Thoughts provoked by an old house in need of renovation, its garden, a marriage lived within its walls, and of a retired Thoroughbred race horse named Fibs and Flannel.
On one of our last days, I took the dogs out for our usual early morning walk from the hotel, through the cemetery and village of Argentière, through the forest of the Moraine to the base of Grands Montets and back as the sun was coming up over the mountaintops. What a difference a lack of fog and cloud cover make.
You can see how the village settles in the valley, and not on a fog-covered plain, as you might well believe it does from the photos from one of our first days.
She still doesn't know that's why we come -- essentially -- to this place she'd probably prefer to Moosesucks.
You and me, Bac. You and me.
She was so surprised by the humans gliding down the packed trails, heading over to the lifts up to Grands Montets that I decided to walk on over to the chairlift and Gondola up to the slopes with them, just to see what sort of reaction that would draw. I was not disappointed! Rapide couldn't take her eyes off the chairlifts moving this way and that overhead, skis dangling into the air. Baccarat darted back and forth, from me to under the chairs, and back again.
And as if the morning hadn't been packed enough with excitement and pleasures, they found a new friend with whom to play; the dog of a lovely woman with a Nordic or German lilting accent in her French, setting out from Grands Montets on her cross country skis. I regretted my American one. A poor exchange. It was a little like a French for beginners conversation.
"Ils sont gentils?"
"Oui, ells sont très, très gentilles."
"Le mien aussi, il est très gentil."
"Elles adorent jouer avec un autre chien."
"Oui!" dit-elle, "Ils aiment jouer ensemble!" I could hear her smile in her voice, even though I was too far to see her correctly, and I was busy watching the dogs race around my legs.
"Il y a des gens qui n'apprécient pas qu'on laisse jouer nos chiens avec les leurs, mais ici, ce n'est pas le cas. Tout le monde comprend que les chiens en ont besoin."
"Oui!"
"Allez, Rapide. Allez, Baccarat. On laisse la dame faire son promenade de ski! Viens! Au pied!" I wanted to take this nice woman home with me and keep her forever. Her dog, too.
It was our last day, and if I knew Sam (and I do know Sam), he was still sleeping. The sun in the sky, light clouds moving through the valley, he'd regret having missed time skiing, but never enough to get up. By evening, he was snoring on his bed, fully dressed still in his ski clothes, when I decided to come down to the lounge and met the pilot and the photographer. A boy needs his 12 hours, especially after a day furious that he can't throw a 360° at will and get air every time. It's not easy, I try to console him, when you live in the muddy French countryside, just this side of Normandy.
For those who have never been here, or to a place like this, I include the next two bits of video that I took yesterday, riding the chairlift Rapide and Baccarat saw earlier in the morning. When I first came to Chamonix with Sam, 10 years ago, I was immensely disappointed when we arrived in the valley around noon because there was practically no snow visible and I couldn't see a single trail or skier. I had come to one of the top ski resorts in the world, a sort of fairy tale trip for a single mom and her little boy, and all I saw was dirty snow in the streets of a fairly good sized city, settled between tree-covered slopes. I settled us in for a nap for our jetlag, hoping to awake to a new sight.
Inquiring later, we were told that the skiing is accessible via gondola at the higher altitudes. All I could see were rock peaks covered in snow. Up there?
Oui.
Oh.
The next morning, we got our equipment, bought our week ski passes and headed to the gondola -- téléphériques -- up to the nearest of the 5 stations just above us, le Brévent. The gondola rose up through the trees, higher and higher along the lower slope of the mountain, and then, suddenly, it cleared the trees, and we were surrounded by brilliant white snow and skiers, everywhere. We stepped off into the most stunning winter landscape I had ever encountered. It took my breath away to leave the city below and find myself in a skier's paradise, completely removed from everything that has nothing to do with the purest air and skiing.
We have returned every year since then, save one.
From the valley base, the lower portion
Arriving at the top
From here, you have to ski down to another chairlift, down a slope to where the gondola arrives -- for those who prefer not to take the series of chairs, but we don't like to wait for the gondola -- and then you can take one of the chairs or the "eggs" -- les oeufs -- up to the top of Bochard or another spot from which another red and two blacks take off. There is a second gondola, which we didn't take this year, that does to the very top, and from there, you can ski down the glacier of Argentière. For this, you need a costlier pass, or to pay 10 euros per person per trip. We did this last year, and it would be well worth it for me to track down those photos, probably taken with Sam's camera. Stunning.
And a 360° panoramic of the view from the top of Bochard,
And, since there was a specific request to see Sam, and not just the dogs, here you go. I did my best. The subject was less than enthusiastic.
Time to finish loading the car, pay the hotel bill, and leave the valley. I could stay here at least until the snow melts, the rhododendrons bloom, and the summer hiking begins, and then stay on again.
When I return, I will find the balcony mostly finished on our house. That's another story. They did come on Monday, a week late, just as Audouin was threatening to have our lawyer take action. Joaquim bent his ear for two hours on the telephone, explaining all over again -- all he needs is reason to be excited and an audience of one -- how Eric had made a mess of everyone and abused us all.
There is certainly a true story in all that is said by the various parties, but I am so, so sick of it. All I wanted was my delapidated house renovated so that I could live in it more happily, and I have to live a Portuguese soap opera.
What is certain is that in the end, we will get less for more. ....
Silence. Rapide looked up at me, expecting me to be able to produce Baccarat with my next call. "Où est ta fille, Rapide? Dis-moi. Va la chercher." She looked at me. This is not the dog to help out in an emergency. I have to do everything, including sniff out her daughter. "Bon. Suis moi alors. Baccarat? Allez, Baccarat, viens là. Baccarat!"
