Caught! Daisy maintains she wasn't in the flowers, but her yellow nose tells a different story!

It’s a beautiful spring afternoon and we just finished lunch on the balcony.  The barbecue has had a real workout over the past few days, Aude has been busy potting plants, and all around us the trees are beginning to bloom.  It’s getting tougher and tougher to spend time in the office, staring out the window at the glorious weather outside and hoping that it lasts until the weekend.  This weekend we’ve been lucky — the weather has lasted and the weekend as been picture-perfect.

I made the mistake of taking my winter tyres off too early last year, just in time for a late surprise snowfall, but this year I think I’ve left them on long enough.  We’re about to go on vacation for a few weeks, but after we get back I think I can safely remove them without the danger of an early May snowfall.

We are getting excited about our upcoming vacation — a few days in Singapore followed by a week-and-a-half in northern Vietnam.  Friends of ours were scheduled to visit Tokyo at the same time, but they’ve sensibly decided to take a detour and will be coming to Vietnam instead, so we’ll be able to catch up with them in Hanoi for dinner. 

For today, though, we need to juggle a mountain of laundry and my US tax return with a walk in the forest and some beautiful spring sunshine.  I suspect I know where my priorities lie…

The seasons are changing, and the last of the winter snows seem to be behind us.  Actually, they were behind us months ago.  We had an incredibly snowy November and December, then almost nothing since.

The skis have gone back into storage, and after 18 months here, I’ve finally succumbed to Swiss peer pressure and bought myself a pair of hiking boots.  No self-respecting Swiss person would be caught dead doing something without the right equipment for the job, and I got tired of getting disapproving looks from all the passers-by as we walked in the woods behind our house.  Even the deer shook their heads and cross the path, lest they be mistaken as being part of our hiking party.

It’s been a while since I’ve had time to update my blog, partly due to a heavy travel schedule at the end of the year and partly due to a much busier work life with my new role.  I have lots of photos that I need to get edited and added to the blog, and plenty of dialogue to accompany it, but for now a short update will have to do.

After a beautiful white Christmas with my parents here in Basel, I flew almost immediately after New Years to Hyderabad and Mumbai for a series of meetings.  Then it was over to New Jersey for a set of meetings, where heavy snows meant I got stuck on the runway at Newark airport for seven hours.  I arrived home a day late, just in time to take a quick shower and head out the door for a week’s skiing in Chamonix.

Skiing isn’t really the best way to describe what we did, because the slopes were mostly covered with ice.  There hadn’t been any new snow since the end of December, and it was nearly February when we went.

Back from Chamonix, a quick overnight in Munich and then over to Newark again for more meetings.  I managed to squeeze in a quick visit with my parents in Washington and do a little shopping.

Our thoughts now are turning towards vacation – we’re off to Paris and the north of France to visit with friends and family next weekend, and a week after that we’re off for two weeks to Singapore and Vietnam.  Can’t wait!

Not many updates on here recently, but then again, I’ve had an unprecedented six weeks at home.  I’ve just about gotten into the swing of things in Basel.  I’ve stopped asking Aude to arrange a ‘wake-up call’ each morning.  I don’t look for my newspaper outside the bedroom door anymore.  And I’ve grown accustomed to the fact that, no matter how hard I try, the cats simply will not give the same respect to the ‘do not disturb’ sign on the doorknob that housekeeping does.

Back on the road again for a very quick trip to Bangkok to host a two-day workshop, then onto London for a day of meetings.  It was my first trip to Bangkok since the riots, and it was reassuring to see that everything was getting back to normal.  Same friendly faces in the hotel (many of whom now recognise me) and same smiling faces in the streets.  It’s always a pleasure to return to Thailand.

Since I was stopping over in London, I decided to throw some business BA’s direction.  It was the weekend after the Basel Tattoo, and it turns out the entire Royal Air Force Fife & Drum Brigade was on my flight.  That excitement aside, arrived in London and briefly got my first taste of LHR T5 – but, disappointingly, it was only an amuse bouche as my flight was leaving from T3.  Headed to the lounge for a quick massage and a light dinner, then boarded the flight.  Managed to snag my favourite seat, 63K, on the upper deck and settled in for a great flight – it reminded me again of how much I like BA’s product and service, and I still think that their seat is wonderful for its privacy and their bed is the most comfortable in the sky.

