Natural highs and black eyes

In explanation for for the lack of recent activity on the blog, we seem to have been filling our evenings with drunken reverie and then the subsequent evenings hungover and only able to sit mindlessly in front of Netflix (a more thorough precis of that follows at the end of this epic installment) as opposed to formulating coherent paragraphs which read good...

It's been another lovely week. We have discovered, among other things:

The Col de Lauteret and the alpine gardens, where Captain Scott (of the Antarctic fame) trained in preparation for his ultimately ill fated expeditions and is memorialised by way of a pile of rocks with a plaque attached.

Arrrgh it's coming straight towards me (at speed of 10.5 miles per year*...)

 * the fastest recorded movement of a glacier. Don't think this one's moving that fast though.

A lovely park at the foot of the hill in Briancon, which has a lake populated with what look like Leopard Fish. However, given these creatures are reportedly native to the Congo river basin, we can assume they are probably just trout. Nevertheless, it's a very tranquil spot and there's also a playground there and one of those terrifying treetop assault courses that some people seem to enjoy doing. 

Ducks - more than just a delicious menu option

We've spent a couple of days exploring the Vallée de la Clarée, which has a number of pretty villages along the valley floor. We found a riding stables, where we took Charlie on a pony ride. The stables was the epitome of relaxed equestrianism: they gave us a pony, pointed us at a mountain path and said good luck. Katie employed similar disciplinary tactics on the horse to those she uses on Charlie and a successful balade à cheval was had by all. So much so, Katie is going to have a go herself, but probably on something a little larger.

Giddy-up

Today, we returned to the valley to explore and spent a most bucolic (that's bucolic, not bubonic) morning cycling from Rosiers to Nevache climbing gently up about 250m in height over 15km. 

Katie fails to master hitch-hiking

We discovered a farm selling goats' cheese and bought some to add to our picnic. We then experienced a beautiful moment when Charlie selected this morceau artisinale over a Babybel. A warm glow of smug satisfaction permeated the rest of the picnic and there was much rejoicing.

Goat's cheese, bread knob, leftover risotto, fruit salad

We've also started taking our three water pistols with us wherever we go, and after picnicking each day it's not uncommon to find us all engaged in a fierce and bitter gunfight. Ed has even taken to packing extra water for this very purpose. Not necessary today in Nevache, which has public drinking troughs on every corner, so we treated ourselves to a lengthy water fight right in front of the tourist office to the bemusement of several hikers. 

Happiness is a cold pistol

In case anyone is wondering what we've been shoveling into our faces over the last week: a risotto primavera (despite it being the wrong season) with some chicken stock that Katie had managed not to throw away and a banana cake to clear up a glut of manky old bananas. Ed did a goats' cheese and caramelised onion tarte for dinner tonight, but made with shop-bought puff pastry as there isn't enough time in the world to make that stuff by hand more than once a blue moon. Besides it doesn't work when we make it ourselves (we've tried once).

Tarte au chèvre et oignons caramélisés, green salad, omelette for Charles

Yesterday Ed managed to attack himself with the bike rack, a gift very kindly donated to us by his boss Rich. It is an excellent bit of kit which despite attaching to the hatch-back still allows you to access the boot, however there is one terrifying design fault - when you come to shut the boot it descends at a fearsome speed and if you're not paying attention it will give you one hell of a whack sur la tête. This rather embarrassingly happened in the middle of the Aldi car park and an uncharacteristically concerned Frenchman who witnessed it commented "Ça va?" to which Ed immediately replied "Ça va bien merci" in his best GCSE standard French in spite of his semi-concussed confusion. Still it has resulted in quite an impressive black eye, and the bike rack has been removed until it's next needed when hopefully Ed can be trusted to operate it without risk of brain injury.

"It'll have your eye out" maybe time to experiment with an eye patch?

Anyway back to the thrilling summation of our Netflix consumption- it's not all been mindless rubbish, Ed has got to the end of season 3 of Bojack Horseman which despite being by turns surreal, absurdist and hilarious also manages to be deeply moving, depressing and the most biting satire of Hollywoo (sic) since The Player.

We watched The Double which is Richard Ayoade's second feature after the quirky-ly enjoyable Submarine. Based on a Dostoevsky short story it has Jesse Eisenberg playing the downtrodden lead and his doppelgänger who seems to possess all the charm, charisma and confidence that the original lacks. The film plays like an 80's nostalgia trip owing a great debt to Terry Gilliam's Brazil as well as a healthy dose of Lynchian nightmarishness, but it is a little slow to get going and never really delivers the cathartic payoff that the skin-crawlingly oppressive mise-en-scène sets up.

The next hungover evening we watched Bernie by the consistently brilliant Richard Linklater, with Jack Black playing the eponymous funeral director who befriends and later murders a rich widow played by Shirley Maclaine. There were a couple of interesting twists that we had not seen done before - the whole story is based on a real life murder case and the dramatic reconstruction is interspersed with interviews of the real life towns-folk. Despite the fact that an apparently avaricious young man shot a wealthy old lady four times in the back before hiding her corpse in a freezer for nine months, the entire community seem to be on his side. In fact it becomes difficult to know how you feel about the case with nobody coming off as exactly likeable or entirely innocent and at points you wish Bernie had appointed the lawyers from The Jinx who know a thing or two about getting rich folk off the hook for murder in Texas.

On Sunday we're heading to Tuscany for five days to join some friends on holiday and muck around on an agriturismo which specialises in, guess what, pork products. On the way we'll be driving through the culinary triumvirate of Parma (ham and parmesan), Modena (balsamic vinegar) and Bologna (ah ha, not spaghetti bolognese - cue QI-claxon here - which isn't 'recognised by locals' and apparently only exists in stupid British people's heads. Bologna is in fact famous for tagliatelle al ragù, which as far as we can see, is still a dish that should never be eaten on a first date).

So unless it's a very boring trip indeed, we'll be back here on our return! Ciao x