Week 15 (France 10)

Where were we?

France. Still.

Same mountain, different angle

If you have any good ideas about how to make saying that more interesting, do let us know. We may need them….

Where should we have been?

When you left us last week, we were in Karakol, on the shores of Lake Issyk Kul in Kyrgyzstan. We spent a couple of beautiful and fascinating days there before continuing our journey east along the lake then curving north and west back into Kazakhstan. We were constantly stunned by the beauty of both countries.  On the way to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s capital, we passed Burana Tower, the sole remnant of the ancient city of Balasagun. We arrived back in Almaty on Thursday and said a fond farewell to our trusty vehicle (and were very glad we hadn’t had to drive our own car up and over those mountains). Yesterday we packed up again and got back on the train for another epic journey. Our first stop is Novosibirsk, back in Russia, which we will reach tomorrow morning. We change trains there and get on to the “proper” Trans-Siberian. We will arrive in Irkutsk late on Monday night.

Burana Tower (11th Century), near Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan. Should have been here on Tuesday. Image from pixabay.

What did we really do?

Harriet finished the blanket she started in our third week here, having sent out a plea for wool and crochet hooks to friends in the UK. She’s rather pleased with the result but is debating what to do with it now.

Sophie and Aurora re-dyed their hair. One box each this time instead of sharing so the purple is, well, definitely purple.

Unwelcome beasties of the week were an army of ants that we discovered all over the kitchen on Monday. Because Harriet is (by 3 years) too old to be a Millennial, she failed entirely, when faced with a horrific scene, to whip out her phone and take their picture, so you will just have to imagine ants scurrying up and down the wall, on the work surface, in the kettle. One small sense of humour failure and the judicious application of a lot of ant powder and we have seen no further sight of them. Ben was, nonetheless, sent out for chemical reinforcements so should they decide to return we are prepared.

French lessons continued with Debbie, and on Wednesday we were joined by Riis, an American living in the village, who stayed for some stone painting afterwards.

Our new friends with twins have another great attraction – a flute – which, even better, they aren’t using. Sophie is delighted and her teacher has offered to give her some lessons over Zoom. Whether she will remain quite so delighted when she has to practice remains to be seen.

Our newly acquired rugby ball took an inevitable plummet over the edge of the terrace into the “snakey patch”. There are a lot of adders around this year and a bite can be very nasty so it was with some trepidation that Harriet (volunteered because she was wearing trousers) armed herself with a ski pole and attempted a daring, and pleasingly successful, rescue.

Thursday was Ascension Day which is a public holiday in France. We were invited to spend it with a former colleague of Ben’s in Grenoble. He and his family made us hugely welcome in their lovely flat and we enjoyed a delicious meal with them and some great chat.

When we arrived in Grenoble everything was very quiet (perhaps because everyone had headed for the hills: the number of people in the village and cars parked wherever possible en route was astonishing). After lunch we took a stroll around the streets where we felt both very strange – it was the first time we had been in a city since Vienna, ten weeks ago – and completely normal – there were now lots of people around, chatting and enjoying the sun, the parks and the river. Most shops were shut due to the holiday, but the ice cream parlours were clearly doing a roaring trade.

Poor old Magnus, having been utterly brilliant across 3,500 miles of Europe, was sick both ways on the winding mointain road. We’re taking him back to Grenoble on Monday. We might go the long way.

We were social on Friday too when our new British friends with twins (and the puppy) invited us round for a barbecue. Magnus and Sam spent about four hours shooting at each other. The girls were more interested in the puppy. And the rabbits.

Perhaps counter-intuitively (and due mostly to our busy social diary!) we have actually done fewer walks this week, but on Tuesday we took advantage of the deconfinement and the fact that the weather had improved after a week of rain to go on a massive walk. In fact it was a rather more massive walk than we had intended. We climbed up through forest and meadow to a pass, the Col des Ayes, where we had a sandwich lunch. There were lots of other walkers around and it was lovely to nod and exchange bonjours and bonne ballades.

From there we went up and over another pass, the Col de Pravouta. The wildflowers were even more stunning than we had seen before, with gentians, orchids (elder-leaved ones this time) and multicoloured forget-me-nots among the many we spotted (and have dotted around this blogpost)

From the second col our intention was to descend back to the village. However a combination of bad signage (very unusual round here where the directions on the signs are normally very reliable, even if the estimates of how long the walk should take are slightly less so), an over-excitable map app (yes there’s definitely a path there) and some blind optimism (well, it must go somewhere) saw us following a dead-end logging track for rather longer than we should have before turning back and retracing our steps.

