Framedlight

A few days of enforced idleness took place while we waited for the van to be mended. The garage was expecting a new radiator to be delivered from Fiat. Italy was only the other side of the pass but it seemed to be taking forever. We took Hettie for a walk down into the village, taking it slowly so she could manage. The snow was gone at lower altitudes and the ski run into Montchavin was only being kept open with snow cannon. Hettie enjoyed eating some of the snow, ice cream for dogs. The following is a miscellany of shots from around the chalet.

The road was covered in radiator fluid the next morning so Alan took the van to a garage in Bourg-St-Maurice. We had been due to leave Montchavin but we extended the rental on the apartment for a few more days. Fortunately no one was coming in or we might have had to take up residence in the garage! Alan had plenty to do skiing and cycling but I was pretty well stranded at the top of the mountain with the elderly dog. I had finished my book and the internet signal was sporadic as the owners turned off the router when they weren't using it! So I spent time taking pictures around the chalet, getting to grips with my tilt shift lens and processing pictures. Here are some taken the day the van went (none of them are tilt shift). The end ones are of Derek's cat, Colnago, reacting to Hettie. The cat actually didn't seem that scared of the dog and quite often swaggered past her with a 'catch me if you can' smirk. ...

It was another warm day up in the mountains and the snow on the ski slopes was getting slushier, so Alan decided to go out on his bike for part of the morning. I went out onto the area of grass in front of the chalet to play with my cameras and again take pictures of the mountain range across the valley. I am afraid you will get sick of this view. First are some taken with the infrared camera and converted to monochrome, just in Lightroom. The rest are taken in colour with three pictures of Hettie, Queen of the Mountains, basking in the sunshine. There was a black redstart buzzing about around us which I managed to take a very poor picture of. After lunch we went for yet another walk in the woods above the house and again could not proceed far without encountering fallen trees and landslips blocking our way. There were more crocuses and fungi to photograph and I even managed a couple of camera movement pictures. ...

There is a slight problem with living at the top of a steep hill with an elderly dog. That said the morning views over Mont Blanc from the front of the chalet were superb. Here I tried in infrared as well as on the 'normal' camera with the old 400mm lens. That morning Alan went out skiing which you can do from just down the road, within walking distance of where we were staying. I took the dog for a walk down said road but it was hard work for her coming back. Alan arrived back for a late lunch and then we took a stroll along a footpath from just out of the back of the chalet. We took it slow as I was photographing and the ground was pretty rough. In fact we came to a dead end as there had been a land slip and the path was obliterated. There were lots of wild crocuses round which were very pretty and we came across broken down house amongst the trees.