A tough day at school!
We have discovered since living in France that, most of the
time here, it is best just to go with the flow. Hence, when we learned on
Monday that Tuesday school was cancelled (teachers on strike for the day),
rather than stressing about childcare and cancelled meetings, we decided to ‘saisir
le jour’ and hit the slopes for the day, despite the forecast looking decidedly
ropey. The teachers, however, clearly had insider knowledge that neither we,
nor Meteo France were privy to because by the time we had our skis on, the
clouds had cleared, the sky was blue, the views were breathtaking and we spent
the day skiing on 30 centimetres of fresh powder and almost empty pistes (only
a few teachers to be seen here and there!) in the sunshine, punctuated by lunch
in our favourite restaurant.
Nice spot for lunch - Chalet Beauregarde
It is days like these which remind us why we decided to
settle in this very special part of the world. There can’t be many places where
you can be skiing within an hour of leaving home and the fact that our nearest
skiing happens to be one of the best kept secret in the Pyrénées, means that we
often feel as if we have our own private ski resort. And yet, while much of
Europe has been struggling with bad weather and snow, we have not had any at
home; we just have the pleasure of looking at it on the mountains from the
window and enjoying it on sunny days when we feel like it.
Empty pistes and fresh powder snow
The teachers certainly picked their day for a strike – and
we are already looking forward to the next one!
Paradise in the Pyrenees
P.S. We weren’t the only one bunking off – the gendarmes were at
it too!
Police on piste