The great consolation for this unscheduled six or so kilometre addition to our walk was spotting a chamois. None of us had ever seen one before and they are famously shy so this was a real privilege. He (or she, we didn’t ask) allowed us to stand within about 100m of him for a good five minutes before leaping up a vertiginous slope and disappearing into the trees.

In total, we walked, with honestly minimal complaining and mostly very good humour, for over 20 kilometres and up just under 1000m of vertical ascent. We’re calling it good training for Fuji. Even if it did take Harriet until Friday to stop walking as though heavily pregnant.

We had to dash in and out on our return to the house as we had been invited for drinks in the village with Alain, who is French but speaks English after 20 years in the States, Indira who is Kazakh (ironically where we should have been – so we looked at amazing photos instead) and their gorgeous little boy, who is ten months old. Social distancing clearly doesn’t apply to the under ones and we had lovely baby cuddles and giggles. Indira even put up with Harriet trying some of her execrable Russian on her.

Magnus had been angling for a ride on the pump track down the hill (French for pump track: le pump track). So on Friday we hired a bike for him and he and Ben headed off for a happy couple of hours of round and round and up and down.

Ben is now leading the Trivial Pursuit 14:9. Harriet is getting increasingly unamused.

Great excitement in the garden, where the peonies and poppies are out in full, eye-catching, breath-taking glory. More mundanely, the end of lockdown meant that we could get M. Zoé, the local handyman and proud owner of a strimmer to come and tackle the jungle around the gooseberry bush and apple tree.

On Friday morning, inspired by a list from the National Trust which had been shared as part of the children’s school work, we decided to get up to see the dawn. Everyone woke at 5.30 and, armed with hot chocolate and cookies, we headed out of the village to the nearest pass. There’s rather a time lag here between dawn and actual sunrise, due to all the mountains selfishly getting in the way so we hoped we might see more from there.

In the event we gave up before the sun got down into the valley where we were but the colours, sights and sounds were nonetheless astounding and were a real privilege to witness. Scroll to the bottom and click on our Instagram for a video of the dawn chorus….

How was it?

Good bits:

Aurora: Going to Grenoble and meeting new people. The barbecue was really fun! I really like their family they are all just really nice. 🙂 Going on the walk was quite fun but tiring. Finally getting up so I could go to the boulangerie. Seeing the Sunrise was so pretty.

Harriet: I am constantly aware of, and assaulted by, the beauty of where we are. Although I have been here many times in the 18 years I’ve known Ben, I’ve never seen Spring and early Summer and the change, the life and the sheer glory of the landscape are astounding. I am so grateful to be able to witness it.

Less-gushingly, I really enjoyed our day in Grenoble. Once again it was lovely to be social and to be made to feel so welcome.

The dawn chorus was astonishing. In fact the noisy-ness of nature generally is. I’m writing this mid-afternoon and between the wind and the crickets and the birds there’s a lot going on.

We’ve had some fun this week coming up with flight-of-fancy plans for the future. I can’t imagine that any of them will ever come to reality but it has been really nice to make plans, even of the cloud-castle variety.

Lucy: It has been lovely weather apart from today. I liked getting up for the sunrise, and baking yesterday with Mummy. The barbecue was great.

I also enjoyed the walk because it was lovely weather and I had a nice talk with Mummy. I also really liked building a house on multiplayer minecraft with Sophie, Aurora and Magnus.

Elder-flowered orchid.

Magnus: I liked the pump track and getting new shoes [Editor’s Note – Magnus went through his socks in his old walking shoes on the walk]. I also liked playing with the guns that Millie & Sam had, and playing on scooters with Luca in Grenoble.

Ben: Not a great surprise, but I absolutely loved our long walk, even the taking a wrong turn and walking further and seeing the chamois – it was bigger than I expected. It felt energising and I was very proud of those with shorter legs doing it too. I liked being fit enough to jog back to get the car (which definitely would not have been the case before this adventure). I’m planning the next trips in my head.

