Highs and Lows

During the many Facetime conversations we've had with friends and families we're often asked for the highs and lows of our adventure so at the end of the adventure we thought we would share some of them.  It has generally been a truly amazing trip and there are so many things we could share it's been quite difficult to prioritise but here goes;

1. Visits from friends and family from the UK.  Especially our daughter Zoe and I think it was really nice to have an early visit from two of our besties from Shrewsbury, Felix and Helen, way back at the end of January.  They came to Geneva for a weekend and it was so special to have them visit in the early days while we were still finding our feet.  Not only did it give us something to look forward to but it also made us realise that we could fairly easily visit other places outside the Grand Massif area and I think gave us confidence to do this during the rest of our adventure.

2. Our trip to Shaffhausen in Switzerland was a fabulous in so many ways, it gave us the chance to experience a different culture, to make new (and really special) friends and we have such beautiful memories of the country and our experiences there.  We truly can't wait to host Markus and Claudia when the come to England sometime, we know they will love Shrewsbury too.

3. Very early on the visit we had the chance to take part in a Nordic Activities Day in Cirque Fer-A-Cheval and we will never forget that day.  It was just after we had had a huge dump of snow so it was like a winter wonderland and when I say the Cirque is possibly the most beautiful place we have ever seen you'll appreciate that it has to be in our list of highs.  The photos from the day don't do the memories justice.  Wow - just such a beautiful landscape and there is a campsite (only open in the summer) which we definitely have on our list of must visit places in future.

4. Making new friends was also a big high for us and Tim and Chrissy coming and meeting us and spending the weekend with us in Saint Gervais was a particularly memorable weekend.  We laughed a lot despite the pretty miserable and wet weather.  As well as catching up for laughs, and maybe visiting Como in Italy (where they live) we hope we will be able to do some ski mountaineering with them in the future.

5. We’ll never forget the first day we arrived, Saturday 14th January, driving up to Le Giffre Valley from Le Cluses and passing through the mountain villages before getting to Samoens and our campsite and home for the first three weeks.  We were blown away with the natural landscape and although there was no snow (that changed very quickly) we were really excited to venture up the mountain.  That sense of anticipation made me realise we were doing the right thing and although I felt quite anxious about our Homer and his ability to cope with the climate we were very excited.

6. The historical tour of Samoens from a young guide who has lived in the area, and clearly loves it, all her life.  We learnt so much and got to practice a little French too.  It was important that we did things like this to meet our aspirations to truly visit an Alpine area and understand the culture.

7. I mentioned our daughter Zoe visiting earlier in number one.  We had a fantastic week staying in Flaine with her and her boyfriend Hugo as well as Hugo's Dad Adrian and their friends Charlie and Faye.  They are all really good skiers with a passion for skiing off piste, trying harder runs occasionally and also doing jumps whenever they got the chance.  We had also saved up finances so we could eat out with them every evening and we tried our best to keep up with some of the après ski activities too.  They were such great and fun times and we have brilliant memories from that week alone.  💕

8. For me (Melle), being so close to the outdoors has been amazing and we have both been awestruck by the magnificent scenery we’ve been surrounded with here in the Grand Massif. From the snow scenes, to the mountain peaks and breathtaking sky at the top of the world, as well as the architecture of the mountain chalets, farms, refuges and the historic buildings of Annecy, Schaffhausen and Stein an Rhein.

Lows

9. As mentioned above we spent some amazing times with friends and family and these were / are very important to us so it won't be a surprise to share with you that when those times came to an end we did experience lows.  Over the adventure we appreciated this so much better in each other and Melle and I came to look after each other better during those moments.  We knew we needed to look after each other especially at those times.

10.  Melle will tell you that she really experienced some homesickness in the first two weeks.  This didn't mean she wasn't excited, she was, but I think coming to live in the Alps in a motorhome did really take us both out of our comfort zone.  I'm pretty sure some of the little things which went wrong in the early weeks, which over stretched our limited budget at the time also contributed to this. We also found the extreme cold, sometimes down to -15* even in the day was hard to bear and we both expended a lot of energy in keeping warm. Of course we had lots of in-depth conversations about what we wanted from life in those early days and realised we needed to be with others a little more. With money saved from off-grid camping we began to go for a daily coffee or beer at a bar to get us out of the van and be amongst others . We found some great little cafes and bars where hearing a ‘bonjour’ and a smile helped us feel a bit more part of something. I'm pretty sure we'd both agree that in this way we have become even closer as a result of the adventure.  It certainly has made us appreciate each other all the more.

11. I don't know whether I'd call them lows but driving up the windy mountain roads really makes me quite anxious and pushes me out of my comfort zone.  But I've learnt a few things about coping with this anxiety too.  First I just concentrate on the road and my driving and try not to be distracted by the edge and the drop!!  Secondly I've found that it's good to have plan for the journey, a clear goal and maybe timings for getting there.  I remember when we drove up to La Clusaz to meet Dave, Suzy and family and instead of worrying about the drive I just focused on getting there in time for first lift. I've also come to realise that driving down the mountain is not anywhere near as disconcerting (for all kinds of reasons which I won't go into here) and so don't let the thought of it worry me while I'm enjoying being up the mountains.

And finally I (Chris) just want to say that most important of all was that I did it all with my very special best friend Melle.

This blog was written by both of us xxx