This is my backyard. Honestly. I cannot believe it either.
Bonjour, and apologies for the absence (WARNING: this is a LONG LIST. I haven’t spoken to ANYONE for days).
I never though I would love being here so much. It is truly beautiful, magical, wonderful, peaceful and protected from the big bad ‘outside world’. I like being protected from the big, bad ‘outside world’.
I am living a truly Hill Billy’s life. Nothing much goes on in our lives. We don’t have TV, not much internet and hardly anyone phone us on our mobile phones.
Consequently we have become, in true village style, rather interested in our neighbour’s lives (Vitriolica honey, I think I might begin to understand the bata ladies in Azeitão). We watch every car that comes up our street (it is a very rare event, maybe we get to see 4 or 5 vehicles per day; and that includes the snowplough and the postal service van. Actually, as I write these words, the postal van has just crashed into our chalet. Seriously, I am not joking. Bloody hell, I wish I had this comical timing every day. It is very icy outside; the guy was spinning his wheels up the road. I need to go and check it out…. Ok, I am back. Not too much damage. But worst still, no post AT ALL for us).
The other day an ambulance drove up our ‘chemin’. It was very exciting. Some English tourist, who was staying in one of the fancy chalets up the mountain, felt rather ill. We still don’t know what his/her problem was. But we would like to find out. Dear Sir/Madam, if you are reading this and happened to be staying in the Les Nants area of Morzine in January and required an ambulance during the night, please email us on this website address. We are very curious indeed.
Our village couldn’t be any prettier. There are dozens of patisseries, boucheries, delicatessens, and créperies. I am not one to discriminate against food stores, so I love them all equally.
Nevertheless, I find that they often shut from 12:15 to 15:00. Now, I thought Portugal had an excessively long lunch hour. How wrong was I? These guys put the Spaniards in the corner. Still, I love them for that. Who cares about doing some business when you can have lunch?
Speaking of lunch, I find the cuisine of the Haute-Savoie region, where we presently reside, a little bit on the heavy side and, dare and say, a tad repetitive in its choice of ingredients. Every dish seems to be cooked with bacon, cheese, ham, cream and – for those who like this sort of thing – yet more cheese. Obviously, the beautiful French waitresses are as skinny as a bone. I wonder if they dash into Provence for dinner every night.
And whilst we are on the matter of cheese, there are 1,001 stores fully dedicated to cheese, and that’s in Morzine alone. If you have ever wondered why the French keep stomping their feet down every time someone wants to cut the budget for the damn wasteful European Agricultural Policy, you should come here. It is my belief that everyone gets some sort of subsidy for making cheese. So we, the great European fraternity, pay the French to produce cheese, eat cheese and have long lunch hours. Still, they’re French, flamboyant and romantic, so I forgive them. Or maybe I don’t. It seems an unfair deal for the rest of the world.
No French person says ‘merci beaucoup’. Why the hell do they teach us that at school? Bunch of nonsense. It’s ‘merci bien’.
McGregor is after a qualification as a skiing instructor. He has completed stage one of the aforementioned course, and quite enthusiastic about perfecting his technique. Now, it has never been my dream to go out with a ski instructor, but I wish I was in my twenties just to live that fantasy to the full. This way I’ve got the real thing. Not bad in any event.
However, that does not necessarily mean that McGregor is going to BE a ski instructor. He is just after the qualification. For those who know McGregor this makes perfect sense. For all of those who don’t, the logic is less straightforward. I count myself in the former group.
Little me has been doing some technique perfecting as well. I can now link my parallel turns beautifully (on green runs) and even go on my edges every now and then for a bit of carving (when standing still on a flat field). We even skied in Chamonix the other day. That was HARD. Mogul fields galore.
