Cheese plate!

Last minute trip to Annot

With Ian and Susan. The drive down kind of sucked because we left late. Tons of traffic, and we did the last (very windy) part in the dark. We eventually made it there though.

Montaud

Rode Montaud with Ian today in between the raindrops. Legs felt ok at the bottom and pretty bad after le Coing. We went most of the way up to the tunnel in the end.

Annot, Day 2

More bouldering








Ian found a pretty bird feather, the ownership of which led to much consternation and tears.

And then it was time to drive back. We stopped for lunch in Annot, but it was overrun with retirees for some reason. We couldn't get into the pizza place, so settled in for a nondescript meal at the PMU bar (France's version of off track betting). Later, we were surprised to see a convoy of Willy's jeeps drive by with American flags. Weird.

More traffic on the road back to Grey-noble, but the Trieves was glorious as usual
. We were behind a Ferrari Maranello for a while, and eventually overtook. As we did, I glanched over and saw a very old woman driving it! I'm, guessing at least 70 years old. The other weird thing is that it did not have Swiss plates.

Annot, Day one

After a relatively good sleep at La Rouie and a big breakfast, it was off to the boulders. Annot has featured many times in this blog, but just to recap: it's a small town in the Maritime Alps which is a funny mix of mountainous terrain and Provence. The cicada features prominently as in other places, but it gets cold here. In fact, we have been here a few times when there was still snow on the road. Anyway, it has an extremely rural, somewhat yokel-ish feel to it. It's a bit of a drive from Grenoble, but we always come back very relaxed and refreshed after wearing ourselves out on the boulders. It works pretty well with the kids, too, as long as the weather is not good. The best way to do it is to just play it by ear and not feel obligated to go just because you have planned it, because it is kind of miserable when it gets cold and or rainy.

Anyway, we had a great day on the blocs. Nothing very hard sent on my part, but we all got to try new stuff and the kids got to run around like little savages
























It was the Place Vendome sector, like last time. And I got spit off the same boulder as last time!

Ian and Susan in town! The kids are so excited!

Lab picnic

Retreat

Off to a work retreat this week in Germany. It's been full of hijinx so far. First, I somehow ended up on a flight a day too early with the Big Boss. Then two taxis came to pick us up, so I went in one and he went in the other (these are one hour taxi rides, by the way). Then I ended up in a pretty odd hotel-apartment away from the conference venue. It was up the hill, which was a pain for me because I pulled my right hamstring on Monday, and it was of course raining. The room was in a building away from the main hotel, and shared with what appeared to be privately owned apartments for pensioners! There was no soap to be found in the room. Since I did not have anything scheduled, I settled down to watch the last set of the Murray Djokovic match which included lots of panning to Sir Sean Connery in between points. I realized that in all my years of playing tennis, I never bothered to figure out the origins of the bizarre scoring, so I wrote down a note to Google it. Why not just Google it then? No internet in the room. Then it was back to the venue for dinner, then back up the hill in the rain. Did I mention that the hotel room smelled of cucumbers? Could be worse, I suppose.


n.b. According to The Internet, the origin of Tennis scoring is not definitively known, but might have something to do with a clock face --15 being 1/4 of the way to "full". 30 being halfway, 40 uh... I guess that one doesn't fit. "Deuce" from "Deux", as in you need two points to win and "Love" from "l'oeuf": an egg, which looks like '0'. I'm not sure I am convinced.

School

The kids started school last week, and it was a little rocky. Both were crying, and Alex in particular was cause for concern after his experience with the Creche (He would cry nonstop for hours until we had to come get him). Today was the first day of his first full week in school and we had been talking it up all weekend. I had also ordered new backpacks for both of them, to be given to them this morning. I dropped them off and it actually didn't go too badly. No tears at all until Alex realized that school was not a one week thing and that he would be going back. Then there were a few tears, but much better than last week. Phew!





 

Porte, Eynard

Went for a ride today. My legs felt pretty terrible for most of the way, but managed to give it a little bit of effort on the climb up to the Fort St. Eynard. Full route: Quaix->Sarcenas->Porte->Sappey->St. Eynard->Quaix

Ice Cream!

Green Arch, of course. We ate them on the curb next to the fountain just up the street, and midway through we heard a loud splash and saw an unsupervised toddler that had fallen in! Chloe ran over and rescued the waterlogged little girl, who was not very happy and eventually her father came out.

Earlier we had a pretty decent Chirashi plate at Ozenya! I'm so happy to have real Japanese food again.