General works and a day in the snow

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We’ve achieved this week. Our garage ceiling is now painted white. Since the room is scarcely a showpiece (though it is the entrance to the house) you may well wonder why we've bothered. Well, we recently discovered that the discoloured marks on the ceiling were not just general grime, but blood & fat from the bodies of the beasts that the butcher who used to live here slaughtered right here in the garage.

We’ve painted kitchen doors, and most satisfyingly of all, have destroyed a garden shed. This lost its roof in the recent storms, and when we asked ourselves about repairing it, back came the answer ’Well, why should we? We don’t even use the wretched thing.’ Knocking it down WAS fun, and we’ve liberated all kinds of old wood from it to burn on the stove, so that was exciting too.

We’ve organised the wood store, making room for the 4 cubic metres of logs we’ve just bought. Take our word for it - that’s a lot of wood. Moving it from the street to the garage took 2 solid hours. Moving it from the garage to the store ditto.

We considered we’d earned our day off today, with our randonneurs. Raquettes again. This time it involved taking a cable car from a village above Ax les Thermes, Bonascre way up into the mountains. Bonascre is a ski station that did little to persuade me I’ve been missing out all these years I haven’t been skiing. Lots of high-rise apartments, lots of chips and burger type bars, and lots of people. The nursery slopes were as crowded as Blackpool beach in its heydays (not that I’ve been to Blackpool beach, now or in its heydays). High up above the village was a different matter. Completely encircled by snow-covered peaks, we enjoyed an early picnic before setting off down the slopes on our raquettes. Everyone else considered it fun, because it was all downhill. I on the other hand hated it. I kept stumbling over my own feet, fixed to their large plastic and metal bases, and I had difficulty having faith in the raquettes’ ability to keep me safe and upright. I’m no good at descent, even though I’m not particularly afraid of falling, and would have much preferred battling uphill. The path itself, through pine trees bearded with long tendrils of lichen and passing occasional glacial streams, with only the sound of our raquettes crunching through the deep crisp snow was quite special.

I recognise I couldn’t have experienced it in any other way, but raquettes? Nah, done that. Next time it’s on the schedule I’ll stay home and find another shed to destroy

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Photos

Only the first coat.
Some way to go before that garage ceiling is perfect

You might think that shed looks ramshackle....
...but 'make do and mend' produced tough seviceable results

Woodstore stacked up and ready for use.
The logs are 3 layers deep in there

The view from our cable car or 'oeuf' as they call it
You can see why we were keen to get up and away from the ski resort

Picnic over, this was the view as we set off
The sky looks slightly ominous