Vacances chez Oliver

Premiere journee en famille. l'apres midi, nous sommes alles a Semnoz faire du ski de fond.



Tres belle vue avec cette inversion nuageuse et un groupe de randoneurs en raquettes:



Aujourd'hui, ski de randonnee dans le massif des Aravis, a Bellefrasse. Nous allons derriere la crete, entre les deux sommets centraux:



Comme je suis lourd (!) j'ai laisse l'apareil photo dans la voiture, et garde le gps. Voici notre trace:



De retour sur le parking. Hubert, Jean-Louis et Oliver:



Demain, Oliver et Hubert nous emmenent faire la traversee de la dent de Lanfon. Depart et retour a la frontalel, monte en raquette a neige, puis piolets et crampons. J'espere que l'echauffement de ce weekend sera sufisant!

When i'm feeling blue...

... I cook!

I try to find a recipe to cheers me up - and also Louise :) Last week, I had an aubergine in the fridge:



Google to the rescue! Find a suitable recipe: a pie with aubergine in it.



The robot does the hard work - I wish...



Final result - it tasted as good as it looks!



And here's another one i did soon after, brocoli and blue cheese "gratin"

Good bye Tom

Tom is going back to Australia. Some South African mountain biking friends of his organised a weekend in Afan (south Wales), so i fixed my bike and joined them.

On saturday, I really struggled to keep up for the whole 40km we did. But we had good, dry weather instead of the fog/drenching we were promised, and i really enjoyed the day. Here is an image of our ride, recorded by the GPS. Click here to open the file in google Earth, or to download it.



I only had my mobile to take pictures with, the quality is not too good.

At the start:


First breakdown - and only - breakdown:


First long climg, and last time i had the chance to take pictures of the others from the front (!)


First break:


Another break, I'll loose my smile soon:


Near the end we caught up with other friends who did a different ride. Here's Julie:


On sunday, I emptied all the spare layers from my bag to take the bigger camera:





After these 3 pictures i realised i'd left the gps in the car park, so i raced back down and then tried to catch up with the rest of the group, which i did after a couple of hours non stop except for this picture:




A big thanks to Claire and Spike who organised this. I hope to join you for more adventures on wheel next year!

And good luck to Tom on his return to Aus.

Les Visiteurs!

Isabelle et Guilhem sont venu pour un weekend - c'etait en octobre. On a eu beaucoup de chance avec le temps, plutot sec. Cliquez sur l'image ci dessous pour voir le reste des photos ou bien ici pour le diaporama.
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Weekend in Amsterdam

Louise was doing a one week course in Arhem last month. I went with her in advance to enjoy a weekend in Amsterdam.

Click here the picture to access the other pictures from this trip, all on flickr

Quand on voit ca, on comprend mieux...

... pourquoi ca casse:



Et moi qui croyais que je ne faisais pas beaucoup de velo! Qu'est ce que je vais trouver quand je vais nettoyer les moyeux des roues? du sable?

J'ai casse mes velos!

Les anglais disent "fait en fromage" (made of cheese) quand ils pensent qu'un bout de velo n'est pas solide. A voir ce qui reste de mon derailleur, on comprend!

Happy Beasties

In the garden:


In the house:

Aiguille de l'Index

Il serait temps que je termine les photos de vacances. Nous sommes revenus a Chamonix apres la tempete pour faire l'ascension de l'aiguille de l'Index. Voici Louise au parking du telepherique:



Une heure plus tard, au pied de la voie on fait la queue. Il y a 2 cordees devant nous, et comme le matin nous etions a Verbier en train de plier la tente, il etait deja assez tard: on a commence a grimper vers 12h30. Mais on a tout le temps de manger nos sandwichs et de preparer la corde!



Prochain arret le sommet. Il est 3 heures quelque chose. Ca risque d'etre juste pour la benne du retour.



Apres les rappels et la bartasse, nous voila sur le chemin. Le telepherique viens de s'arreter. Il nous faut redescendre a pied, loin dans la vallee... Mais pour le moment on a encore le sourire!



Apres 2 grosses heures de marche qui n'etaient pas prevues au programme, nous voila dans la vallee. On a coupe a travers le golf pour rejoindre la voiture. On n'etait pas les seuls, un couple d'islandais qui etaient au sommet en meme temps que nous viennent de nous doubler. Derriere nous, l'Index c'est l'aiguille qui se detache sur la droite:



La journee s'est terminee a la pizzeria pour Louise - qui s'est assoupie dans la voiture - et chez Oliver pour moi, devant un bon verre de genepis. C'est notre sommet de ces vacances - sur 3,5 tentatives (!)

vacances a la montagne: promenades

Time to catch up with uploading the holiday pictures:

vacances a la montagne (2) - weekend chez Oliver

J'ai plus de bras !

Vacances a la montagne (1)

Oh jungleland!

There's life in my vegetable patch:



There's also some happy growing veggies:



Just after a 4 days weekend i get to harvest this :

gps tracks

Linux computer + garmin etrex gps = lots of head scratching, and success at last. Here is a map of last sunday's bike ride:


Now i have to tackle the backlog of such maps, and to find a way to upload routes on the gps. But for now i am happy :))

I would like to thank fub for his explanations.

cheap sci-fi set

I had to cycle through a cement factory on Sunday. It felt as if i was visiting the set for a cheap science fiction television series:



Here's another one, a bit more 70's "James Bond":

The Truth about Politics

Click on the picture and play the "time for some campaignin'" video to have a good laugh...

It's a sign...

That i'd never seen before. Somewhere between the M40 and Banbury - trying to escape from the mayhem on the motorway... Here's the bridge in question:



Fortunately there was a layby soon after. The "road" was a bit narrow...

Bird rescue

A little bird got trapped in Louise's loft. There's a nest somewhere on the roof and this one must have found a way inside. Louise caught it in her hands (!), but to climb down the loft ladder we put it in a cardboard box. I got the camera just in time to set it free: