Late snow

The arrival yesterday of summertime went unnoticed for two reasons: firstly we were in the mountains for our first and only skiing trip of the season, where several hours of heavy snow mocked the idea that winter was over; secondly, being in holiday mode, we both completely forgot that the clocks were going back, so spent the whole of yesterday blithely ignorant of the fact that it was an hour later than we thought it was until we got home and switched on the TV to watch the eight o'clock news that had already been and gone.

Nonetheless, we had a very enjoyable, if mixed weather-wise, couple of days. A work colleague of la bienheureuse kindly lent us her apartment for the weekend, and after picking la salariée up from the airport on Friday evening we made it up to the corner of England that is Meribel by 10pm. The following morning dawned bright and sunny, and so it continued until lunchtime, which, with a decent fall of snow the previous day, made for very pleasant skiing conditions, even if ma bien-aimée was restricted somewhat by her perennially dodgy knee. At lunch the snow started falling. And kept falling, into the evening, and into the night. It was still falling as we ventured a few yards up the road from the apartment complex for a very tasty meal and a nice bottle of Mondeuse, and was still falling as we slipped back to bed.

By the morning the snow had stopped, and a good six inches lay on the ground outside the apartment window. Alas, la bienheureuse decided her knee wasn't up to more skiing, but consoled herself with the purchase of a pair of raquettes à neige and a walk in the snow round Lac de Tueda, and allowed me to sally forth solo in eager anticipation of a day's skiing on lots of fresh, lovely snow. So eagerly did I take advantage that by lunchtime my thigh muscles had virtually seized up. That was partly due to the hour or so that I didn't enjoy, at Mont Vallon, where the flat light and wall to wall whiteness offered absolutely no contrast. I had no idea what I was skiing on and consequently any technique I might possess went out of the window. Bumps, fresh snow, flat snow, steep slope, shallow slope, it all looked the same to me. I was thus exhausted when we met up for a late lunch, a very late lunch, but a very tasty lunch. Afterwards, I bravely managed to fit in a couple of more runs down from Saulire. The snow came down again in the afternoon but conditions higher up, between two layers of cloud, remained excellent.

Down in the resort it was rain rather than snow but, by the time I'd helped la travailleuse finish cleaning, tidying and shutting up the apartment in readiness for the return of its proprietors next weekend, it had eased off so it was an undemanding and uneventful drive home. This morning, my body is screaming in protest at the excesses of the weekend, but the sunshine and spring weather are back. Unfortunately it looks unlikely to last long...