NOVEMBER 09

On the 1st Steve and I went up to La Mongie to buy our ski season passes and were sitting outside a restaurant in the sun having a coffee looking up at the mountains which were completely bare of snow. The following Sunday the 8th we were lucky to get up the mountain to La Mongie, the snow ploughs were out clearing the roads and anyone who didn't have good snow tyres on there car had to put snow chains on if they wanted to get up to La Mongie. The mountains were completely covered in snow and it was still snowing. We sat inside the restaurant and had coffee that day.

On the 14th I returned to the UK to spend a week with my mother while my sister Wanda and brother in-law Carl went on holiday. It was good to see my mother and brothers & sisters again. It had been 6 months since I was last in the UK.

Unfortunately while I was in the UK Steve phoned to tell me that the temperatures were up in the high 20's and the snow was melting fast. Catastrophe!

I picked Steve up from Stanstead on the 21st and we did our usual whistle stop tour. We stayed the night at our friends Jon & Jane in Owlsmoor. The following day we drove down to visited Andrew in the New Forest for the morning before driving up to see Gary & Eli in North Camp. We stayed the night with our friends Jeanette & Ian in Caddington, before driving up to Grantham the following morning to visit Steve's parents. Steve's mother joined us for a very pleasant lunch at a nearby restaurant. We stayed the night at a very nice hotel near Stanstead for our flight back to Pau the following morning.