Have Visa - will travel.............

After two early morning dashes to Edinburgh we have our Visas!

If you haven't guessed already - the visits were to the Chinese Embassy. Grannie and Grandad are flying to Shanghai. Bearing gifts of course. Mostly Nutella, Marmite and Bisto.

We leave tomorrow. So whether I can blog or not remains to be seen.....

So I'll leave you with one of my Serre-Poncon pictures - taken one evening, around sunset.........

{Sunset across the lake}

Back soon (ish).............................................................

Back again!

After a great couple of weeks beside the Dordogne and a longer than scheduled time in Yorkshire - I'm back at last, blogging........

The unscheduled extra time away was thanks to the strikes in France this week.  EasyJet had to cancel my flight on Tuesday so I eventually flew back on Thursday (yesterday).  No problems though - EasyJet made it easy to re-book through the website.

I've a few pictures of the holiday but I haven't had time to sort them out yet - so a report will follow soon.

It's very Autumnal here now with some trees almost bare and others various shades of orange, yellow and red.  Also rather chilly out of the sun.

So now it'll be a few days of unpacking, washing clothes and more than a bit of sleeping..............

Too much to do now...........

...before I fly off to Gatwick tomorrow. Then (don't ask why) I'm catching a flight on Saturday to Bordeaux.
It's been almost a year but I'm taking up an appointment walk leading for HF Holidays for a couple of weeks.

Today I realised I hadn't kept up to date with my walk reports. And apart from last Saturday, which was declared 'Laura's birthday' even though it isn't really till next Tuesday, there has been a walk everyday.  I got a new rucksack (yes, I know I've got loads already) which hopefully will cover those day walks when I have to carry a lot. Such as when I'm leading.

So now I'm all packed up and ready to go. Except the computer cos I'm using that......

{Photo of Mont Viso, me and my new rucksack}

A brilliant walk to the viewpoint for Mont Viso. It's a beautiful valley, despite some large cows who were rather too interested in passing walkers...

{Photo of the longest bearded lichen I have ever seen}

This spectacular area of woodland was on the GR 50 - this time walking the other way from the house here. All the trees were festooned with lichen of all types. Quite magical.

{Photo from the terrace where I had a cup of coffee at Refuge de l'Ecole, Dormillouse}

Yesterday it was an afternoon walk up to Dormillouse. The village is at 1700 m and is occupied all year round. There is no road to it, so supplies still have to be transported up (originally on mules) or helicoptered in at great expense. A village founded by a protestant cleric in the nineteeth century, although the Romans were there earlier.  The tourist route up is a walk of about 1.75 km and takes around 45 minutes. Once there it's possible if you have enough time to carry on and visit two mountain lakes. It was too late in the day for this so I took the old mule track back down, then another path called the Sentier des Cascades which follows the river bank back to the carpark. Since I did this walk about 5 years ago there have been a lot of rock-falls and small avalanches, making the path a bit treacherous in places. The valley is full of birds, and plenty of butterflies, so it was a very enjoyable walk.

{Photo of the path fallen away - I took this after I'd clambered past it!}

And finally...........

..



{Photo of marmotte posing for my camera.....}

Genuinely taken by me - although I have to admit the marmotte lives on the hill under the Fort at Mont Dauphin which is just opposite the house here. Sadly the community of marmottes there are often visited by humans and inevitably fed all sorts of unlikely snacks. The diet of crisps, sweets and bread has caused the population to dwindle by half in the last ten years with a high incidence of diabetes, respiratory diseases and other fatal consequences (for the animals although it might be true of the people too!..) I walked up the Sentier des Marmottes, and was delighted to meet several very chubby marmottes. They'll be hibernating soon so they're at their fattest now. Over the six months they sleep they lose about 3 kg of weight, waking every two or three weeks to urinate (in a special part of the burrow.)

By the time I get back here (about 12th October) they might be sleeping................

Too Close for Comfort...................

Just made it back on Saturday night (well, Sunday morning!) from the Canaries after more volcanic ash got in the way of flying. The plane had to detour round past Corsica (apparently - actually it was too dark to see anything out of the plane window...).

Anyway now home in Scotland. And desperately trying to get my rucksack packed for the Challenge. I have managed to persuade Him Indoors to give me a lift to Mallaig on Thursday - that saves me having to leave here on Wednesday afternoon for comfortable connections on Thursday morning.

I still have loads of things to do - including printing out my route and working out how to post to this blog by mobile phone.

At the moment it's a distinct possibility that I won't be able to lift the rucksack never mind carry it.............

Flying visit..........

John has some meetings back in the UK so we're both going to get on the EasyPeasy Jet from Marseille to Gatwick next Tuesday (19th January).

I don't usually go back with him - preferring to stay here and do a bit of x-country skiing or walking (depending on the time of year) on my own. This time it seemed a good opportunity to catch up with my sisters and mum who all live quite near to Gatwick in Chessington.

Chessington was where I lived when I was small. I can remember hearing the lions roaring at night in the Zoo - now it's called Chessington World of Adventures. I even worked in the Zoo when I was a teenager - serving coffees in the restaurant just beside the elephant enclosure - earning 1s 11/2d an hour. If you were late by even a minute you lost an hour's wage! Thankfully it was only a holiday job.

I haven't worked out how to put a picture link for YouTube yet but if you click below you can watch a film about Chessington Zoo in 1964!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Myc0S9b493M


After I've stayed a couple of days with my sister I'm going up to Yorkshire. Then we'll spend the weekend with our daughter. It'll be great to see my little grandson again.

Monday afternoon should see us swimming in the pool at a hotel near Gatwick. Sounds posh but it was cheap! The Hairy-plane leaves first thing on Tuesday so we should be back here by teatime. Hooray!

I can't decide whether to carry my computer or not - baggage is such a hassle on flights now I may be tempted to leave it behind.  That means probably no posts from me for a week...............unless I change my mind!