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Best mum ever!

November 27, 2021 by Chantal Chaney

Friday

Chan – Busy in the morning getting as much work as possible done as it’s another POETS day for Matt and I but far less exciting today.

Tonia – So, today is another day to spend some quality time with Mum and also give Anya a bit more of a walk, hopefully a little bit of time off the lead for a change. We have decided that we are going to take Anya up to the top of Superbagneres, looking at the winding mountain road there is no chance that Mum is going to be letting me drive (and nor do I want to risk my driving skills on the wrong side of those roads).

The drive up the mountain was very scenic, halfway up the mountain we saw a massive flock of (????) circling and realised that Mum had left the binoculars back at the house. Nevertheless, it was pretty cool to watch them dipping and rising on the thermals.

Once we reached the top, we parked up, sadly having come in the off season, just between it closing for the summer and re-opening for winter there was nothing open, but the scenery was stunning. After a good walk around we had found what we thought may be some kind of mini ski lift for the kids – it looked like a slightly weird tube thing… if it is not a ski lift feel free to make other suggestions.

We walked down the start of a few of the ski runs which definitely reinforced to mum that if this was what they were calling blue and red runs then her skiing days were definitely behind her. Naturally we did not go too far down the slopes however as mum was not convinced that she wanted to try and climb back up the mountain.

We took a shortcut through one of the tunnels which appears to have another moving matt/drag lift thingy going through it and came back out near the front of the hotel. Spotting the place where we had been with Lee, Vicky, Chan and Matt for a drink the last time Mum had been here to view the house we decided that if we could manage the walk in the snow and ice we could definitely make it back up when it was solid ground. What we hadn’t noticed the last time we were here was the giant cross on the top of the building… looking at the size of it we couldn’t quite figure out how we had missed this before.

Walking done it was time to head back down the mountain and obviously stop for a quick beverage or two before heading back to the house. Anya whilst still not Mum’s biggest fan yet had definitely been warming up to her throughout the trip and even went for a cuddle on her lap. On returning to the house, Chan and Matt were getting ready to head out.

Chan – We need to go up to Toulouse to looks at sinks and lights, collect some remaining kitchen pieces and test drive a possible new car.

The sky was incredible though and is all the colours that are inspiring the design of the mum’s room – pink, purple, grey and soft yellow/orange. Yes, I know yellow/orange doesn’t sound right but if it’s good enough for nature it works for me, it just has to be added sensitively.

Meanwhile back at home:

Mum was back to her favoured method of contributing to Chan and Matt’s renovation the best way she knew how. Yes, batch cooking a whole host of meals to keep the pair of them going once we had gone home.

[Chan – I probably don’t say this anywhere near as much as I should, but I have the best mother in the entire world. Seriously, check all this out! How fabulous is she!!! We are very grateful and very much looking forward to eating all these. The fun thing is that this picture doesn’t show it all. There’s also another really big beef pie. Amazing, thank you!! Love you lots!!]

My thoughts however led me back to my favoured area of the house (and what I consider to be my personal domain now), yes, I am back up to the attic. Whilst we had been putting up the plasterboard in my bedroom, a decision had been made that the boards would pass through the corner beams in the rooms either side to make a continuous flow across the front of the house. As I can’t put up plasterboard on my own, I decided that I would try and create the access point into room 5. This would involve one of the more enjoyable activities in my book, namely a bit of destruction.

As always once the boards started coming down I found that I had hit a bit of a roadblock, this time in the form of bricks that had been cemented in behind the corner struts which completely blocked the access to my bedroom that we had been looking for. Switching focus to clearing some of the batons across the external wall I started making a bit more progress. This was naturally halted with shouts emanating from the kitchen to down tools as dinner was up.

Was late by the time we got back so ready for dinner and some TV. Matt had a lovely trachea for Anya, she was clearly crazy about it.

[15 October 2021]

Saturday

Mum and Tonia’s last day, so need to make the most of their free labour – sorry ‘visit’ – I’ll get that down sometime. Since the weather is nice Tonia is keen to help me with my job of the day and get some work done in the garden. The tomato vines and wires need to come out, and there’s a lot of them.

Lunch in the garden, typical French fayre of baguette, cheese, pate, meats and some of mum’s cheese straws.

Since it is the last day we went to try the walk to Lac d’Oô. Matt told us (that google reviews said) it was an hour’s walk to a beautiful lake and not too difficult/steep. Well.. I can’t say that I am convinced by his sources as it was not what was in the brochure.

I was quickly offering to accompany mum to the bar at the bottom and help with the wine drinking since she had to drive. Matt however seemed keen to carry on and was also keen to get it ticked off the list so I don’t have to come back again another day and redo half the journey. Mum also challenged us to take some beautiful pictures for her so I felt obliged to press on.

There were some beautiful views and things to look at, but 3pm is not the time to start this journey at this time of year. We were apparently still only half way up when we decided to turn back. At least I’d packed a few beers for the ‘summit’. Turns out that 1/1.5hrs is wildly optimistic if you’re not an experienced alpine walker and it’s really quite steep in places. Mountain dog was the only one really up for continuing. I didn’t take her up as she seemed to wrap Tonia in circles constantly but on the way down she was much better so I took the reins.

Eventually back at base camp we had definitely earnt a(nother) beer.

Since it’s the last night we were off out for dinner. Tonia wasn’t up for the fancy place in Spain so we went to Lou Casteu, this did however have the advantage of nobody having to drive.