I arrived in Bangkok mid-afternoon.  I had a great seafood dinner, and treated myself to a two-hour massage – the perfect antidote to a thirteen-hour flight.

My workshops went well, although my head nearly exploded after a four-hour discussion of the finer points of Thai Withholding tax.

Another great BA flight, this time shared with the Australian Men’s Volleyball Team, and a short-sleep later I was back in London. Aude took the opportunity to join me in London for the weekend.  We hit the sales hard and came back loaded with full suitcases, and we also had a chance to visit with old friends and Aude’s brother and sister-in-law. 

Back to London to enjoy a healthy full-English breakfast

I’d forgotten how grubby London is.  Maybe I’m spoiled because I live in Switzerland, where everything is clinically clean, but London really is gross.  Streets covered in rubbish, dust, newspapers and vomit.  Is this really the cultural capital of Europe?

We arrived back in Switzerland on Sunday evening, just in time to be treated to a wonderful fireworks display for Swiss National Day, also marking our first year in Switzerland.  It was quite a week.

No pictures from our final day of skiing as I managed to leave the camera at the apartment, but we headed back to the Flégère side of the Brévent-Flégère area, determined to ski the rest of the mountain after our disappointing day on Wednesday.  The weather in the morning was perfect, with good snow conditions on the ground, temperatures just above freezing, and light cloud that burned off as the morning went on. 

We spent a little more time looking at the piste maps and made our way over to two slopes on the far edge of the mountain.  The two slopes, a red run called Crochues and parallel black run, Floria, have to qualify as some of the best skiing I’ve ever done.  It takes three lifts to reach the top, but it’s worth it.  Stunning views, challenging pistes, and almost no one else around.  Top to bottom is about 25 minutes at a reasonable pace.  Definitely on my list of slopes that I’d like to ski again…

Such a shame I didn’t remember my camera!

By mid-afternoon, the clouds and snow had rolled in.  At about 3pm we called it a day and headed back to the apartment to get cleaned up for our last night in Chamonix.

Hurray! Some sun at last!

Hurray! Some sun at last!

Day four of skiing took us through the Mont Blanc Tunnel and onto Courmayeur, on the Italian side of the border.  The weather conditions were much better, and for most of the morning we had sunshine and temperatures just above freezing.  We skied a few runs on the front of the mountain, then headed over to the back of the mountain to seek out some more interesting stuff.

Matthew in Courmayeur. With some big mountains in the background.

Aude in Courmayeur

A number of people had recommended that we try Courmayeur, and suggested that it was the best of the mountains in Chamonix.  We came away feeling a little disappointed.  The runs are much shorter than the other areas of Chamonix, and nearly the entire mountain is groomed pistes – which means that there isn’t much variety to the slopes.  The lift system isn’t well thought out, so you always have to ski across to one set of lifts or another.  Throw in the Italian ineptitude for queuing and you end up with a frustrating skiing experience. 

Like Eve with her apple, Aude seduces Matthew onto the expert runs...

At some point in every man's life, there comes a time when he must venture off the bunny slopes...

The Italians also seem to grade on a curve.  The red slopes on the Italian side were like the blue slopes on the French side, and even the black slopes weren’t overly-challenging.  There were lots of slopes, I guess, but the lack of variety meant that after a day skiing Courmayeur, I was done.

Tucking into some good food in the Italian Alps

Tucking into some good food in the Italian Alps

One thing did live up to its promise, though: the food.  The dining options on the Italian mountain were much better than on the French side.  Aude had homemade polenta with mushrooms, I had a veal steak with ham and cheese, and we shared an incredible charcuterie.

If only we could match the Italian cooking with the French slopes, I’d be in heaven.

A well-deserved glass of vin chaud at the end of the day.