle Plateau

The weekend over, out comes the sun. I grab the cross-country skis and up to Chamrousse for an hour or so, before the clouds return. Retirees, schoolkids - and those with highly flexible timetables - cruise round the pistes.

02 February 2014

Crête du Brouffier with a personal guide and photographer!

Last Friday I was able to take advantage of a rare treat: Crête du Brouffier with new snow in perfect sunny weather, on skis. This because Dauphiné Libéré reporter Jean-Benoît Vigny wanted to write an article on the new ski de rando trail recently developed at the Grand Serre resort. Local guide Mathis Moratthel was showing him the way, and another body was needed to complement the "group".

An hour or so of gentle ascent through woods...

was followed by an apparently endless slope towards a "receding" plateau – just as tiring as it was for Juan and I three weeks ago...

.. an exhilarating descent down the same slope...

... and a creative, tree-dodging slither back through the forest.

Despite multiple blisters from the hired boots it was a pearl of a day. All the more special because, alas, the weekend that followed was relentlessly grey and wet.