A cryptic title and one that includes two stories from our last five days: one is our four day housesit with the lovable Stanley cat in Mells, near Frome in Somerset and the other is our purchase of a new (for us) motorhome, marking the beginning of a whole new chapter and life for us.
Stanley cat posing for the camera
We're very excited about our motorhome, but first we wanted to talk about our fabulous, but short, four day housesit looking after Stanley cat in the depths of Somerset. Although we were there for four days we were only actually on our own there for three. We arrived at Christine and Simon's house late afternoon on Monday 23rd and spent a really nice evening with them, having a guided walking tour round the village of Mells with them followed by a meal that Christine cooked for us, all while trying to get to know Stanley, who is really laid back and lovable. On Tuesday they packed and were gone by 11:00am, leaving us to drive into Frome to get some essential supplies from the Lidl supermarket, take a short walk round the town and them come back and spend the time trying to get to know Stanley and spend time with him. We watched TV in the evening after our dinner and encouraged him to come on his blanket on the sofa by us and gave him lots of strokes that he seemed to appreciate and he spent a bit of time on our bed overnight, so he had seemed to accept us and decide we were OK to attend to his every need.
And enjoying some strokes
Wednesday however became a bit of a long day for us as we wanted to go to three motorhome dealers in the area to continue our search. They were close together, but about an hours drive west from the house so we left at about 9:30 to give ourselves plenty of time. We looked at plenty of vans, discounting many at first glance as we, by now were getting to know what we wanted and could see that many didn't fit our requirements. Some were possibilities, but were always compromises, which many people said is what it is going to be. There is no perfect motorhome, they said, always a compromise - and so it was looking.
Doesn't it look fabulous!
On the way home we passed another couple of dealers so stopped at five in all and looked at goodness knows how many vans. Home for tea and cake followed by dinner and wine and cuddles with Stanley. He seems to have accepted us, having decided we will cater for his every need, walking to the back door and stopping to look at us, indicating he wants us to open the door for him despite the fact there is a working cat flap in the door he could use. Why waste effort going through the cat flap when he has staff to open the door for him? The pheasants and blackbirds are very much of the same opinion, expecting seed to be thrown and bread crumbs placed on the wall for them. Its all very countryfied, pleasant and relaxing here. Another evening in with Stanley cat, this time us trawling the internet researching motorhomes and looking at the website of another dealer 11 miles away in Warminster called Webbs. That's to the east of us, the opposite direction from the others we had visited, so we decided a quick visit there on Thursday would be better than making the day even longer on Wednesday. Their website wasn't too promising, they had a number of motorhomes, none of which were really what we were looking for, but they did have a German motorhome there made by Frankia. It read and looked fabulous, but it said it was 7.6m long and we didn't really want to go over 7m. We tried to discount it, but I researched Frankia which confirmed them as a quality German manufacturer with a great build quality and all the features we would want. But it was 7.6m long, that's too long for us, forget it! I'd almost decided it wasn't worth going, but it was so close decided we might as well go, even if its just to cross it off the list.
So on Thursday morning after an easy breakfast and plenty of Stanley fuss we went over. As expected nothing really fitted our requirements until we found one van which was absolutely fabulous and didn't seem too big. I immediately fell in love with it as did Jackie, but when I looked at the make it was the Frankia van I had looked at on the website the previous night that we had discounted as being too long at 7.6m. We went in to see the really friend young sales guy, who said he thought the 7.6m length wasn't right and it was 7.08m. He grabbed a tape measure and we went out and measured it at 7.08m. Now my specification was no longer than 7m and preferably nearer 6m, with a width of 2.2m, or as close as we could get to it. This was 7.08m long and 2.3m wide, a bit bigger than we ideally wanted but with a specification of everything we had as our requiremenbts and a lot more besides and with a build quality second to none. We just couldn't resist it, but tore ourselves away to think about it, making arrangements to go back the next day for a test drive on Friday morning before Christine and Simon return in the afternoon. So afternoon and evening was again spent with Stanley, who was quite forgiving of us going out, enjoying the fuss we were giving him as we debated what we thought about our find. It really was just what we were looking for, but a huge amount of money at £45000, but an amount we can afford and expected to pay. Is it the right van for us and are we jumping in too quickly?
