Well it's been a while, but really other than skiing and the occasional visitor not much has been happening here to post anything more frequently - I figured you all didn't want to hear about each of our weekly skiing expeditions...but there is a wrap up for you in this post.
FAIRE DU SKI
As you have all heard we have taken to the mountains and are now suitably hooked on the sport of skiing. We went on our first outing in the middle of January and since then have been back another 7 or 8 times. Our trips have ranged from half days to full days, full weekends and one weekend we went up and back on the Saturday and went back and did it again on the Sunday; yep it's that close!
We had a weekend in February at a resort a little further away called Val d'Allos. We decided on a weekend trip because Cathy's sister, Laura, came over specifically to go skiing.. The bottle of rosé that we polished off before bed the previous night, however, didn't do down too well with Laura's travel plans. That and the exceptionally windy road we found ourselves on after taking a wrong turn meant it was a slightly longer trip up than expected.
Unfortunately the weather gods weren't entirely with us that weekend with snow falling on Saturday afternoon; which I guess is probably a good thing for skiing but not for visibility when you are just beginners, and then it rained / sleeted on Sunday morning. We sat it out for a while on Sunday morning but then things improved in the afternoon. All up, however, not a bad weekend.
After all of that and quite a few hours of private ski lessons we have managed to progress from complete beginners to being able to make our way down some black slopes.
Cathy wasn't quite so successful with her first attempt at a photo with the black sign however, but our instructor tells us that having a photo taken next to a sign is one of the more difficult parts of the sport...
LAURA'S BORING EASTER ON THE RIVIERA
Laura once again graced our shores and joined us at the last minute for Easter. We told her to bring her ski gear just in case the weather & conditions were suitable. Somehow, we managed to show her a good time...
We took her to St Tropez for lunch on Sunday...
We went and saw a couple of British stand up comedians at a local pub who hold a monthly Riviera Comedy Club. We managed to get some more skiing on Monday, after a decent 20cm dump the day before and perfect sunny conditions with temperatures around 13 - 15 degrees...
And then to top things off a friend of ours is a captain on an 80ft motor yacht and he was moving it on Tuesday from Cannes to San Remo and asked us along for the ride. How could we say no...? Cathy was lucky to get out of it because she had to work; but Laura and I went and suffered through it.
ANTIBES INTERNATIONAL BOAT SHOW
Adrian's favourite toys:
And Cathy's favourite toy...
THERE GO THE WISDOM TEETH
Cathy had been a little tender around the gums for about a week so we decided to visit the dentist; a bit of an issue when the dentist only speaks French. Anyway, long story short, the dentist had to refer Cathy to a specialist to get all four wisdom teeth extracted. An ordeal at the best of times but more so in a strange language. All said, however, the French health system lived up to its reputation and everything went reasonably well. Cathy was a sight to behold with the bandage around her head holding the ice to her cheeks
She was a bit worried about how visible the bruising would be but we found a relatively simple solution to hide it...
OWEN...ON A STICK
As pretty much everyone would have heard by now there was a bit of a problem with air travel in Europe last week due to some Volcano blowing up or some-such. Now in general this wouldn't affect us but Cathy decided at the last minute, before the volcano blew its top, to head for Ireland for her brother, Owen's birthday. Unfortunately the Icelandic volcano had other ideas and her flight was cancelled on the Friday night. Cathy was very disappointed and when I tried to explain the upside to the situation, being that she would get to spend the weekend with me, she simply said "but I wanted to spend it with Owen"! So that evening after she went to bed I manufactured the solution...
Owen-on-a-stick! It did the trick mostly but Cathy wasn't quite so sure when she awoke to her brother's face in the bed beside her on Saturday morning!
LE PREMIERE TOUR DU MOTO EN FRANCE
Seeing as Cathy had to spend the weekend in France, with me, damn-it, we decided to make the most of it and hired a couple of motorbikes and spent Saturday afternoon and Sunday cruising around the region. It was a beautiful sunny day to potter around the Med coast and surrounding foothills.
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