Old friends and modern cars

I had a lovely surprise the other day when I found out an old friend's boyfriend had booked a short break in Courchevel as a surprise, and that they were a mere 5 minutes away on skis! We had a great afternoon skiing, topped off by watching the sun go down on the Bel Air terrace with a wee glass of wine - then faced the usual chilly ski back, straight into the Jump Bar where we spent way too much time! But it's just great to be among friends, with lots of animated conversation and that bit of 'what the hell, let's have another' recklessness which tends to happen in ski resorts and make us all feel younger than we are! Needless to say 'it'll nae be this in the morning' always rings true and yesterday I found myself grumpy and tired, when trying to negotiate ourselves into the best position to watch the Ladies World Cup Slalom (sorry for being a grump, Jane!) Next time, we will be at the bottom where we will see the timings/leaderboard, hear the commentary and not be taken out by lone snowboards flying down the piste. Bit of a learning curve that one, and reminded me a little of watching the Tour de France in Cap d'Agde many years ago!

Every Christmas our car reminds us that it's not invincible (last year on Christmas Eve the back windscreen exploded - yes, honestly!). Today when we descended to Moutiers, the car decided that the driver door wasn't closed (it was) and started making all sorts of alarming beeping noises, then wouldn't lock. A trip to Renault informed us that in order to lock our car and stop it from making said noises, we would be 200 Euros lighter. Merry Christmas! I do so long for older cars with no sensors, computerised messages and such like. Last week I was told the brakes were failing while driving down a mountain on hairpin bends, when it only needed the brake fluid topping up a little (hello Renault - again!).

Last thought for the day - fingers crossed that everyone who is stuck somewhere they are not supposed to be, and also my family trying to reach other family, manage to get to the right place in time for Christmas. Nite nite.