Here's a puzzle...............

{The supermarket cafe}

Visiting the supermarket for hot chocolate last week culminated in meeting with our former holiday house neighbours (who now live in Embrun) inviting us to dinner on Sunday evening past. It would be a raclette - that way they can feed me without having to go vegetarian for everyone.

If you're unfamiliar with raclette it consists of loads of cheese (special cheese which melts into a kind of creamy deliciousness), boiled potatoes, cold meat, and in this case, a bowl of courgettes. The idea is to melt the cheese under a heating element (usually called a raclette machine) in little individual pans. Our friends also served us a really good salad, and some quail's eggs.

Anyway, back to the puzzle. 

We arrived and had 'nibbles' and some Lagavulin. John is gradually educating the local population about good whisky. Lagavulin is probably my favourite whisky so that was a good start to the evening. The conversation for these 'soirees' is, of course, all in French.

One of the topics for the evening was the notion of  'le fair play'. We (well, John really) explained about cricket and rules and gentlemen not cheating etc. It appeared to go down well. Then came the crunch question....

A friend of theirs had been discussing what the English do when someone at a dinner table starts to tell a story they've told before. Apparently one should indicate that the story is a repeat by placing one's teaspoon across one's cup. The question was -  is this the case and how did this bit of etiquette work in practice. Oh dear!

First of all, we'd never heard of it. Secondly, we'd no idea how it would work and thirdly, we'd still no idea!

I think it just added to the mystery for the French afterall it had been a Frenchman who had uncovered this piece of weirdness on the part of the British. And now we (the British) couldn't help with any information.....that just made us even more weird!

Even after searching on Google later we have no idea where this notion came from. The only reference to placing a spoon across a cup seems to be American etiquette to indicate that you don't want any more tea!

By the way, we had a wonderful evening, with excellent hosts and some interesting, shared conversation.

I just wondered whether anyone else has come across this teaspoon messaging system - I'd love to hear (read) your comments if you have..........

{Our local plan d'eau - also frozen - we walked around this on Saturday}

The Great Wall .........

{The Howard Johnson Paragon Hotel, Beijing - the lobby}

We were quite pleased with our hotel in Beijing. There were a few complications when we tried the lift but that was soon sorted out (had to use our room card to make it go up to our floor - doh!) and we had a great view of the roof tops.

One small peculiarity was a glass wall (usually called a 'window') between the bathroom and the main room. There was a venetian blind to drop so you could get privacy - but the mind boggles as to why it wasn't just an ordinary wall!

We dumped our bags, quickly unpacked, then went out for our first exploration of the area.  The first thing we found was that the hotel complex included a shopping centre. It was a bit like a cross between a department store and an undercover market, with stalls. On the lower ground floor there were dozens of booths selling all sorts of food, either to eat there or take away.

{Take your pick!}

Eventually we chose a bigger, more traditional restaurant on the ground floor. I even managed to choose a few vegetarian options, but only by scrutinising the photographs closely. When the food came it was excellent. The best was a dish of crisp rolled lettuce with a peanut dip - yum!

{Our taxi and driver}

After breakfast the next morning Helen arrived in the taxi to collect us for the day's sightseeing. The highlight of the day had to be our trip to see the Great Wall. I enjoyed this but it wasn't really as I was expecting it to be. We visited the Badaling part of it which is about an hour's drive from the city.

A hair-raising journey on the motorway brought us out into real countryside with hills and limestone rocks. In contrast to Shanghai, very few of the road signs were in English which made it a real 'magical mystery tour'.

{Badaling ticket office}

Access to the Wall was by a small cable car such as you find at ski resorts.

Once off the lift we went through a dark concrete tunnel and then into the open.

{Finally............}

It was much more crowded than I imagined it would be. Underfoot it was flagged stone, but exceedingly steep, often with very irregular steps. All these things made it quite hard going. The views were spectacular but I longed to go to a less busy part of the Wall to walk on it more comfortably. I'm putting that on the list for our next trip to China!

