the calm of november

The calm of November is here.  Not that the first seven days have been calm at all, I’ve only been home for two and a half of them.  The weekend spent in the mountains, Friday night Halloween Party at Lou Rider with Pierre and a group of his french friends from St Lary.  It’s still strange to be at Lou Rider in the summer with it being warm outside, I always expect to be greeted with a blast of freezing air whenever the door is opened, not this time with the last dregs of summer warmth.  Saturday we hiked up a couple of red ski runs, high into the mountains, to have a look at the view and some new structures that have been built to help with crowd control on the winter pistes.  The weather remained impressively warm and my lungs reminded me that I need to do more hill walking to get back into some sort of cardiovascular shape.

Sunday continued in the mountains, I left Pierre, crossed a nearby pass into the next valley and met up with my good friend Simon.  We had intended to pass the afternoon together but one bottle of wine turned into two, the roast chicken on a string took it’s time and was just as delicious as the previous time - four or so years ago.  We chatted till well past dark, watched the stars and the moon from our grassy outpost high in the mountains before retiring to our respective vans for another night at altitude.  

That was the end of summer.  Next morning the temperature had fallen dramatically and the weather turned to grey and damp, the first morning without sunshine since early September, if I remember rightly.  Spoiled by the weather.  We have a plan to learn mini digger skills together, I have water pipe to bury before it gets too cold and Simon suggested he would help if I hired the machinery.  All booked and diarised for the 17th and 18th of November.