The exit from lockdown continues to make all the sociable interactions feel more precious than normal. I haven’t seen Piero and Aurélie for over a decade, and I loved our day with them. Our children bonding despite very little in the way of shared language (TikTok and Star Wars) was lovely. We have had good conversations with friends at home too.

The dawn raid was memorable, particularly for the birdsong, and I’m glad we did it.

Purple fluffy flower. Probably not the technical term.

Sophie: It was my turn to go to the supermarket on Monday, and that was fun. I also liked having a rest day after our walk, and I really enjoyed the sunrise, although I did get a bit cold. I’m excited that the pool people are coming next week. The view from the top of the walk was very pretty. I’m really happy that I have a flute to play. It was good meeting more English speakers too.

Bad bits:

Magnus: I hated the walk that we went on when my feet got sore, and the dog that Millie and Sam had. I didn’t like the drive to Grenoble.

Sophie: Sunburnt shoulders are sore. I got too hot and tired on our walk.

Ben: The screen on my iPod, bought just before this trip, has buckled, which is a peeve. More significantly, our (mainly Harriet’s to be fair) battles with our Russian Train fixers about the refund they promised us are a pain. Driving to and from Grenoble against the hordes of mountain day trippers was not great fun, but probably worse for the cyclists on the road – there were some crazy drivers out there – and for poor Magnus.

I’ve been trying to work out how to think about our planned trip within this bizarre situation, and I’m not sure how to do it. There is a significant possibility that we won’t be able to go anywhere further than here, but there is also the possibility that we will be able to experience some of the places we were hoping to get to before our planned return home in August. It’s a given that the world is and will not be anything like what we expected; wherever we go will be weird, and when we go home it will be weird there too. Given that, how should I act / think / plan?

Forget-me-nots. But pink and purple.

Day to day, we can enjoy the “current situation on the trip” (with lovely things, but not the lovely things we planned for) though this is blended with “waiting for future trip” (with the distinct possibility that some or all of the trip we planned will not occur) and a little more wondering about the “beyond-trip future” is creeping in too. I had made a point of not going too near this last one, but given the situation, how much priority should I give to each of them? Perhaps I should be thinking more, and living more, as if this is as far as we are going to get.

In terms of priority, I think the only thing I can do is control what I can control, and make myself aware of the significant things I cannot control. I’m not sure I’m getting this right at the moment, probably because I’m spending/wasting too much time on my phone.

Aurora: Not having Duplo A. Bickering with everyone. Getting Duplo S taken away. Getting TikTok taken off my phone. (Editor: she now has it back)

Lucy: The dog had an annoying obsession with my flip flops. I sometimes find it difficult when Mummy and Daddy have French friends and I don’t know what they’re talking about.

I am missing my violin, and have been since Brussels, but more and more. I didn’t think I would as much.

Trumpet gentian

Harriet: More of the same really: the sadness of “What if“. Of “Would have, should have, could have“. It is generally me who writes the “Where should we have been” section and I am finding that increasingly demoralising and depressing. I am aware that when we got here the aim was to be out by April. Then it was Lucy’s birthday. Then Magnus’. We are now talking about our anniversary and mid-Summer. How long will it be before we are forced to conclude that this is as far as we will get?

How are the tadpoles?

Erm. Not sure. We suspect they are not enjoying the beautiful weather we’ve had this week as much as we are. The water in both the bird bath and the outside sink has gone murky and we are no longer seeing tadpoles on the surface.

On Monday the water was scummy and in one of the bird bath sections a number of them were dead.

Come on in, the water’s lovely. Or not.

But there clearly are survivors as every now and then you see one come to the surface. Our best guess is that they are hiding at the bottom away from the horrid sun.

It’s raining now though so hopefully they’ll enjoy that.

Nice weather for tadpoles?

What did we eat?

With crochet-free time on her hands, Harriet found herself doing more baking this week. So we’ve had millionaires shortbread, brownies and speculoos biscuits (keeping that Amsterdam feeling going).

We were also treated to meals out this week. Not out out, clearly, but in other people’s houses and made by them. We didn’t take photos, because that would be weird, but we had a delicious meal in Grenoble and a fabulous barbecue last night with our twinny neighbours. Magnus was in heaven (apart from being terrified by a 12 week old puppy of course).

What’s next?

As was the case last week, and last month, until a) countries reopen their borders to foreign travellers and b) the Foreign Office lifts its advice against all foreign travel, we remain where we are. Not giving up hope. Or trying not to.