{Smile!.............}

{The view from the top}

Once back in the taxi we were whisked to lunch - a serve yourself buffet obviously laid on specially for bus trippers, a visit to the Cloisonne factory beneath it, a museum of artefacts at the Ming dynasty tombs, a jade factory and finally, to the 'famous Peking Duck' restaurant for dinner. Or in my case, not Duck but tofu ('doufou') - which was quite tasty.

{One of the Ming Emperors - I don't remember which one...}

{The entrance to the Peking Duck restaurant}

{John posing with the Duck!}

Which sleeping bag.......part 2

First of all, a big THANK YOU to all of you who've taken the time to try and help me with the sleeping bag decision. I've had loads of good advice and recommendations. What a great community this is!

However, here's an update.

The 'feather' thing keeps raising its head with me. My ethical conscience has gone into overdrive. So for that reason I've been investigating the 'down' business a bit more deeply. There's some interesting stuff on the net about it, though it doesn't always make easy reading.

During my search for information I came across 'Tundra, ethical down sleeping bags'. Now the Pure -5 gets a good crit from Trail and this bag weighs in at a respectable 850g. No, it's not as light as some of the others. But it does have a full length zip and water-resistant head and foot.

Seems like this could be the answer for me.

{Tundra Pure -5}

I haven't bought one yet but I'd be interested if anyone has experience of one?

Which sleeping bag....................?

I've been busy making a list of the down sleeping bags I am considering to replace my Vaude synthetic bag.

There's nothing really wrong with the Vaude bag - it has served me well. It's warm and cosy but it's not lightweight (maybe 1.4 kg, more with stuff bag) and it doesn't compress very small. In fact, it takes up the whole space of the bottom compartment of my rucksack.

{Vaude Kiowa 200 sleeping bag}

So here is the list of candidates. They are all 3 season down bags. Now I do have a bit of a problem with feathers, after all they really belong on birds! I don't like the idea of supporting the meat-eating industry nor do I like the idea of live birds being plucked. However, I have to admit that if I could save a good deal of space in my rucksack, and carry 500g less, but still be warm and cosy, I might be tempted to buy one of these bags.

• Mountain Equipment Xero 550
• RAB Neutrino W 400
• Mountain Hardwear W Phantom 15
• Golite W Adrenaline 3
• PHD Minim 400 (short, with zip)
• PHD Combi bag (short, with zip)

So how do I make the decision? Should it be by price, size, compressibility, durability, or even colour?
After all, I am a Libran - HELP!.............

Birthday Boy..................

Today is John's birthday. So he's the Birthday Boy!

Unfortunately the weather is being unco-operative and it's not going to be a skiing day.

Our plan is to go for lunch in Briancon. The old town is full of interesting little restaurants. Not all of them can cope with a Veggie (me) so we will have to wander along (actually 'down' or 'up' would be more accurate as it's quite steep) reading all the menu boards until one catches the eye.

For this I expect John to be wearing his new hat.

I was encouraged to buy a Tilley hat for his birthday present by this blog post -   http://phreerunner.blogspot.com/2010/03/tale-of-three-tilleys.html 

Fortunately it fits perfectly. He's wearing it now while looking at his emails.

It looks so good I might have to get one for myself!

then this - added later:-

{Photo of the Birthday Boy with new hat}

{Photo of lunch - that's Venison Stew and for me Vegetarian Crepe with Salad}

Glorious Food.........

We had lunch today at the restaurant with the wonderful savoury tarts - I had the Leek & Mushroom again - as it was so delicious last time. Avoiding the chips I had a green salad which had chick peas in it. 

{Photo of my Leek & Mushroom Tart - with salad}

And the skiing was pretty good too!

I should be putting stuff in the suitcase now. But we're just having a cuppa after getting home from the slopes. I'm making a list of things (mostly food) that I'm going to try and bring back with us.

