Our first excursion of the year. A sojourn much needed to calm the after-effects of seasonal stress.
Four nights relaxing in the deep, distant, snow-capped mountains of the Pyrenees.
What a great idea!
Only, how the devil do we get there?
French farmers had taken it upon themselves to disrupt pretty much the entire French road system using their main tools of dispute; powerful unions, an over-abundance of tractors, mass hysteria, mouldy straw and, erm, a liberal dosing of slimy shit.
Slurry and mould; just some of the amazing by-products of farming. Other by-products include the mass poisoning of the water infrastructure, warming of the atmosphere due to impressive volumes of methane, destruction of the natural environment and... smell.
Their primary complaint appears to be that the EU wants farmers to stop destroying the planet. Well, I'd like to add my voice to that.
And it seems that most farmers agree.
But... the French government also wants them to produce more food for us poor starving peasants.
A tricky one huh? And not a problem confined to just animal (mostly beef) farmers. I'm looking forward to wine growers depositing larger numbers of bottles of wine on the motorways.
___
Thus we took to the byways,
avoiding traffic jams and, in fact, avoiding traffic altogether. A longer trip, yes, but significantly more interesting than the normal motorway journey, albeit inducing a French revolution in Annick's French digestive system.
We were both looking forward to a few relaxing days. A chance to recover from the abnormal stresses forced upon our aging and failing bodies. To sleep, perchance to dream; aye, there's the rub, and possibly seeing some of this increasingly rare thing once called snow.
And there it was in the far distance.
The strange orange glow behind this stupendous mountain range was unsettling at this hour of two o'clock in the afternoon, but I was not worried. The apocalypse was yet several weeks away.
Plan A was to improve our health with long walks in the mountain forests.
Therefore we reluctantly settled for Plan B.
Our home in the mountains was noticeably lacking in white stuff, just visible in the far distance.
We gradually succumbed to the onslaught of solar rays. This involved relaxing in the garden in balmy temperatures of 19℃,
..thus putting plan B into full effect...
...accompanied by...
...bees...
...butterflies...
...aliens...
...and other beasties not so often found in the depths of winter high up in the mountains.
We ventured further south, deep into the mountain heights.
We finally found some snow...
Erm... just...
These are the ski slopes just two weeks before the hight of the ski season.
Did I already mention the oncoming apocalypse?
