My 50th birthday!

There are three distinctive peaks seen from Le Corbier called Les Aiguilles d'Arves. One of them reminds James and me of Jack's wee head, and it is appropriately called La Tete du Chat! I have had a marvellous birthday! We skied up to l'Ouillon and then over to Saint Sorlin d"Arves which is a lovely area with plenty of runs to suit all tastes. As James and I skied down runs, the boys would appear from off piste, hurling snowballs at each other as they shot past us. Lunch was in a gorgeous little mountain restaurant called "La Bergerie" with amazing views. And all day texts kept arriving from friends and family wishing me a happy birthday! I wasn't expecting this and I was really surprised and touched that so many people remembered. After lunch the boys went off to do their own mad skiing and James and I decided to start making our way back to Le Corbier which should have been about an hour and a half away including lifts. It's lucky that we started so early! Some of the pistes were a bit gruelling, especially the one which will forever be etched in my mind as "the so-called blue which was at least a hard mogully narrow red and maybe even a black!" Needless to say my skiing deteriorated due to nerves, tired thighs, and cramps in my calves. The piste map was a bit wacky in places and James ended up leading me off piste to get back to our apartment quicker. When we got back James ran me a lovely bath and the boys (who arrived back shortly after us) are making the tea. In spite of my sore legs and exhaustion I have had a brilliant birthday! 

Le Corbier

Today was a beautiful day in Le Corbier with blue skies and plenty of good quality snow. James did his usual efficient job of organising breakfast and soon we were heading up the mountain for our first ski day. The great news is that I can still ski! I had been nervous about this for good reason - my right knee in particular is very dodgy and I am not at all fit. However with my knee support strapped on securely my old leg didn't let me down and soon I was flying down blue runs with ease. I had requested blue runs only today so that I could build up my confidence. However the Anderson family navigation is never reliable when skiing and despite much poring over piste maps we were soon going down plenty of rugged reds as well! Actually I managed them fine so it still boosted my confidence. David was very nice about my skiing and said "I've never been so proud of you!" James and the boys were also delighted to be back on the snow, and we had a lovely day. We had lunch at a mountain restaurant above La Toussuire in the sunshine and as we all sat chatting and eating happily Ally exclaimed, "I love this! I'd forgotten how fun it is!"
After lunch we decided to head back to Le Corbier area so that we would be near the apartment in case anyone wanted to finish a bit early (me!) Needless to say we took a wrong turning and skied for miles around La Toussuire before finally finding the lift back to our own valley! When we got back to the apartment we went for a swim in the pool, which I especially loved because I love swimming outdoors. It was so strange to be swimming surrounded by snow, as people were sledging past! 

Au revoir la pluie!

I haven't mentioned the weather recently - it has been fairly mild but miserably rainy over Christmas. It didn't matter too much because we have been busy with cooking and entertaining. However it was very nice when we arrived in Lyon at lunch time on Saturday to emerge from our plane into beautiful spring-like weather. The sky above us was blue with little wispy clouds and in the distance we could see the reassuringly snow-covered mountains.
Our journey had been straightforward so far and the five of us had a lovely chat at breakfast in Edinburgh Airport - I just love all of us being together - I enjoy our children's company and always have. They are all so funny and interesting and yet so different from each other.
We collected our hire car at Lyon; a roomy Vauxhall Zafira which was declared very satisfactory by the boys (in the past there has been much moaning from the back seat on ski holidays when they have had to sit with cases on their knees!) We set off optimistically on what should have been a two hour journey, only to run into a massive traffic jam! According to the French traffic reports there were "bouchons" on many roads approaching the Alps, and it was even mentioned on the main news - the cause was the high volume of holiday traffic. Unfortunately this doubled our journey to a gruelling four hours! It was especially gruelling for James, who was driving. Finally, in the dark, we arrived in Le Corbier and checked into our apartment which to our relief is very good; clean and spacious with a large balcony overlooking the swimming pool and the mountains beyond. So it was a long day! We explored the resort a little and went to a pizzeria for a pleasant dinner, followed by an early night. 

