Happy New Year!

Well hello there, happy new year!!  I am finally back online, well that is to say I have a new laptop so I can access the world of web once again!!! But still no internet connection in my apartment, I think this may actually be impossible. I have asked my neighbour if we could pay her to use her internet connection, she was going to look into it but I have’nt heard back so that is looking unlikely. But anyhoo.

We had a great new years eve, went to a lovely little French bar with a great restaurant above it, so it was aperitifs in the bar then upstairs for a lovely meal, where I ate snails for my starter. Not as gross as you would think, surprisingly nice, firm in texture and with a delicate sea salty aftertaste, although they were in garlic butter which generally makes everything taste nice eh?? So after dinner it was back to the bar where obviously more alcohol than was necessary was consumed and I would love to tell you how the evening ended but I can’t remember a bloody thing so I presume we left, went home and passed out in bed probably around the wee hours about 4 ish. Another great start to another year!!!!

New years day was not a good day, soooo hungover I could barely move, this altitude kills you I swear, nothing to do with the alcohol!!!! But I managed to pull myself together as our friends were arriving that evening and I was meant to be cooking them a welcome dinner, which surprisingly I managed to pull together a 3 course affair just in time for their arrival, was feeling much better after concentrating on something other than myself feeling wretched.

We have had a lovely week with them but I have been a bit unfortunate. As you can probably imagine the cold temperatures here coupled with hot cafes, bars etc plus confined, crowded living spaces equals a lot of germs being passed around. About 3 and a half weeks ago Mr and I both developed colds and coughs, they kept coming and going but last week mine just got worse and worse. We bought out tons of cold and flu remedy from the UK, as it is hideously expensive here (sellers market eh??) but have managed to take the whole lot!!!  When our friends arrived at the weekend mine seemed to have hit its peak, along with the hangover I was really starting to feel awful, the cough was excrutiating and my chest was getting really tight, plus my eye s were all bloodshot from all the coughing bursting my veins, I looked like some dodgy drug addict, so Wednesday I went to the doctor as the night before I actually could not breath as my chest was so tight, soooo scary. I went to see Dr Al, the British doctor in resort, when I first got in there he took my temperature, now normal people would have a high temperature at this stage no? See I had been having hot flushes indoors but outside I was still freezing as ever, although it’s actually been warmer. You can tell where this is going right? He took my temp, looked at me and said “you’re very cold, you’ve been in the waiting room for about 40 minutes right?” which I had, he then took it again and said it was the same with a confused look on his face. He finally said after giving me a thorough checking over that I was very infected and prescribed anti-biotics, really strong cough medicine and gave me a list of instructions of what I should and should’nt do, including NO skiing till I was completely better!!!  Said I am not allowed to get cold!! Bit difficult for someone turning cold blooded by all accounts!!!  So now I have a bonafide excuse for being cold, I’m simply not as warm as everyone else. Worringly I have dry, scaly skin in this cold too, maybe I’m turning into a reptile????

A complete bugger not being able to ski either, my poor friend has now been stuck with the crazy boys on their snowboards whilst I am stuck indoors keeping warm!!  But yesterday she decided to have a day off as the visibility was terrible and we had a lovely morning wondering around the gorgeous shops and salivating in the pattiserie so not all is bad.

Our friends go home tomorrow so its back to normal for us, although I have 5 more days of till I can ski so I can at last catch up with everyone and do all that stuff that just needs doing!!