Tillandsia (air plants)

Our design concept for the apartment in Bagnere was 'mountain flowers' so we wanted to have some plants, but they needed to be quite hardy and not mind somewhat irregular care and watering. We are giving air plants a go...
They might flower if we are very lucky!

Here is Poppy modelling a real mountain...

COLD snap

We are having quite a cold snap with it getting down to -6 overnight and being forecast to get as low as -9 tonight. There is snow as well so the animals are not totally thrilled.

You can see how well insulated they are by the snow sitting on their backs

I'm a horse now

Poppy is obsessed with Owen and Daisy's hay.

I think it has bits of something in it (maybe chestnuts) that she wants to eat.

I don't think she would like to be a horse as horses don't get to spend the evening and night on the sofa they have to stay outside. Brrrr.

More skiing

Sorry for endless skiing photos - well not very sorry really!
The weather has been variable with a lot of rain. The wettest winter we have had here, lot of wind too. However there have been beautiful skiing days interspersed and it has been great having the apartment in the ski area to help us take full advantage.

Dawn (ie about 8.30) walking the dog

Later in the day

Cloudier the next day

Our apartment is pretty much in the center of this photo

This is a video of Poppy and Doug (doesn't work on all devices)

Poppy on the drag-lift

It was very quiet in the ski area on Saturday due to it being the end of the school holidays and snowing heavily. So we took the opportunity to take Poppy up one of the drag-lifts and down a closed piste a few times. She had super fun and was tired for at least a day afterwards!

Running alongside the drag-lift

Running back down the piste.

She overtook me the first few times round

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone has a lovely Christmas.
We spent it up in the apartment in La Mongie, we had some friends round for a light lunch (bread, soup, pate etc), went skiing and then had roast chicken in the evening with a lot of yummy pork, sage and onion stuffing. It was one we hatched ourselves. He was called Christmas Dinner - who says what our parents name us doesn't affect our lives!
He was a very tasty plump fellow. Some of them have quite skinny chests as they are an egg laying breed, but his was great, we wish we knew why not so we could replicate in the others!

This is my christmas present, I have no idea how Doug knew it is what I wanted!.

View from the apartment window

Poppy modelling a hoody

View of the apartment from the lift

Doug

A snow monster the child in the block next door made with his dad

Christmas dinner the plump chicken (cockeral)

Poppy posing outside the apartment

Winter is here again

There was a worrying few hours sitting on the runway at Gatwick waiting for first a crew, then the baggage, then the de-icer as more and more snow fell. The plane had come in on time and ended up leaving nearly 3 hours late. As you can see there was not a MASSIVE amount of snow. Relieved in the end just to make it home. Hopefully I can make it back to work (hmmmm or maybe being snow bound could be good!!)

It snowed at the house, fortunately not a great deal. There is more forecast and then temperatures of -11C overnight and a max of -4 during the day. This doesn't sounds nice - with no heating and water to the animals that will freeze. At least we don't have to sleep outside like the cows and sheep!

All this has been very good in the ski area. We didn't get quite fresh runs and visibility was a little dodgy but all good fun. Glad I have been to the gym a few times recently!

Yay look how deep that is and how AMAZINGLY I am skiing it

V happy

Poppy had to get on her down jacket (I made it last year from an old jacket of mine which had got slightly melted on the fire). Cool huh? I try not to worry about being a saddo who dresses up their dog. She is a very pathetic and heartrending sight when she is cold. A friend mocked me for dressing up my dog and treating it like a child then saw her once when she was shivering and cold and demanded I get a jacket on her IMMEDIATELY and stopped being so cruel

Lovely walk on the way back from skiing to give Poppy some exercise. Sadly she cannot normally come on the ski lifts so has to wait in the car (with a special high tech warming rug to lie on to avoid hypothermia). Early season we do take her skiing, but just on the drag lifts or when we walk up

Beautiful and peaceful. Better than grotty London in the snow

Here is another knitting effort that I made before the blog so annoyingly didn't write down what I did. I love the huge pom-pom. Basically it is k1 p1 ribbing to above the 2nd pink line then stocking stitch after that. It is alpaca wool and very warm so good for the current conditions

This is how Poppy plans on spending the cold spell (except when she is running in the snow which she loves)

First ski of the season

Doug went up earlier in the week too. The ski area isn't open yet so the lifts are not running but we walked up a bit and skied down. The dog loves it as she can come too which she cannot when the lifts are running. She is amazed at how fast we can go on skis!

I knitted the hat (including the natty flower) and the scarf - they are not matching wool. But whatever :)

Happy Halloween

Another weekend away

This time in San Sebastian (Spain). It was our '21 years together' celebration. We celebrated the bejesus out of it, and it will take some days to recover...

San Sebastian is about 2 hours drive from our house, just in to Spain on the Atlantic coast. We have been there a few times as there is a great hotel that takes the dog, plus the town is chock full of awesome food and there is a beach pretty much in the center of town.

We stopped off in San Jean de Luz on the way to have lunch and a paddle. People asked for more photos of me, so Doug was given the camera several times - and only took one picture of my chest without head.

The weather was perfect. I had seen two forecasts, one saying pouring rain and one saying beaming sun. In the end it was sun with a few showers.

Looking good after 21 years of joyous union. 

Ok so a hotel room is a hotel room but bed was huge and they upgraded us to a suite - which the photo doesn't show. Hilarious replacement of me with dog.

Beach right in town

Come on it's warm!

Not a chance, it is a bit cold and I'm a wimp, my ball and I are out of here.

Oh, ok then. Wait for me!

It was quite warm actually - considering it is only May.

After all that exercise we needed to eat a LOT

 

And drink some (this is a local wine called Txacoli - it is lightly fizzy - the word to describe this type of wine is spritzy apparently). They pour it from a great hight in to the glass and it is very very dry. And they only serve you this much so when you have been in 10 different bars and eaten 10 different things you have not passed out from drinking too much.

Then we ate some more - these are pinxos which is the basque tapas. All amazing, easy to eat far far too much

The one in the middle here is 'boletus mushrooms in a nest', that is a quail egg on top. It doesn't sound very exciting but it is one of the best.

Deserts aren't so common. This one is a basque cheese cake, it can be a bit dry, but when done well like this one, it is creamy and much much nicer than it looks.

You get plenty of excersize having a drink and a couple of pinxos in each place (not really)

During the day we have to take the dog for a lot of swimming and a nice long walk so she is tired out and doesn't make a noise in the hotel while we go out eating and drinking.

This is the other beach in the town. It is more sheltered in a little cove.

Light snack (sorbet - but there was a burger before it) to keep us going until evening and more pinxos.

Random group photo. You can see Doug's knees healing slowly from the lime burn, had to be sure to use lots of sun lotion.

We stopped near Biaritz on the way back

Back home - dog has minor paw injury.

View from home lovely too. The elderflowers are out - must make champagne.