Week 14 (France 9)

Where were we?

We are both here (still). And (sort of) not here. Because this week we were deconfined and so we left the village! In fact we even went as far as Grenoble.

Where should we have been?

In the Covid-free world of our dreams, as with many dreams, things are now a little hazy. It is certain that last Sunday we got another overnight train, arriving early on Monday morning in Almaty, Kazakhstan. We think we only spent a day in Almaty before hiring a car (driving in Kazakhstan was quite an experience, and one which Harriet was more than happy to leave to Ben) and heading east out of the city towards the Charyn Canyon. It is possible that we camped there overnight. The next day we headed on east and south up the narrow winding mountain roads and over the Kegen pass into Kyrgyzstan. The road bends precariously downhill and west towards Karakol, on the shores of Lake Issyk Kul where we arrived on around Thursday. We are certain that we enjoyed the Lake and visited the Dungan Mosque. Tomorrow we plan to see the animal market. (Who knows if that will be possible in a Covid-19 world?)

What did we really do?

We celebrated déconfinement on Monday with a masked trip to the supermarket for Lucy and Ben and, much more excitingly, drinks with actual people in our actual house! Our new friends Debbie and Philippe came round, bearing all sorts of generous gifts and between us we got through rather a lot of celebratory champagne. It was utterly lovely.

Vive la Liberté

It may have been the champagne’s fault but the next morning we woke up to the realisation that we had promised Philippe that we would help move rocks in a field just outside the village. Some years ago a landslip left a huge pile of rubble on a road leading up to one of the passes. The road has been repaired but the rubble was unceremoniously dumped in the neighbouring field. It now needs to be cleared. By hand. And it appears we had agreed to help. It was cold and wet and surprisingly good fun. The other volunteers were all good-humoured and very welcoming and our children were very determined to mine out every last boulder. We had a very welcome communal meal afterwards, standing by the road, probably about 1.5m apart, and conscious of a job well done.

Déconfinement generally hasn’t though had a huge impact. We can now go 100km from the house, but we don’t really have any need to. What is noticeable is that our walks are more relaxed. We no longer have half an eye on the time – if we take an hour and a half, that’s fine (although not always with the children) – and we don’t feel a slight subconscious fear of being found out doing something wrong whenever we are out of the house.

There are lots more people around too. Today in particular it seems that lots of the local holiday home owners have headed up the hill to check on their properties. Our neighbours are back too.

We did venture 25km away on Wednesday when, because it was pouring with rain and about 6 degrees, we decided it was the perfect day to buy Summer clothes. We headed into Grenoble and to Decathlon. The drive down was quite tense: the streets in the villages we passed through seemed eerily quiet (or is that normal for a wet Wednesday?) and we weren’t sure what to expect when we got there – would we, six people together, even be allowed in the shop?

In the event, everything was surprisingly normal. We had a chat in the car about mask etiquette and making sure to leave sufficient space for other people, but although there was someone checking we all had masks at the door, once inside the shop, people were not behaving noticeably differently. Given it was mid-week and inclement it is perhaps not surprising that it wasn’t exactly heaving with shoppers, but there were plenty of people around and all perfectly good humoured. The woman at the checkout said she found it fine being back at work, although she wasn’t enjoying her mask.

Ninjas

We also found the masks rather hot and steamy, and tricky if you need to blow your nose (although we are told the tip for glasses-wearers is to buff a bit of fairy liquid into your glasses – we haven’t tried it yet) but we were delighted with our purchases and headed back up the hill in high spirits.

Unfortunately Decathlon’s policy of not letting anyone try anything on in the shop had the perhaps inevitable result and Ben and Sophie headed back to Grenoble later that day to swap most of what Ben had bought, and a yellow t-shirt Sophie had decided didn’t go with her look.

It is perhaps not entirely Ben’s fault that things didn’t fit.

Given we drove it several times it was both good and bad that the road down to Grenoble was being worked on. The new tarmac is (this is the good bit) lovely and smooth. We suspect that this was planned in preparation for the Tour de France which should have come up here on Bastille Day, 14th July. Maybe next year instead?

It was noticeable too that at 650m less altitude, Spring in Grenoble is much further ahead. The roads were lined with poppies and the elderflowers were all blooming in the hedgerows.

We had to drive through the clouds too.