On Friday we were up early, cleaning and washing our bed linen and towels, packing the car to be ready to leave when Christine and Simon returned after lunch and then headed out for the test drive, worrying about its size and how difficult it would be to drive. On getting behind the wheel we both realised when each drove, how easy it was, it was not that much different from a car (and maybe easy to forget its size!) We were sold and after they agreed to throw in for free our extras of refillable gas bottles, a solar panel on the roof, a day of their time to show us how everything works, a free evening at a local campsite so we can try everything out on a real camping experience and still go back the next day for extra tuition and time for them to carry out any snagging we find, plus them holding on to it until our preferred collection date of 18th June we went for it, paying them £2000 deposit there and then. How excited we were!
We were back at the house in plenty of time to be there for Christine and Simons return, hear their stories of their holiday, tell them about our new motorhome and say goodbye to Stanley cat. Christine was very impressed when he came over at Jackies call for a final stroke, something he doesn't normally do obviously very satisfying for Jackie. Before they had left on Tuesday they had told us of so many things we should visit whilst there, Wells cathedral, Bath and lovely local walks and we did none of them. We hope they are satisfied with us as housesitters and, if so, maybe we might go there again and this time be tourists!
Litter picking in Moseley
After leaving we drove straight back to Moseley in Birmingham to stay with our friends Ian and Helen for the night. It was great to catch up with them and Monty dog, go and have a few pints of real ale in the Old Moseley Arms and the Prince of Wales and a curry at our favourite Diwans Balti restaurant. Fabulous evening and great to catch up with them, but how did it get to 1:00am so quickly! We haven't drunk so much beer since.... well, since we last saw them! Lovely cooked breakfast with them on Saturday morning and then we went to do our good deed for the day, litter picking, with I&H and a number of other locals. They were all very impressed and grateful we, as non-locals were there, but with Ian and Helen we almost feel like locals and it felt good to be doing something good for a community. 20 bags of rubbish we collected between us in the hour we worked, so we really made a difference.
20 bags of rubbish - didn't we do well!
We left there about 2:00pm after going up into Ian and Helens loft where most of our kitchen stuff is stored and deciding what we need to retrieve in June ready to pack in our motorhome, and then we set off to Hall Green in Birmingham ready for our housesit for Sooty cat for the ninth or tenth time. It was good to see houseowner Abi again who is now a good friend of ours and also good to see little Sooty cat who rolled over expecting the usual strokes from us. Wow, have we really been away for six months?
Tomorrow, Monday, we take Abi to the airport for for her holiday and start the housesit proper, go and see my sister Denise and Paul to catch up with them and try to get some relaxation and strokes in with Sooty cat. It lasts until Thursday when we meet with our friend Corinne to go and look at her house and start work helping her to put it in order to sell, but that's another story - more on that later!
Jackie's mum, Jackie, her uncle Martin and Annabel
The sunny, warm weather lasted until Sunday and now we're back into usual dull, cool, occasionally drizzly weather so typical of a British April, but at least we made the most of it and our search for a motorhome has begun, with a Saturday visit to the motorhome show at the Peterborough showground.
As expected, our minds were full by lunchtime and we hardly got halfway round, but we did learn a huge amount of what we should and should not be looking for so, although we didn't decide on anything, it was really useful.
A view of the Welland Viaduct
Our initial thoughts are 6 to 7m long, narrower width: 2.2m'ish, fixed bed in the back with large garage underneath for all our ski, climbing, walking gear plus bikes, oven (how else would I bake cakes?) and fully 'winterised', which seems mean different things to different manufacturers. It seems to rule out all British manufacturers, their vans are 2.4 to 2.7m wide, making driving on narrow roads hazardous, their definition of 'winterised' means waste water tanks don't need to be insulated or the drain tap is exposed and their build quality seems to be in question. German manufacturers seem to understand what full winterisation means and their build quality is noticeably better. Hymer and Carthago seem to be the ones to aspire to, but they are also the most expensive, but they do have lower cost subsidiaries, Sunlight by Hymer and Malibu for Carthago. So that's where we're up to, next step is to visit various dealers round the country and see what's available.
The visit there, all day on Saturday, was made possible by us visiting and staying with Jackie's uncle Martin and Annabel in their house in the beautiful Rutland village of Lyddington, in their renovated 17th century house. Everything in the village is built of stone and many are of a similar or older date and listed, making any alterations very difficult and subject to all sorts of special building requirements.
The classic car show in Uppingham on Sunday morning
They have however renovated it to a high standard, making it feel like staying in a posh hotel with fabulous view over countryside at the back and we had a full programme of activities apart from our full day at the motorhome show. We took Ella, their dog for a long walk over Spanhoe woods, near the old USA WWII airfield and had a great view of Welland viaduct. Just so I can show Martin I was listening to him, the Welland viaduct is the longest masonry viaduct across a valley in Britain. It has 82 arches, is 1275 yards long and contains 30,000,000 bricks.
Interesting car tax disc on one old vehicle
The area we walked through was an old quarry (although it looked like green, rolling countryside) that was dug out by 'Sundew', once the largest walking quarry digger in the world, weighing 1700 tonnes. There, I'm sure I got all that right! Oh, and I musn't forget Planet, the local cow kept as a pet by its millionaire owner. She seemed happy enough chomping on the grass in the field. We were even treated to a bit of an air display by a small plane flying low near the local airfield doing barrel rolls and a loop the loop, either showing off to some spectators at the airfield or scaring a passenger half to death, assuming it was big enough to carry a passenger. Just to show my knowledge of aircraft I can tell you it was red, as hopefully you can see in the video!
Martin and Annabel discuss, with Pauline in front and Jackie behind
A dinner treat on Friday night in Don Paddys Irish gastro pub in Uppingham (a bit posh Uppingham is with many famous and rich people sending their children to Uppingham Old Grammar school!) and then another visit there on Sunday morning for a classic car show, which turned out to be a trip down memory lane for all of us, with modern classics like the Morgan cars a plenty, but cars from my youth, the MG Magnette, the Austin A40, both of which my brother had models of as a youth, an old VW Golf, a Spitfire like Pauline used to have, Triumph TR4's, 6's, Stags and an old Fiat 500 that looked tiny against the new version in production now.
Annabel and Jackie demonstrating how small the old Fiat 500 looks
An old MG Magnette
We left around midday to visit Tim and Jill's house in Hilton, Derbyshire, who we have housesat for twice before. They are old friends of ours and, along with Bill and Mark, made up the Monday night drinking club we've all taken part in for the last 20 years or so. We are less frequent visitors these days due to our unusual lifestyle, but we will be meeting again for the next three Mondays as we'll be temporarily local, so it was great to catch up at Tim and Jill's and make arrangements again, It seems like we've not been away already! The event was Tim and Jill's daughter Ellie's 18th birthday party on Friday last, where they erected a big marquee in their huge garden and, as it was still there, an excuse for us lot to go round and make use of it and re-celebrate both Ellie's 18th again and Tim's mum, Betty's 83rd birthday. Tim and Jill went overboard with their hospitality with fabulous food and we had a great time, even if it became a whirlwind weekend for us.
In the marquee at Tim and Jills. Ellie is at the back left of the entrance, Jill is looking down on the table nearer, Betty is in the red and pink with her, Bill is almost out of shot on left, Tim is leaning back right of the entrance, Jackie and Pauline are with Mark on the table to the right
Three generations, Betty, Ellie and Tim
We were back at Pauline's (Jackie's mum) for Sunday night and, on Monday afternoon, drove down to the village of Mells, near Frome in Somerset, which is about 30 minutes south of Bath in order to look after Stanley cat for our next housesitting assignment. Had a lovely evening with Christine and Simon, who look after Stanley, a rescue cat who just turned up at their house and adopted them some years ago and, this morning they went off on their four day holiday to visit friends in Tunbridge Wells in Kent.
Tim with Ruby dog
We've been into Frome to get some shopping and look round the town and now we've finally stopped for the first time since getting back to the UK last Wednesday evening and we're chilling out in the lounge with a sleeping Stanley on the sofa with us, it's heaven! Unfortunately it's not going to last long as we have outings to about four motorhome dealers in the vicinity to continue our search for our perfect motorhome so, up early, feed Stanley and then out fairly early. Hopefully Stanley won't mind!
Six month old Ruby dog who we will be housesitting for in August with Stimpy cat when Tim and Jill go on holiday
Here we are in Mells, near Frome and this is the view from the lounge with the metal fox cut-out and noisy pheasant
The journey across France wasn’t too bad 8 1/2 hours to the ferry terminal in Calais, in time to catch the 15.30 one earlier ferry than booked. Hurrah we thought, though that did put us on the M25 at rush hour. Or actually on and off and on and off as we followed Doris the satnav 4 1/4 hours later , at 20.15 we arrived at mum’s to a very welcome dinner, who cares it was stew on the hottest day, but that’s British weather for you! So 16 hours after the alarm went off! Yesterday was unpacking, repacking, sorting, washing, though I did manage to get a haircut, much needed as the last one was at the beginning of December, before a very welcome G&T at Sarah’s followed by a curry with mum. Oh yes, we are home.
The packing is done, the car is packed and we're ready for the long drive home tomorrow morning, setting off at 06:00am.
We did get two 'lasts' in though, a really nice day of skiing and lunch with Si and Cassie in Chatel on Sunday and, this morning before packing, another ascent of the via ferrata in St Jean d'Aulps, this time with Cassie, Haig and Gabby. We're weak willed, we planned the whole day for packing, Cassie mentioned the via ferrata and after probably 2 seconds of thinking we agreed! Well, packing takes as long as the time allowed and we're still done now at 4:00pm after getting back at 1:00pm. How could we not do it, the weather is fabulous, blue sky and t-shirt weather.
Lunch with silly hat and goggles
So here are my thoughts on our ski season, we've had 118 possible days of skiing here this season and we've skied on 83 of them (70%), meaning we missed 35 days out either beacuse the weather was bad, the wind was too strong, the avalanche risk was too high or it was holiday season and the slopes were packed with people and we didn't fancy queuing for lifts (including the one day when we went out to ski, arrived at the car park, saw how packed it was with cars and people so drove straight through and went back home again!).
Jackie, Gabby, Haig and Cassie on the walk to the via ferrata today
We've spent an average of 3.5 hours out per ski day, including skiing and sitting on lifts and have skied 2170km (1349 miles), hitting a maximum speed on skis of 96.1km/hr (60mph) - which was pretty scary! Our lift passes and apartment rental cost us €5400 (£4800), which works out as £57.50 per ski day or £2.20 per km skied. Just to overdo it with statistics, in the three seasons we've been here we've had a grand total of 357 days where the lifts have been running and we could have skied (virtually a full year), but we have been out skiing on 239 of them, which is about 8 months of skiing. That's not bad!
Mont Blanc against a blue sky on the walk up to the via ferrata
When we get home, this summer our plan is to buy a motorhome to tour Europe for the foreseeable future and we want to park up at various ski resorts an
At the start of the via ferrata after the half hour uphill walk
d ski for a day, or perhaps a week at a time and we have been concerned this would be quite expensive since a day or a 6 day ski pass is very much more expensive than a season pass. In fact a season pass is equivalent to about three six day passes (118 days vs 18 days).
However, in a motorhome we won't have accommodation expenses as it seems possible to park up in ski resort car parks either at no cost or low cost, so our €5400 total cost for this season would allow us to buy six day passes of, say €280 each (€560) 9.6 times or a total of 58 days. Smaller resorts charge less so, by trying out a mixture of large and small resorts we could easily ski as much as we have this season, particularly as we intend to ski tour up slopes in certain areas where no ski pass charge applies. All in all it seems possible to do all we want to do skiing wise from a motorhome, so one of our requirements when we start to look when we get home is to make sure whatever we buy has enough room inside for our skis and all our winter gear!
On our way up, Cassie, Haig, Jackie & Brian
So, that's about it from St Jean d'Aulps for now, we may or may not rent this apartment again, but we'll certainly be back here to see Si and Cassie and to do lots of summer walking and climbing and winter skiing and ski touring so, until the next time, au revoir!
Brian (top), Jackie and Haig posing for Cassie
Posing on the summit after we finished. About an hour to ascend for us against the 1.5 hours they think it should take
Areas of resort are shutting all around us, the first was our little area up here, La Grande Terche, so we planned to be up early do a circuit or two and then go and have a fondue. This didn't quite go to plan, we did one circuit, which was good, but the snow wasn't going to get any better, so once was enough for me. He decided he was going round again so I headed off to put the lamb riblets in to marinade as our fondue lunch restaurant said closing Saturday, we assumed this meant after Saturday service, but no, it was too late, so that was the end of that.
Broken ski boot
Repaired ski boot!
Wednesdays gentle walk through La Vernaz
Nice views of the river Dranse gorge
Cat number 1. The goat is at the top, haven't put cat no. 2 photo in!
Trechauffe walk - our route marked in red
As I took my boots off the one that hadn't been repaired obviously felt neglected and fell apart! So, once B got home we set off to Morzine Intersport where Quentin had done the first one, but no, he had no more rivets the right size, so we started walking..... six or so shops later a man shook his head at me and said "non". I just stood there and he took it away, walked off, and said come back at 6. That was three hours later, so we went home, not knowing quite what we were to expect. Rather than go back at 6, well that is vin chaud time, we went back the following morning, and there for the grand total of €15 was my repaired boot, half as much again as Intersport, but still much better than a new pair of boots!
Feeling much happier we popped in to see Judith, Si's mum, who we hadn't managed to see at all the last time she was here, so we had a good chat, lovely to catch up.
Monday we thought we'd better put boot to the test, and had a much better ski than expected, still all over for us by lunchtime, but good until then.
Tuesday 'housework' by which I mean ringing up insurance companies giving them our details and finding costs for two randomly selected motorhomes, just to check that having been of no fixed abode for five years we would be able to get insurance. Looks like we can, but it's the sort of thing that takes forever and is quite soul destroying!
Wednesday we went off to do a repeat of a gentle walk we did the first time we were here, both of us had had pain in our knees after the via ferratta, not to mention the strange feeling in the groin when you start swinging your legs after not really doing that for four months. The walk scored high on the Jackie scale, two cats and a goat for stroking. Not so highly on the Brian scale, but hey, he picked it. But, he picked it only because the one he wanted to do he thought would still be in snow. We drove to the start of it, it wasn't. Guess what tomorrow's plan is?
So an early start, not because it was a huge walk but because we'd passed a little restaurant on the drive back, with an amazing view and fondue on the menu. It's not that we are besotted by fondue, once every two years is quite sufficient, but somehow when in the mountains...
There was some snow, even on this bit with metal steps
We left the apartment by 08.30 as I wanted, drove the half an hour and up the wiggly windy road to the Col de Trechauffe, and headed off up the steep hillside. It wasn't far till we found we were going to be in snow, so following the path was going to be a problem. Fortunately there were footprints in the snow..... as long as he knew where he was going! It would appear he did, though I suspect the path probably zigged and zagged a bit more than our predecessor who just went straight up.
The final bit to the 1627m summit
So time lost kicking steps in snow/ice was probably saved by only covering 2/3 the distance of the path! The trouble with following footsteps in the snow is when the snow runs out, at least this was only at 11.00 in the morning in daylight, unlike Brian's favourite story of when we did the Aonach Eagach in Glen Coe, descending from the snowline at 11.00 at night when it had been dark since 4.00pm, only for his phone to ring and the mountain rescue man ask if we needed rescue? "No, we'll find the path in a moment" and so we did. That was a lot more serious, five of us, roped up, doing a seven mile ridge that there is no way off once you've started!
Rocky bits on the way down
So a quick blunder through the woods and found a sign post - you wouldn't get that in Scotland 50m right to the summit, before heading left, to start our descent. Back to the car, in less than signposted time, which is always very satisfying particularly when we've done no hill walking for a while, and signposts in France can be a bit optimistic!
Fondue with a view at Le Bois du Cornet in La Forclaz
Arrived for our lunch at 12.00, beer, fondue and plate of charcuterie, well deserved, delicious, very filling, and enough for the next two years.
Brian, Jackie and Josee in Evian
Yesterday was also a lunch only day, we headed into Evian to meet with Josee, who we haven't seen since we were in Patagonia November '16. She lives and works in Lausanne and is a lovely lady. We originally met her and her friend Nancy on a bus, which didn't make it to its destination so we ended up sharing a room in a hostel in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. After that every walk we did, they were already there, at the top, chilling, as I arrived sweaty and grumpy! (Here's links to our blog entries of when we first met Josee in Argentina: Ushuaia-days-59-to-64 El-calafate-days-65-to-66El-chalten-mount-fitz-roy-national-park)
Lac Leman (or as we know it: Lake Geneva)
As the crow flies, Lausanne isn't that far, but she has no car, and to drive, it's a long way, so she got the ferry across Lake Geneva to Evian, and we met her there. We pottered, chattered and had a very nice lunch before waving her off at 16.15. We had to then return to the garage just outside Evian where we had left the spare tyre, B had commented it was flat, which it was, so check of them all before Wednesday made sense. Sadly poorly valve, so air in, air out! Fortunately the garage was also a tyre place, hurrah, new valve €15 and untold piece of mind!
Jackie and Josee in front of the source of Evian mineral water
Last ski in Les Gets this morning, better than expected, till suddenly it reaches the tipping point and goes from ice to slush. I didn't want a long day as I've come down with a horrible cold, so all good, except hope he doesn't get it for the drive home! More meals using strange cupboard ingredients, and we've defrosted the fridge this afternoon.... it's all getting very close!
There is still snow and skiing! This is today in Les Gets
A few other photos from the last few days. We saw lots of crocus on our walk over Trechauffe summit. Is this saffron stamen in the centre?
Framing a photo. I didn't bother posting the result, you can imagine what it looked like
Not a bad lunch stop! That's Lake Geneva below that haze
Jackie taking no notice of signs
She didn't mention the thunderstorm we had earlier in the week. It rained - a lot and the drainpipe leaks, as you can see!
Frequent visitor Whitey cat falling asleep on our windowsill
