Back once again it’s the renegade master
After a five month hiatus, we’re back for season two. I know it’s season two because I have Twitter Haters – and I have never felt so important in my life.
Nonetheless, I remain entirely unrepentant about those who don’t wish to hear about my – *checks notes* – “Long Arse Holiday”. Share the love, I always say. Share. The. Love.
And so, we’re back. A part of my blackened heart is always here and I’ve been dreaming about returning since we left in September. Five weeks are stretching in front of me – our first long stay in the winter.
The drive down takes two days and we make this part of the holiday, otherwise it’s deadly dull until you hit Geneva. This time we had a wild ride down through Storm Putain, punctuated by my sudden, intense and inevitably fickle love affair with Big Jet TV. Along with most of the UK, it seems. While I wasn’t being mesmerised by a man bellowing “The Russians are coming – and they don’t mind a bit of weather, do they?” I spent my time dozing and daydreaming. Sometimes when I wasn’t driving. Stopovers in Calais – oh the glamour – and Dijon gave us a chance to catch our breath and, of course, eat a lot. Who knew that a Calais hotel fashioned from a shipping container would produce a prix fixe menu worthy of far grander surroundings?
Life, as my first manager in financial services liked to remind me with unfailing regularity, is a Funny Old Game. None more so than in the last couple of weeks when it’s taken my breath away a couple of times with its ability to blindside me. And so, setting to one side the inevitable ache of people I miss in the UK, being here is a wonderful thing. The mountains give me headspace that I don’t find anywhere else and for me, skiing is a wild freedom that gives me more joy than almost anything else I do.
We’re spending our first week at the fabulous Ferme de Montagne – a very belated treat for my 50th birthday last year. I’m acutely aware of the absolute privilege in that last sentence and I intend to make the most of every second of a week where the only thing I’ll have to do for myself is breathe in and out.
Love this 🥰🥰🥰