We had another mighty DIY victory this week when Ben replaced the loo seat. It was a lot harder than it sounds. Swearing may have been required.

It was not only the local humans who were set free this week. The llamas who have in past years roamed the field just below our house are back, and have babies, to everyone’s delight.

The lovely Debbie foolishly offered (was it the champagne again?) to give the children some French lessons and got further in two hours than we have in two months. We are so very grateful and hoping that they may actually learn something out of this experience, even if, as with so much else, it’s not what we expected.

She also brought us some nail polish and remover. And a jar of tahini from her cupboard as it seems very difficult to find here. Happy days!

More learning on Friday when Peter and Preeti, Sophie and Lucy’s judo coaches, gave them a personal lesson by video on the use of their new uchikomi bands.

A knock on the door took us by surprise mid-week. It was a masked man bearing photocopies. It turns out that he is the leader of the local traditional music group and a keen accordionist and Scottish Country dancer (they really do get everywhere). He was part of the rock-clearing party on Tuesday and on hearing our name thought immediately of a reel called Miss Campbell. So he dropped a copy round for us. Sadly neither Lucy nor I has a fiddle with us but it was a lovely thought and another un-looked-for kindness.

We’ve made more new friends too. We were contacted through Instagram by someone on the other side of the valley who recognised that mountain in nearly all our pictures. We haven’t met up In Real Life yet but we hope to soon. In turn she put us in touch with other English speaking locals. One family, with two nine-year-olds, came round for a “quick meet up” yesterday (really so the kids could size each other up) and stayed for four hours… and we have plans to meet more people next week. We also got stopped in the street by someone we’ve passed on many of our walks, and he too has suggested getting the families together. It is clearly not just us who have been starved of new company!

They brought a friend with them too.

Having sung the praises of our routine last week, with more options of what we can do this week – have people round, or go more places – this week the routine has fallen apart a bit. We don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, as the routine was there to give some structure to a fairly restricted day/week/unspecified lockdown sentence, and there are now fewer restrictions. Had we been on our travels, indeed when we were on our travels, there was no need for the same amount of structure.

Our interesting creature of the week was what we have tentatively identified as a broad-bordered bee hawk moth. The wasp that had clearly decided inside our car was a quiet and undisturbed place to make its nest also gets an honourable, but posthumous, mention. We met another adder too, and also tried to use sugar water and oranges to revive an ailing butterfly, though sadly without much success

Aurora managed a hitherto unimaginable 14 days without fighting and was rewarded with TikTok. If she keeps it up she gets an extra five minutes a day. More importantly, for her parents at least, she is a lot happier than we have seen her for some time, and not just because of TikTok.

More lovely friends sent us origami papers and an instruction book. In moments of calm Harriet has mostly been making cranes. Apparently to make 1000 is to bring good luck.

We have about 987 to go.

By the power of the Internet we took part (with varying levels of enthusiasm) in a Kelso-based tennis lockdown challenge. We were set a number of different tennis-related exercises to do each day. There was also a bonus baking round. Fortunately we are better at baking than we are at tennis. But probably not better enough actually to win anything…

The racquet is supposed to be that way up.

Today’s exercise was rather more old school. We’re not saying we expect to be here in Winter but it’s been pretty cold recently and we’ve been getting through wood rather quickly. So we thought we’d stock up. They deliver (almost) to the door.

And…leaving the best to last…after days of watching for the postman, Greg (who is never, ever, to be referred to as “New Duplo”) arrived yesterday. Aurora hasn’t stopped smiling.

How was it?

Good bits:

Lucy: I have really enjoyed doing the origami. I have found it very calming. And the llamas are out!!! I love llamas! I have enjoyed all the people who have come round. It has been nice being sociable. My birthday present from Granny finally arrived (Editor’s note: posted on 5 April). It was lots of new books and I have enjoyed all of them especially the one I have just finished, One of us is Lying by Karen M McManus. I also got an excellent tote bag from my cousins.

And I finally won the photo competition!

Sophie: I liked how because the lockdown has been lifted we have seen people. I really loved the doggie. I liked going to the shop and getting some new clothes. I loved, loved, loved Greg coming.

New clothes-tastic

Aurora: TikTok is good. I liked Greg arriving because now Sandie has another newbie to be new with her. I think it has made it easier missing Duplo too. I liked the dog coming over and Millie too. She was nice. The French lessons are OK too. I like having new clothes and having a choice of what to wear.

