recipe for disaster

Ingredients
4 couples

1 bottle pastis
3 bottles white wine

16 snowshoes

snow to season

1. Mix the first 3 ingredients in a log cabin at the top of a mountain late at night. When the wine and pastis have reduced by half, add more wine and pastis. Bring the mixture to the boil by talking about politics. When the mixture has foamed and subsided, remove the couples from the chalet and reserve the right wing and the left wing supporters separately.

2. Add snowshoes and cover with waterproof wrap. Plunge into a snow storm.

3. After 2 hours return the couples to the cabin and pat dry.

re belote

We didn't do too well at our local concours de belote on Saturday but we did get chatting to Fester, Madame la Mairesse's co-pilot, who told us that the modifications to our planning application are going through.

We faired better on Sunday when we were two games out of two up and only needed 15 points in the third game to qualify for the finals. We'd come from 600 points down and a crowd had gathered to watch la rosbife and her completely unfathomable random playing. Then we were 'capot'ed (when the winning team wins every trick) and it was game over.

We've been invited to go snowshoe-ing on Saturday night and then for dinner in a cabane de chasse (a log cabin used by hunters) up in the mountains - which could be interesting.

belote

The belote* season is in full swing now with the village concours (competition) on Saturday, followed by a neighbouring village's on Sunday. There are usually some good prizes for the winners and the runners-up at these events: whole pigs (I kid you not), ski passes, sporting goods and equipment, restaurant vouchers. I'm still a novice so I'm deciding whether to play this weekend or to adopt last year's strategy - which was to stand at the bar chatting to the winners who looked the least sporty (the guy in a wheelchair was a dead cert) and wait for them to hand over the goods. Last year I "won" two free ski passes and a rucksack.

We're going to Méribel tomorrow to spend two nights in Miss Fit's chalet so we may not be in a fit state to play cards at the weekend anyway.

* card game played by just about everybody here - a bit like whist.

shoot the mole

BB was helping Poire with his garage roof again today and came back at lunchtime to say that the gunshots I'd heard earlier (and assumed were hunters) had been Poire "de-moling".

Poire moved into a house on the plateau above us last year and spent thousands laying a new lawn (and planting various exotic flora - including banana trees - in the Alps!) which has been blighted by dozens of molehills. When his wife, Poirette, alerted him to some movement in one of the conical mounds this morning, he went out with his 12 bore and started shooting up the lawn. I was ready to go round there sporting my PETA T-shirt until I read the following on a gardening website on how to rid your garden of moles:

Trapping is often the best method for young inexperienced moles. The normal type of trap has a scissors action which to be honest is somewhat barbaric.

Fumigating is another method often used, however you are limited to how far the poisonous smoke will travel.

Baiting worms with poison is another method. This is best carried out by a professional mole catcher as the poisons used are licensed and very dangerous to other animals and birds.

Which makes shooting them sound pretty humane in comparison.

quelle jolie table

The previous mayor came round yesterday to ask if he could borrow BB's van. We could probably make a living hiring it out given the number of people who've used it. In the beginning BB did the driving, until an acquaintance, Madame Pas De Mates, borrowed it for a removal and BB and I ended up hauling all her heavy white goods up six flights of stairs (while she chatted on her mobile!!) because nobody else turned up to help. Now the driver and the dogsbodies are not included.

Anyway, BB invited him in for a drink and imagine my surprise when he started going on about "quelle jolie table" as if he'd never set eyes on our kitchen table before. He's chased me round it often enough (funnily enough just after BB has left for the Sunday Club) but I suppose his mind wasn't on the finer points of mortise and tenon joints!

When I told BB about this "mayor trying to get wife in clinch" episode I thought he'd be outraged, but instead he said I should have "obliged" and we might have had our planning application passed quicker!

and the moral of the story

The intemperate weather continues, keeping the builders away, but at least allows us to ski without feeling as if we're skiving. The head builder came round last week with an invoice for the work done so far and said he'd be back "when it gets warmer", for which read: "after I've been to Acapulco on your big fat rosbif cheque and fancy doing a bit of work again."

My new year resolutions to drink less and exercise more fizzled out when I went to a party after two weeks' abstention and passed out after a couple of glasses of wine, and then my back went during the "pump" section of Davina's "High Energy Five" fitness DVD.

Moral? Story?

santa's little helper

The builders didn't turn up last week despite the weather not being as bad as predicted, but they were back on Monday and Tuesday and are absent again because it hasn't stopped snowing since Tuesday night. Over a foot and counting. The plan was to get all the masonry work (pool, supporting walls, new lintels and first floor concrete slab) done by Christmas but that's not going to happen now.

The annual battle for the most garish Christmas lights has begun and new-kid-on-the-plateau Poire looks to be in pole position, with M. Slip a close runner-up. I went up to the plateau to have a look tonight and even through the thick fog it looked like Vegas - dancing Santas climbing up the outside of the house, lit-up reindeers and sleighs all over the lawns, flashing lights on all the bushes and trees and all over the house. It's enough to bring on an epileptic fit.

Interesting fact: In 1962 a law was passed in France decreeing that all letters written to Santa would be responded to with a postcard. What an interesting job description that must be.