Sunday 23 October 2011

Sunny Sunday stroll.

My view at the moment. The Bayham Abbey ruins. Very rewarding, after a bit of a hike, sitting here looking out on the greenery all around me. Perfick. ;)
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Lunch al fresco. Heavenly.

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Monday 17 October 2011

Jamming forks into my ears...

I've just landed. Back from a week at my Dad's in Portugal. The holiday was brilliant, great weather, great food, great company, as always. I always have a great time with my Dad.

The reason why this entry is titled forks in my ears is because that's what I wanted to do to myself on the flight back from Lisbon. Just so that I wouldn't have to listen to any more of the inane drivel that was passing as conversation on my flight. The couple sharing my row talked in painstaking detail, for the best part of an hour, about every single meal they had consumed during their holiday. Not in a foodie way mind you, just talking basics, not extolling the virtues of an Atlantic oyster versus the characteristics of one from the Mediterranean, just the mere basics of what they ate, what time of day and where they were. I don't think I've ever heard such a dull conversation about something that can be really very exciting.

Across the gap into seats d, e and f there was a middle aged couple and one other person. Thankfully for her she fell asleep instantaneously and was spared the two and a half hours of sudoku arguing, flight analysis to ease the woman's frayed nerves, a discussion on 'serif vs sans serif' and an in depth guide to the intricacies of the man's iPad. This last one was particularly interesting because he had absolutely no clue what he was talking about and in essence what he told the woman was that an iPad is magic, it's powered by magic, works like magic and presumably, I'm extrapolating here, you pay for it with magic... Magic beans perhaps?!

Yes, I could well have put my headphones in and listened to music, if only I'd been less efficient when packing, my headphones were in my case in the belly of the magic flying beast.

:)

Sunday 9 October 2011

War & Piste...

A friend of mine is bringing out a book...NEXT WEEK! I've had a sneaky peeky already, I have in fact read the entire thing and I canNOT stress enough how much you need this book in your life! Check out http://warandpiste.com/index.html for the inside scoop and take a look at the blog entries. Have a read of this one: http://warandpiste.com/blog/archives/79 for a good description of just what a chalet host is. I'm hoping I'll be more "wonderful creature" than "fuck-up artist"!!! LOL!

Good luck Alex Thomas http://warandpiste.com/about.html I hope the book launch goes off with a bang and that the book does as brilliantly as it deserves to. I promise you that if you get this book, you'll love it! You'll get snow sports, travel, adventure, fun, romance, friendships, a giant rabbit called Snowli, the Austrian bomb squad and so much more. Head to Amazon on the 13th of October!

Indian summer - hot stuff.

So the move is done! Hurray! It was horrendous. Had to keep the keys a few extra days to get it all done, but I'm now in and settled with my friends. Moving happened during our mini-heatwave, our late Indian Summer heat. It was amazing weather, didn't enjoy it so much when I was schlepping boxes about and moving furniture, but after that was all done, it was brilliant. We had a BBQ last Sunday and it was hard to believe that we were in England on the 2nd of October and not in the South of Europe on a hot summers day. It wasn't just the weather that was amazing though, so much about this last week, has been totally, mind-blowingly amazing. That BBQ night was tremendous, making new friends, meeting such interesting people, feeling that flutter again! Brilliant! A friend, VB, said that a year was a milestone and that things would change. She was right, wise old bird that she is. A polar shift one could say.

I'm packing again, I'm off on holiday. Going to Portugal tomorrow to spend a week with my Dad. It'll be so lovely to see him and spend some quality time with him because, unless he comes to see me in Morzine (which is doubtful, he's not a winter sports sorts of person), I won't actually get to see him until next May/June - yikes! That's the problem with a global family really, everyone spread out over the globe, but thanks to social networking and Skype etc. the world really does seem much smaller than it actually is.

I've been practising my chalet menu. So far I've cooked about eight things out of the recipe book (not even a tiny fraction of it really!), and they've all been received well! Going to wow my Dad with a recipe or two this next week.


Got a new snowboard this week! I went for a Bataleon Violenza 153 and it came with Burton Escapade bindings. Pretty sweet and got it all for £200, which I thought was a bit of a bargain! It's in my room and it's the first thing I've laid eyes on for the past few days, helping to get my excitement building for the coming Alpine fun season!

Just a last little thought for today, as I sit here in this gorgeous living room, in this gorgeous house that's in a beautiful bit of countryside, I feel so incredibly lucky and grateful to have such wonderfully giving friends around me. KH and LH have taken me and I really can't thank them enough. I mean, doesn't it just blow your mind when someone really helps you out and welcomes you into their life?! It blows my mind and I'm so stoked that I can count on friends like them. Not only them though, AH, DS and DM helped me move, not just once, but twice and I feel so lucky to have such wonderful friends.

Time to get on with the suitcase, swimwear and summer stuff is the order of the day, it's still 30+ degrees in Portugal! Boof! :)

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