Where did this winter go ?

This has been a very strange winter.

Maybe it is me that is strange or perhaps has become so.

I rather miss not adding to this blog, this infrequent record of what I have done or where I have been but as I see the last entry was mid-December I cannot believe I haven't done anything or been anywhere since then, and now it is approaching late March; it is Spring. The sun is staying with us longer; it is gradually getting warmer and the prospect of disruptive snow recedes. With that came the first calls of the migrating Black Kites, arriving back on the shores of the lake here for the next few spring and early summer months. They will gone by the end of July, but in the meantime their trills and calls as they rebuild nests, scavenge, hunt for small rodents and for lake fish straying too close to the surface will enthral me, friends and visitors to the area; along with their acrobatics as they soar on the thermals rising between here and the nearby mountains. Already I have watched as a recent arrivals have been mobbed by crows as they defend their nests.

In the intervening months, I have suffered pig flu' - at least it wasn't malaria - and that stayed until after Christmas. The first ski of the season was January 1st in a crowded Les Gets. Late for us. I have been to the movies a couple of times in the big city an hour from here. I flew to see my family in England in mid-January.



I have enjoyed some long hikes in snow and on ice; bending almost beyond repair one expensive Black Diamond randonnée ski pole when slipping on ice hidden from sight by the fresh thin layer of new powder snow. If I had been nearer the edge of the cliff face down which runs the metal mountaineering ladder I might well have disappeared over the edge and not be typing here now...still the view of the distant mountain ranges would have filled the falling time.

I have with my mountain path mate, trekked from Lac de Montriond to Lindarets; a three hour hike with the first 45 minutes like a never ending stair way, up, up, up until in the winter cool air the sweat on the back of the t-shirt become uncomfortable. The restaurants teem with lunching skiers when we arrive and once fed and wined we descend for two hours along the track leading past the iced waterfall, along the edge of the lake with its track clearly showing where walkers have chanced their luck and left their booted imprints the length of the ice, past the holes cut earlier by chainsaw for the weekend's expected ice divers.



I have determined to get rid of an excess of weight by eating less, eating more healthily and drinking less alcohol although that latter choice may be harder than the others; and of course by continuing to exercise as much as I can.

Monday last I called a friend whose husband has recently dumped her, and suggested a good walk, under the mountain cliffs, in the sunshine, an easy hike and one that should do her good, get her out, get her talking, make difficult decisions easier by being listened to; a problem shared is a problem halved? A solution may be easier to find if that is the case.

I have worked too although not very hard and not very much but that is a consequence of my winter here.

Each week I visit a neighbour. I teach him English. He actually speaks it rather well, in his heavily French accented way. He has much more than a rudimentary grasp of it, but what he needs is conversation and correction and with that in mind we talk. I try and put on American accents and use American idioms and slang; all in order that he might better understand his boss, an American woman, a busy politician of sorts, who speaks to him fast and while either leaving her office or just turning away from him as she has other matters on her mind. No matter that her staff don't understand.

In return he teaches me French. And my français is I think, no modesty here, more rudimentary than his English. But that is what comes of living in a foreign country, and having a shared nationality and language within a family. Each Wednesday evening, I arrive and kiss his wife hello, a French kiss of course. A kiss on each cheek and she of course is French. Very French. If I saw her in a photo or in a film before hearing her speak I know she would be French. It is her very being.

My other non-French neighbours and friends tend to have at least one French family member, or kids born and schooled here, who come home after a hard day conjugating verbs, to a mum or a dad who can help them with (or rather do) the homework given.

Time to walk, to buy baguettes for tea...

More, perhaps, tomorrow.