Au revoir England, Bon jour Chamonix

oot and aboot in Chamonix

Confit Duck on a bed of potato Daphinious accompanied by green beans. All moistened with a Cranberry jus. Huh haw haw, bon apetit

Looking down on our lounge

No, I have not had a growth spurt. Our room was designed for dwarves and midgets.

We have arrived in Chamonix where we will once again spend a winter book ended by snowy mountains. Following our 1 week cooking course Anna and I now approach cooking with even more enthusiasm. Flavour and texture experimentation is now a necessity at every meal. It is a shame enthusiasm alone does not always produce fine cuisine.

We have been keeping busy with a few odd jobs, socialising with the locals, hiking and mountain biking. Richard and Veronica, our employers, have been amazing to us. They have leant us bikes, accommodated us and have hooked us up with random work, i.e driving someone to Geneva Airport. Our apartment has no television and after the initial shock of 'what! No T.V!' It is actually quite good. Anna has thrown herself into meticulously, with pinky fingers at right angles, arranging our holiday photo's.

Naturally, we have found a local pub to occupy our thirst for socialisation. Dave, an Aussie from Melbourne owns the place and is a classic true blue occa. His French is obviously 100 times better than ours but still carries that oh so familiar Aussie twang; ‘jemma peel Dawve, How ya gowin?’ Anna has scored most improved player in spoken French. I am still restricted to pointing and pleading ‘Baguette?’, while Anna races into the Patisserie and comes trundling out with un baguette and Deux Croissants! The way my French is going it looks as though I will be buying my items one at a time for a wee while yet. Really though, you do not need to speak French as most speak English. To us it seems polite to, at the very least, attempt to speak the language of the country you are in. So I will continue to butcher the language of love and stutter on, making a complete cuiller of myself along the way. (I know ‘culiler’ means spoon and it’s feminine, so not really used in the right context...but... our phrase book does not translate fool and this was the closest I could find, I am trying).

It has started really snowing today but the locals say it will not last and winter is not upon us just yet. We are thankful for every sunny day at the moment as there is so much to see and do around here.