That’s No Ordinary Oiseau, That’s a Golden Eagle
We’re into our second week here already – as predicted, the time is sliding away. The last couple of days have been pretty self-indulgent, really – and it’s been lovely.
Our necessary supermarket run yesterday morning was painless (chapeau to Carrefour for providing paper bags instead of plastic for fruit and veg) and we headed off up Mont Chéry ready for our hike across to Mont Caly for lunch at the ever fabulous Les Chevrelles.
It’s very hot here at the moment so we suffered the terrible lunch view from under an umbrella. I had an omelette with local mushrooms, frites and then their wonderful raspberry tart. Just as good as I remembered from last year.
We staggered home, showered the sweat and salt off then lay around groaning about how we were never going to eat again until we remembered we had some lovely cheese and bread and charcuterie and…
Next Door has had an influx of 20-somethings. I’ve no idea what they’ve done with the teenage girls, but the new consignment arrived with an impressive stash of bottles, played wiff waff until they could wiff waff no more and were looking a bit worse for wear when I cheerily Bonjour’d them on my way back from my run this morning. I suspect Next Door might be a bit of a tardis as there are approximately 74 of them at last count. My mission is to get a look inside before we go home, as many seem to go in but nobody comes out.
This morning’s run up to the top of Ranfoilly was hot, hot, hot. My garmin informs me that I’ve acclimatised to an altitude of 1250 metres, so I’m confident of being ok to tackle Pointe d’Angolon next week, when it’s hopefully going to cool down a wee bit.
I didn’t see a single other person for the first couple of miles. I ran into the goats who were getting their breakfast and queueing up to be milked into a bucket – and I eyed their queue etiquette with suspicion. I know this lot and they were being far too cooperative.
It’s almost impossible to not take photos at the top as it looks different every single time I’m up there. It was so hot today that I was glad to head down again to the lower slopes where there’s more tree shade. I’d barely gone a few hundred metres when I heard the goat bells – they’d clearly tired of queueing and decided to head off to find something more interesting to do. This included licking my legs, it seems.
Three of them at it when I only have two legs seemed a bit much, so I disentangled myself and escaped while they went off in search of new prey. They make me laugh every time I see them – they’re so full of bouncing, in the moment joy.
Nick’s been entertaining himself with his camera over the past week and today he was stationed on the balcony eyeing up a bird of prey who was toying with him every time he sensed the lens on him.
Pretty much like the paragliders – we’re on a descent path for them here so they go whooping and hollering over the chalet, only to disappear behind a tree at the critical moment.
However, the bird of prey shot was duly achieved – and it turns out it’s a golden eagle. I’ve never seen one in real life before.
After all this excitement we’ve had a lazy afternoon, before we head out for dinner at La R’mize later. We’re such troopers.
Tomorrow we’re off down to Les Houches, just outside Chamonix, to visit some friends for a BBQ. Past performance tells me I may not be writing an update tomorrow, either.
