Dear oh dear, its been a month since I lasted posted, unbelievable! My excuses are connection problems and holidays, which in turn lead to being out of the habit. So all the emails asking what was happening have finally motivated me to log on and of course, as it works with these things, it’s no biggy and now I can stop thinking every night as I drop of to sleep shit I forgot to post again!

We had a great time skiing, good weather, wonderful accommodation in a very atmospheric gite and no broken bones. Though I had a glorious collection of truly horrendous bruises across the back of both thighs from where another skier slammed into me and after the tenth ca va? ca va? from them I begged them to ski on. Ca va? does not cut it with me as an adequate query to my well being after they have temporarily taken away my ability to stand. Jim did not see the incident and showed no particular concern or any interest in piggy backing me down the slopes so I valiantly soldiered on placating myself that appropriate levels of sympathy would follow as soon as the full extent of the collision was evident in the technicolour bruising I knew would appear.
We skied solidly for the week though we did take one morning off to go raquette(?), which is what the french call it when you pop tennis racket like shoes on and go snow hiking. It was a lot of fun and I would certainly be keen to do it again for a lengthier time. I’ll post some photos tomorrow from the holiday.

Other than that we’ve been keeping pretty quiet, Jims very busy at work with 3 paper publications coming up. And as I only work very part time and Jims on a Post Doc we have to watch our pennies to enable us to do the travelling we want. We find the cost of living in France is very high. Petrol is very expensive and what makes our blood boil is the road tolls, it wouldn’t be so bad except on a road trip they will cost more than the petrol. Our French friends tell us it is not so bad and at least they have very good roads, Jim and I smile but the truth is we think the roads are appalling, in Germany you do not pay road tolls and the roads are excellent. I notice the difference in the quality of the roads as soon as I cross the boarder to Belgium, just 20min away. Anyway just a small gripe and really its important to stay focused on the important stuff, like fromage, so very good and so very cheap.

It’s been so cold lately, the news headlines yesterday translated to the cold that keeps staying, it was -5 this morning. I just keep thinking in a few weeks we’ll be in Italy on the island of Ischia off the coast of Naples, I cant wait, I long to be in single layers and feeling the warmth of the sun instead of bundled up and developing a peculiar hatred for my winter clothes.

Some lovely news to share, Con and Toula have a new little man in their lives, Thomas. He looks so very cute in the photos and we are so happy for them. When we return home there are going to have a lot of new loved ones to meet, very exciting. I’ll leave it there as its impossible to catch you up with all our news in one go.