Magnus: I liked meeting Sam. He was nice and it was nice having another boy to play with. I am happy that Greg is here because it is nice having an actually clean teddy (Editor: For the avoidance of doubt all teddies are washed frequently). I liked going to the Casino (the mini market) to buy ice cream.

Ben: The change from confined to slightly deconfined has been a pleasure, albeit slightly bizarre. After 8 weeks of very few interactions with very few people, it sometimes jars to see lots of people. I’m sure the “rock harvest” was such good fun mainly because it was beyond the 1km limit (by about 3km), a family journey in the car (for the first time in 8 weeks), and a chance to talk to new people.

I get the impression that everyone has been aching to be a bit more sociable, too, as all the social events we have had have lasted much longer than expected, because of the pleasure of just being able to have a conversation in person.

However, selfishly, the best thing about déconfinement has been getting 2 pairs of shorts. Despite the Saints de Glace chill of the week, I have not worn trousers since.

We don’t have a picture of Ben in his new shorts (yet) but this is nearly as pretty.

Harriet: Even as someone who is (despite appearances) quite introverted, it has been absolutely lovely being able to be social. Just being able to talk to other people in a relaxed fashion has been brilliant for all of us. I’m pleased with my new clothes too (despite the irritation of all sleeveless tops having a racer back (why?)). I am also delighted that the children are getting a bit of French. While we perhaps could have, should have, been doing this ourselves (and we did try!) they are reacting much better to Debbie than they ever would have done to us.

Bad bits:

Harriet: It is perhaps a silly self-fulfilling prophecy but I have been thinking this week that I cannot imagine ever looking back on this time as anything other than a huge disappointment. However good any individual day is, and lots of them have been lovely, each of them is, at the same time, a disappointment. I am sure that good things will come out of this time – as just one example I have been so proud of Aurora recently who has totally turned her behaviour and self-control round and improved our life as a family immeasurably – but they are not the dramatic, exciting things I wanted. I was (there’s probably a German word for this) already looking forward to being able to look back on our adventures and I’ll never have that.

I also, maybe not so secretly, hoped that somehow this time would be a springboard for new things for us all – even though I don’t even know what I wanted those things to be. And now I suspect we will just go back to our lives pretty much as they were before. Even with the possible promise of less Aurora-related conflict or better French that makes me sad.

Ben: While the cracks in the dam of lockdown have started little trickles of almost-forgotten freedoms, “celebrating” 2 months of being here, combined with last week’s reaching of the halfway day of our Tweed to Tokyo adventure, is another chance to reflect on dreams not realised, and places not visited. Which is another way of saying, as much as I love this place, “I’m a bit bored with being here”.

Magnus: I didn’t like the snake. I don’t like snakes.

Aurora: Not having Duplo A still makes me sad. I don’t like that they have moved the cows into a field on our favourite walk. It’s too mucky. I don’t like not being able to fight. It’s so annoying. I want to shout at people sometimes but I can’t.

Sophie: I don’t really know. Just bickering. That’s sort of it.

Lucy: I didn’t really enjoy moving rocks.

How are the tadpoles?

As with our children we are beginning to wonder if the tadpoles will ever stop growing and start maturing.

Who ate all the pies? If lettuce were a pie.

They remain, mostly, fine, although all the heavy rain we have had this week has meant that every morning there are some washed-away casualties, not all of whom can be successfully rescued.

They remain determinedly legless.

What did we eat?

We had an unexpected foodie success. Last week Ben had been sent down to the supermarket for “a mixed selection of colourful root vegetables” for a “Golden Root Vegetable Couscous” (Thanks, Nigella). He came back with, erm, turnips.

Even Harriet drew the line at feeding the children turnip and couscous so they lingered in the fridge all week. This week though she found a website advertising 25 delicious turnip recipes (not a joke) and inflicted turnip daal on an unsuspecting public. Reader, they loved it.

More obviously successful, despite the lack of various essential pieces of equipment and blueberries, was our rainbow-themed cake for the baking section of the tennis competition.

If you include the smarties that’s your five a day

What’s next?

We now have a busy social calendar of drinks and chats to look forward to, and we may even venture further afield to see friends in nearby towns. As for getting out of either Isère or France though, that remains a distant dream.