I have made a friend in the village, H, and we have started seeing each other once a week or so. We sometimes play Scrabble and chat and other times have a day in town browsing the shops and having lunch. We first met her at a boot sale and got chatting and discovered that we both lived in Castandet. After a first marriage and 5 children she divorced and remarried and at the age of 42 had a 6th child, F. Sadly her husband died suddenly when F was only 4 years old. The other children are now grown up and have flown the nest and F is now 12 years old. H and I get on very well, she has a good sense of humour and we laugh a lot.
At the end of January a day trip to the mountains was organised by the village, mainly for those who wanted to ski. H asked us if we would like to go, Nigel declined but I thought it would be a good day out. So we booked to go, H and I and F and his friend N, the cost was only 15 euros and that included breakfast and lunch as well as the coach fare - not bad value. We had to be at the mairie for 6am so it was a very early start for me. Not being too sure when breakfast would be served I got up in good time to have coffee and cereals before I left to pick up H,F and N en route to the mairie. We left Castandet at 6.15 and arrived at La Mongie at 8.45, the coach having to stop on the mountain to put snow chains on as there had been a big snowfall the day before.
Everyone got off the coach and added several layers of clothing as it was very cold. Breakfast appeared from within the coach and a table was set up. Thermoses of coffee were put out as well as fresh baguettes, ham and cheese oh and red wine for those who wanted it - a bit early in the day even for me! By the time we had eaten F and N were pretty wet through from rolling in the snow and as they were wearing jeans and didn't have a change of clothing I could already see disaster looming!
The skiers picked up there skis, others went to hire skis and we went to hire a couple oof sedges for the boys. Getting to the sledging area was quite a challenge. Firstly it was not very obvious where it was situated and then when we did locate it the fresh, deep snow was not easy to negotiate all of us tumbling over several times. Thankfully the boys were able to occupy themselves with the sledges for an hour or so, getting even wetter in the process. H and I had a go as well, great fun but sadly I am not as agile as I used to be and getting to my feet is not as easy as it used to be. No springing up, more of a stagger!
After an hour or so we went and sat outside one of the many restaurants and had a welvome hot cholcolate and a sit down. The sun was beginning to warm up and had it not been for the constant whinging of the 2 boys it would have been a pleasant interlude.
Then it was back to the coach where everyone met up for lunch. I must say that whoever catered for the trip did a fine job in both the quality and quantity of the food provided. There was more bread,cold meat, pate and cheese as well as 2 huge platters of potato salad and pasta salad. More red wine of course and soft drinks. The only thing that I could complain about is that there was no seating! Had I known I would have taken a folding chair.
By this time the 2 "angels" were soaking wet and whinging dreadfully but they wanted to have another go at sledging so off we set again to negotiate the stagger through the thick snow to the sledging area. When we got there they set off again and H and I sat on our bags on the snow desperate to have some comfort after all the standing around that we had been doing! Sadly the afternoon sledging session was more stressful than the morning session. Having mastered the art of it the boys were now looking for more excitement and this culminated in F escaping our watchful gaze and trying to sledge down a virtual precipice that was out of bounds. On seeing this H yelled at him to stop but he of course took no notice and launched himself down the steep slope. Of course disaster struck and he came off the sledge and started screaming that he couldn't move his leg. We managed to disentangle him and get him up on one leg, screaming all the time. H was sure that he had done himself some serious injury so we set off with N dragging F who we had got down the slope and onto his sledge towards the first aid station. When we got there he refused to go in - I would have dragged him in if he were mine!- but no we then set off for the shop and restaurant area to gather our resources. At this point he was managing to hobble along and I was pretty sure that he hadn't done himself a great injury. On arrival at the shop/restaurant area I was pleased to see that there were lots of deck chairs on the terrace and the sun had warmed the area nicely. At this point I opted out of the childcare and said that I would sit in a deckchair, have a beer and enjoy the sun. H went off in search of trousers to buy so that the boys wouldn't be wet anymore taking them both with her. I then enjoyed the best hour of the day watching the skiers on the slopes, enjoying my beer and soaking up the sun. When they returned she said that F had been almost hyothermic but thankfully she had been able to buy some trousers for them and he was warming up. His leg seemed much better in fact I swear that he kept forgetting to hobble when he thought that no one was looking! Thankfully it was soon time to go back to the coach and leave for home. There was only one casualty, our neighbour S who has been knocked over on the ski slope and suffered a pulled muscle. It was good to sit in comfort on the coach, all I wanted to do was to relax and recover but with the radio in the background blaring out a frenzied commentary on the rugby match and H chatting away there wasn't much hope of that! When we got back to Castandet we were invited to partake of an aperitif much to the 2 boys disgust - in fact F stamped his foot and said that he would walk home and disappeared into the gloom. When H finally found him hiding at the back of the mairie she gave in and I took them home. What a relief it was for me to then come back home to blessed peace and quiet! Not a day that I would like to relive.
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