An Engagement

Skiing on Mt Ventoux
I've been getting back to my normal routine this week after having my daughter and her boyfriend, Natalie and Andy, stay with me for the past week. It was half-term in England (she teaches), they wanted a short break, he wanted her to learn to ski since he does so himself and so they decided to stay with me and ski at Mt Serein, the ski station about 1000ft below the summit of Mt Ventoux. I duly booked lessons, borrowed a set of snow chains (although friends Anne-Marie and Patrique had offered their car, equipped with snow tyres and chains as fallback) and gathered information on skiing on the mountain. In the event the snow chains weren't needed.

Mt Ventoux isn't on the general skiing tourist map but is much used and appreciated locally. The state of the snow can be uncertain, even occasionally in January and February, but this year it has been good. Green, Blue, Black and Red pistes were all open. And Mt Serein is a delightful resort, small and friendly. On the Tuesday evening, Andy wanted to know where he could get some fizz and plastic glasses, I presumed for toasting Natalie as a skier after the last of her lessons on the Wednesday. I was going shopping so got them for him. When they arrived back at the house on Wednesday afternoon, it turned out Andy had proposed to, and been accepted by, Natalie. I think that, in the snow, he had ended up on his arse rather than his knee to make the proposal but.........whatever. They make a great couple.

We completed the week with a little tour to see the Pont du Gard and the Ardèche gorges. On the night they arrived I'd invited friend Daniel and his daughter, Anne-Laure (who is a similar age to Natalie and speaks excellent English) to dine with us, Natalie and Andy came to the pizza evening, and we all eat with friends Steve and Jo at my house on the Tuesday and at their house on the Thursday, so one way and another it was quite a crowded week. And a delightful one.

Wood beams
I'd accelerated the decorating I was doing in the house before Nat and Andy's arrival and, with some help from friends Steve and Jo, had finished the new terrace room and the top bedroom (apart from some lights I have to fit). So the last big decorating project is my own bedroom. It currently has awful wallpaper which I have to get off to discover the state of the walls behind it. They feel OK but you never know. More significantly, the small beams which run laterally across the ceiling to the big beam which runs down the centre of the room (and of which there are 34, 17 each side) have been painted. Now, I'm generally against the death penalty but I think I might entertain it for people who paint wood beams. From my background as a southern Englander, if you have old wood beams, and these date from the mid-19th century, you flaunt them. Moreover, the house is basically all wood and stone and I want to keep it that way, with the wood and stone showing where possible. The attitude to wood beams here is quite different. Everybody has them so they are not particularly valued and aren't reckoned on much as features. In many houses, even the very large wood beams running across ceilings are plastered over. Well, I don't care; I want my wood beams and the paint is going to have to come off, however long it takes me.

Flowers
Neighbour Josette, a keen gardener, accosted me on my to get bread this morning and said how much everyone admired the pansies I have in pots outside the front of the house. They are all blue (of course) and they are looking good now. I planted them in November but they have bided their time to put on a show now that the sun is shining more consistently.