We both love Indian food so I need to top up on some of the spices I can't get here. The French generally don't eat very hot spicy things. Let's hope the customs don't mind a bag or two of fenugreek seeds in the luggage!

When we get back we're planning a Burns Night Supper for the neighbours so the bag will also contain a couple of turnips (swedes to the English) and two haggis (one vegetarian of course!).

Afterthought..............

Here are the things I regularly bring out from home as they are either completely unavailable, with no suitable alternative or are ridiculously expensive...

marmite   bisto    rolled oats   unroasted cashew nuts   whole dried red chillies   green pumpkin seeds
tea bags   whole grain brown rice    baked beans   hp sauce   faith in nature shampoo  Cuprofen  
curry spices    soya chunks   tvp mince    parsnips   Christmas pudding   chunky marmalade.........

I'm sure there are more but that's all I can think of just now!

The Wind Chill Factor...........................

BRRRR!

That sound is my teeth chattering while skiing - not a good thing at all - and it got worse after lunch.

This was the first sunny day for quite a while so me and Him Indoors grabbed our skiis, pausing to throw on a few extra clothes, and headed for the Queyras National Park where we do most of our skiing these days.

What we hadn't really noticed was just how cold it was!

The van thermometer was reading -7 when we arrived at the chair lift. A stiff North Westerly breeze must have knocked the numbers down to around -20.  Before long the little hairs in my nose began to freeze up.
(That's probably too much information.............).

We managed three runs (well, I did, John only did two, then headed for the restaurant).  I joined him after another cold ride up the chair.

The little stone and wooden hut was crammed with people, and the menu was good for me for a change. As it was Saturday (again) I had chips (frites) with a piece of Leek & Mushroom tart. I should maybe mention here how difficult it is for vegetarians to eat out in France. I survive mainly on Goat's Cheese Salad or Pizza or in extreme cases, just a plate of chips. To find a savoury vegetable tart is a bit of a triumph for me. And there are two other flavours to try - Provencal (like a ratatouille) and Courgette & Mint. That means I can go back another day and eat something different! Fantastic!

However after a thorough warm-up in the restaurant it felt even colder back on the slopes. I kept thinking of my lovely down waistcoat which I could have worn........... After not very long we both agreed to give up and go home.

Now I'm cooking up some of the Festive left-overs into a good hot curry. Yum!

Getting Started...................

Welcome to my new blog (well my only blog!) - I'm discovering how hard it is to get started with this. I'm so enjoying reading other blogs that I felt moved to start my own...........We'll have to wait and see how it develops.

Currently I'm in the Alps - watching the rain gradually wash away all the recent snow we've had. The sky is so misty I can't see the mountains. More importantly it's so wet that I'm reluctant to go out at all.

Today is Christmas Eve.
I'm cooking soup for dinner tomorrow. It's going to be Carrot, Lemon & Ginger (I hope!).
All the other food, veggies, the turkey etc is cooling down in the garage (no more room in the fridge for now!)

I maybe should explain a bit about me. I'm a vegetarian but have a family who all eat meat so I do cook it for others. I've been vegetarian for nearly 40 years and it suits me very well.
I love to be outdoors. I have done since I was small. One of my earliest memories is of making mud pies in my Nan's garden. I had a lovely doll's pram which I used as a wheelbarrow for the pies. And I hated dolls.

Here in the Alps we bought a house so we could stay and ski all winter now that we're retired. I also discovered wonderful hiking routes for the summer. Winters in Scotland had become just wet and miserable - much like some of the summers.
Although for a long time we supported and enjoyed skiing in Scotland (mostly at Glenshee) the change in the climate meant fewer and fewer days which it was possible.

I have three children. My eldest son works in Canada as a ski coach. My only daughter is married, living in Yorkshire and works managing indoor ski slopes.  My youngest son lives in Zurich where he works for FIFA Films. I have a gorgeous (of course) grandson in Yorkshire who is 3 years old already.

That's probably enough for today............