Birthday celebrations

My 50th birthday celebrations started four days early with a small family gathering arranged as a surprise for me by my dear husband! After all these years I am still surprised by how sensitive James can be sometimes! I often forget how much he understands me. It should be noted that earlier in the day he also surprised me by treating me to three new tyres to replace the baldy ones on my car! I was also very touched that Marjory and Forrest came along especially when they are working today and tomorrow, and it was great to see the children and Grandma too; we had a good laugh and a delicious Chinese meal. It reminded me of how my Dad used to talk about family. It will be also be great to see Jennifer and her boys in January. I'm a lucky girl with a wonderful family. 

Girl clothes

Yesterday we had a great afternoon with Janet, Peter and Anne. We had a copious lunch of leftover turkey and all the leftover trimmings, with added chilli con carne etc. to make sure that there would be enough. Just as well because most of it was devoured and we finished it off for supper. Cat and all the boys were there too and we had a hilarious afternoon playing charades and "Who am I" with the names attached to our foreheads on post it notes. The youngsters were all amused that us oldies were all having to share Janet's reading glasses to read the charades!
Today I found myself alone in the house at lunch time which is very unusual. James was back to work. Jamie had very kindly given Davie a lift to see his girlfriend, and was then going to have lunch with Chris and the gang. Ally and Cat had set off for a family party at Cat's house. Even Jack was napping somewhere upstairs after a lively morning of following me around the house. A feeling of great peace descended. I made myself a coffee all by my own self using James' splendid (or should I say "magnifico"!) coffee machine and I chose to heat up the milk in the microwave rather than froth it, which I actually prefer. I decided to be a domestic goddess (for a change) so I went to hang up a washing and found to my surprise that there was a pretty embroidered dressing gown which didn't belong to me, it’s Cat’s. It was a source of wonder to me to find female clothes other than my own in my house of boys! It reminded me of the line in the film "Always" where Dorinda sees the beautiful dress that Pete has bought her, and says "Girl Clothes!" James always said that I would get my girls some day and now I feel that I have! 

Family Christmas

Well it has been a traditional Anderson Christmas day and the best part of that for me is all of us being together. The day started with everyone opening presents in our bedroom - including Jack! I will not go into details of all the wonderful presents that we received except that they were so very thoughtful that I felt very grateful. Grandma, Forrest, Marjory and the children came round in the morning and we had champagne (or Champomy for those too young or not inclined to have alcohol), party snacks and Christmas cake. Later Grandma came back round for dinner and we were unusually efficient at getting everything served out, warm, at 5 p.m. Everything was cooked to perfection apart from the chipolatas which were a bit overdone.
Much later as we sat around playing games, replete and contented, I asked my boys what has been their favourite part of Christmas day. Jamie and Ally both said that they enjoyed their cousins being round in the morning, and Davie said he enjoyed winning a game of Risk for the first time ever! James said he enjoyed making a good job of Christmas dinner. 

Festive Day

A lovely Christmas eve - plenty to do but plenty of time to do it in. In the morning I did some last minute food shopping then went over to Noah's 4th birthday party - what a cute birthday boy he is, and when everyone sang Happy Birthday to him he was just SO happy and cuddled into Jackie. Jackie gave me an amazing birthday present - a personalised framed poster of our family, complete with cat! I love it!
I then went for a pleasant lunch at Clockwork with James and two of his colleagues before an urgent visit to a pet shop to get a cat Christmas stocking filled with cat treats for our furry boy Jack. Thank goodness that there were some left!
A relaxing afternoon of present wrapping ensued, followed by the preparation of the turkey. This year Jamie sewed it up using his surgeon's techniques! After a few final preparations such as setting the table we all sat down to watch "The Snowman and the Snowdog", a sequel to the thirty year old classic animation. I thought that it was rather lovely, a fitting tribute to the original. I then had to make a mercy dash into the centre of Glasgow to collect Alasdair who had managed to miss both the last train and the last bus home!