Nothing. Just the towering trees at the base of l'Aiguille Verte that is home to les Grands Montets and the Argentière glacier. We stood a little below a branch in the hiking and cross country ski trails. Which did she take? Not the one we did, that much was for certain. Did she head, then, toward the sledding hill past the gondola? Did she head up toward the restaurant nestled in the forest, the one we finally found on our walk the previous evening? Did she slip into the stone and show filled creek that runs down from the glacier into the Arve? Or, did she try to head back along one of the other trails we have walked on our several evenings and mornings?
I have noticed that she knows the forest a little too well now, trotting along several meters ahead, ready to take the first trail that crosses the one we are on. "Baccarat," I must call, "par ici. Viens," before she turns to look at me and trots back to walk on with Rapide and I. She must have lost sight of me and chosen her own path. But which one?
Rapide and I stood there and looked at one another. The decision was only coming from one of us. "D'ac, Rapide. On va aller à la voiture." Baccarat knows that after our walks, it's time for her meals at the car. We headed up past the path to the restaurant, up the highest of the cross country trails, the one that has the steepest rises. Rapide looked worried; I continued to call to Baccarat in the silence of the forest, embarrassed about breaking its serenity for my over-eager dog.
We stopped and talked to everyone with a dog; they were all British. That's par for the course around here. "Have you seen a dog that looks like this one, only more lively? No? Well, if you do, she responds to 'Baccarat', or 'Bacs'. We are staying at the Couronne, if you could bring her back to us. They know her there and will know what to do. Thank you. Thank you so much."
We exited the forest, and I fed Rapide her solitary meal at the car. No sign of Baccarat. The peaks I could finally see all around us could see Baccarat, but they could not tell us where she was, by where she was passing, but this is Baccarat about whom we are talking. I wasn't that worried. Not panicked like the woman in the forest said she was when her dog got lost and showed up on the front stoop just as her husband was heading out to look for her. "That's probably what she will do," I had told her, as much for myself and Rapide. Still, it felt lonely at the car.
We walked over the bridge, past the police car (the village policeman is past retirement age; not much is expected to happen around here), the town hall, post office, tourist office, real estate agency, bank kiosk (our bank, of all things), and crossed the street to the hotel.
"Bonjour, Madame," I said, trying to find the right tone, bright enough to be polite, but not too bright given the circumstances, "J'ai perdu l'une de mes chiennes; vous ne l'aurez pas vu?"
"Mais, j'ai trouvé une chienne devant la porte. Elle attendait là," she indicated the sliding glass door and the stoop on the sidewalk beyond, "pour que quelqu'un ouvre la porte. Je me demandais qu'est-ce qui c'est passé qu'elles se séparent comme ça! Je l'ai fait rentrer, et elle est montée."
Sacrée Baccarat. My telephone rang just at that moment. Sam.
"Mom -- "
"Baccarat is with you."
"Yeah. How did you know?" He sounded puzzled.
"I'll explain."
"I heard a noise, and I opened the door and she was lying there in front of the door to the room."
Sacrée Baccarat.
The question that was left was what would happen the next walk? Would she stick to me like glue, or would she run back home the second she lost sight of me? We didn't have to wait long to find out. Both dogs ran toward the village on the very next walk, having lost sight of me around a bend. I had to tromp back the way I had come, calling to them like a moron in the middle of la Moraine, before they came bounding back up the path from the village, over the little bridge over the creek that runs along the train tracks up to the entrance to the forest by the chalet.
And the next walk? They stayed very close.
Only four more walks, and it will be time to drive back to Mousseaux. Our hearts break, all four of us, Sam, Baccarat, Rapide and I.
This has been the best snow we have ever had, if it hasn't been the sunniest weather. We come happily and gratefully to our home at the Couronne in the mountains, where we share no more than 20 square meters, happy as four clams, for a week and a half, and then the time comes when we have to leave it again, until the next year.
Leave the night walks through the dark forest, the stars just over our heads, when I have to fight the urge to lie down on the snow-covered path and let the earth hold me, watched over by the great pines and larches, the highest peaks and those impossibly bright and close stars, safe because what harm can come to me in this place where all has resisted far more since the begining of time than I have ever been confronted with in my life?
"Sh," they tell me, "you are safe and all is well. Be at peace."
We're off to ski (check out the webcams), and there is snow. Lots of snow.
I spent the day yesterday doing everything I hate doing and put off, and off, and off. I:
1) Defrosted the fridge (which in our case is the larger size dorm room fridge... the bigger one is out in the unattached "garage", dirty still), 2) Vacuumed, 3) Washed the (destroyed) slip covers (and put them back on instead of putting that off, too, while the armchair frames get covered with animal fur), 4) Washed the covers from the dogs' cushions for the trip, so they won't smell so much or get as much dog hair in the car, and then smell up the hotel room Sam, the dogs and I share for 9 nights, 5) Washed, folded and -- here's the remarkable part -- put away all the dirty clothes, 6) Repotted the poor uprooted Camelia from the entry court (I don't hate doing that, I just put it off), 7) Grocery shopped and stocked up for our trip (I have learned to make our dinner on a -- what do you call them? Hot plate? -- hot plate (shall we say) in our room... and we save a ton, which helps me feel less guilty for the expense of the 10-day trip skiing in the mountains),
and stuff...
Sam's taking everything out to the car. I have to go put the dog gate back together and put it in place, then the clean cushions, and then the dogs, who have grown considerably (Baccarat, anyway) since their earliest trips in the rear end of the BMW. They have gotten used to the luxury of the old Chrysler Voyager, in which Baccarat claims the middle bench all for herself to snooze or look out the window.
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