Goats and New Neighbours
It’s not every day I get a goat being up close and personal with my inner thighs, but at the ripe old age of 50½ the time has finally come.
Today we’d planned to walk to a lovely restaurant across on Mont Caly. My legs are a bit tired after yesterday’s effort and we fancied an easy amble for a good lunch. Alas, the lovely restaurant is fully booked until Friday.
Once Nick had regained his composure following this shock news, we headed up to the top of Chavannes on the chairlift. Some of the lifts in the resort are adapted to carry VTT bikes up the hill in the summer – almost every chair has a couple of bikes on the back, which are unloaded with grim determination by the lift operators at the top.
We’d planned a shortish walk up to a small café at the top of the Charniaz lift, some lunch and a leisurely stroll down. But we’d not got 500 metres before I could see Nick eyeing up the Ranfoilly and I could see where I was going to end up for the second day in a row.
And so it came to pass. Up we went, to be enthusiastically greeted by the herd of rambunctious goats who roam around the place en masse like hormonal teenagers, causing as much trouble as possible.
Before he’d even had time to admire the view, Nick was getting his leg licked.
Goats like to share their favours and my legs were attended to with equal thoroughness. I’m pretty sure she got more sun cream and smidge than salt, but she kept on coming back for more.
The next batch of tomme chèvre I buy may have a slightly odd flavour – especially as a man who was minding his own business having a snooze on a bench got rudely woken by a goat licking his feet. And trying to eat his bag.
Fully desalinated, we headed back down to civilisation and lunch at La Cabusche. I’ve never been here before but the owners shout a cheery bonjour to me every time I run past them – and their frites didn’t disappoint. Neither did the view.
Heading down, we stopped by the Lac des écoles for a small restorative, before heading home to do some lazing around. It’s a hard life.
However, the day’s excitement was not yet over. It appears we have new neighbours in the next door chalet. Their parking spot is very close to our balcony and I discovered that my yoga mat is perfectly positioned for a bit of neighbour judging through the gaps in the wood on the balcony. If I’ve ever written a more middle class sentence then I don’t know what it is.
Two cars, chock full of teenage girls. I expect there are probably only about 3 of them but it looked and sounded like an entire flock. In amongst the flapping and squawking there was the horror of having to pull their own cases for 10 metres. Up a small incline. The humanity.
Our departing neighbours had small boys, dogs and footballs – I suspect this lot are going to offer me a great deal more entertainment from my worthy position on the yoga mat for the next few days.
