More here…

Playing about with photo effects in the second floor of an elevator.

More fun and games at home. It is with a certain irony that now completing the work on the guttering to make the house water tight, Therese spots a stream has formed outside the house.

Several days of raining have left the adjacent fields waterlogged. There’s an inevitable runoff towards our place, with around 5 inches of water up against the rear wall.

Therese takes the bucket and moves the water towards our drain. I keep brushing water into the drain. After around thirty minutes in the rain, we’ve managed to drop the level by around an inch. Fortunately this is low enough for us to simultaneously spot a slight incline in the route to the drain … and quickly build a channel.We retreat indoors after an hour in the rain. The channel is working and after another hour, our temporary civil engineering project has proved a success …. the water has drained.

Gutter fixed. Scaffolding coming down. Plasterer working on the bedroom and (thought needs to return to work on the ceiling). Joiner scheduled to look at floorboards and undertake some door rehanging. Still pushing to complete this early June.

Yes, I know. Not very ‘us’. Off for some running shoes. Advised to wear them in for a couple of days indoors.

Coming next. Therese and Stephen eat turkey twizzlers whilst watching X-Factor.

Preparing the sunroom ahead of some ceiling skimming and a new carpet. Herbie remains in denial.

Suspect leaking pipe under living room floor. New plastic piping now behind skirting.

Fingers crossed.

A bit severe…

Don’t get too excited over this fizzy drink.

On the BA from LHR to Zurich

This time courtesy of BA domestic. Really? Put this in my body?

Let’s not pretend it’s anything other than pretzels. As provided unsolicited from Swiss.

Two weeks later….nearly finished

ATV docks with the ISS. Full story here.

As spotted by the webcam….
I want a go!

Upgrade to king suite, free clubroom access, free internet an free movies. How the hell am I supposed to work tonight?

Finally! We were so close – so many times. Now, 10,000 metres from the air, Mulhouse appears beneath.

Quite a nice image effect…

Ok – so not really posted anything about the holiday as yet, due tom arriving back, unpacking, repacking, going to Zurich, coming back, unpacking, repacking and going to London.

In the meantime, here’s a photo of the view from our chalet. More to come in next couple of days.

A couple of stops as we travel North. Around 1800 we arrive into Epernay. It’s great if you want champagne and French Champagne food. Less great for vegetarians. We’re staying at an Ibis which turns out to be both well located and presented.

We do spot one Italian restaurant which looks great. However, everyone else has the same idea and it’s booked out. No choice (really!) but the inferior restaurant next door and a rather poor pizza. At least it’s followed in a bar subsequently with a couple of glasses (each) of some local fizz.

Tomorrow – Belgium, then home

The title says it all. Very little snowfall. However, given the temperature varied between –20 (plus wind chill) and just below freezing, there was little chance of the existing considerable snowfall disappearing. One day over at La Plagne, the rest at Les Arcs. Considerable pizza and vin chaud consumed. My comfort zone moved from easy reds to hard reds. I no longer cry when on red moguls

Therese did the black moguls though . Well once.

Lyon to Bourg Sainte Maurice. An easy 200 minutes. Arriving early, it’s to the local Super U to stack up on food (and wine) for the week.

From Bourg to Les Arcs isn’t so simple. Snow chains on …

And the accommodation …(ski in and out)

Night one …. typical France meal.

To Hull. Then overnight to Belgium and on to France.

750km later we’re just North of Lyon in La Villeneuve (Saône-et-Loire)

It’s a short walk to town and a poor choice of food.

Ending up in some 60’s themed Italian restaurant we have the inevitable Pizza.

Serge Gainsbourg is played on the speakers. We nod in appreciation. The music is turned up. Nous Avons Arrivé en France.

Watch. And be amazed.

This is just too cool.

Dark suit required for Tuesday. Time for an emergency suit purchase. We stop off in Leeds (on the return from London) and quite amazingly pick one up, have it adjusted and move on within around minutes.

Saturday morning we patrol the National Portrait Gallery. Therese and I pop off to Amalfi’s  for a rather top lunch, then on to the show.

I don’t know if we technically had the best seats in the house – but it certainly seemed like we did. Halfway up the stalls, level with the stage and a break in the seats ahead of us, there was nothing to obstruct the view.

And the show itself? Well, I need to listen to more Frankie Valli now …

Spotted outside the Swiss lounge, Zurich airport.

We manage a second walk this month. Destination : Embsay, near Skipton.

It’s cold, and a little wet. The OS map is overly optimistic in assignation of some paths. We don’t intend to wade through marsh for several hours. Route replanned, were up on the high moors. Once more, I misjudge how long we’ve been walking and we turn back a little earlier than we need. Still, we now have a new day long route we can walk later this year.

New cocktail:

1 part Gin, Noilly Prat, Cointreau

1 quarter Absinthe

1 half fresh lime juice

Splash of bitters

Film of Galliano

Surprisingly well balanced.

The pleasures of an 0700 flight

Due to pick up the 15:11 to Birmingham which is … cancelled due to a damaged rail line.

Diverted via Sheffield on a train which leaves on time and stops after 10 minutes for 70 minutes. This turns out to be the (now famous) multi junction failure … as a result of wire theft.

In Sheffield (for the first time), we catch the 65 minute delayed Plymouth train … which is running a bonus 25 minutes late.

Finally in Birmingham three hours late for what should have been a three hour journey.

Courtesy of The Poke

I should have posted this sometime ago. Look here for all the variations …

Janet was straight in with the starter and dessert. We dealt with the mains.

Evening started at a rather sensible 20:00

Asian salad to start (Janet), a kir royale sorbet from us and the main of wild mushrooms with port and red wine in a veg herb suet pastry along with our garden veg (potatoes, shallots, sprouts).

Wine poured throughout … and dessert wine … and port. Cheese and chocolate were around – but I don’t remember much about that. In fact I don’t remember much about anything after midnight except the Champagne seemed very dry after the port.

And best of all (apart from the company), a twenty second walk home!

Next day was a write-off. The hangover didn’t pass and we resorted to a mammoth movie watching session … listed in order of viewing … and coincidentally in order of concentration required.

Never Let me go

True Grit (the Coen Brothers version)

Limitless

Morning Glory

Source Code

Sarah has requested Indian.

Clockwise from the top left:

“baby” curry (veg bhaji with cream)

Dhal

Veg bhaji

Curried chickpeas

Pea Paneer

Unseen : veg samosas, chapatti and rice.