A big walk

Last night we finally got to watch the much acclaimed movie Roma. We both loved it - I thought the cinematography was stylish and artistic, and much of life in Mexico City as depicted in this film resonated with me as I could see similarities with life in South Africa in the 60’s and 70’s. I can see why it has won so many awards and yet I can also see why many people will not like this style of movie. I suppose I liked it because I can compare it to the books I enjoy reading by writers like Anne Tyler and Elizabeth Strout where there is no riveting plot but merely beautiful, skilled writing at a gentle pace revealing an insight into interesting characters and places - not to everyone's taste, most people like an exciting storyline. 

Today as forecast we awoke to low cloud and damp skies, not really any snow rather a very light rain. Such a change from the past week but not an unwelcome change as instead of skiing we decided to have a good walk, and I took my camera. Any photographer knows that blue skies get boring after a while so the low cloud meant much more interesting skies today. 

Gavin and I did a good walk up the Monbiel valley, at times on a firm snowy path and at other times the snow was softer which made it hard going. Our destination was a popular mountain chalet restaurant at Alp Garfuin where we had a coffee before starting back down the valley again. We were surprised to find it quite full, as the horse carriages bring people up here for an outing. I think I overdid it today with the walk - it was about 13km long and we walk very fast with no break, and by the time we were nearing home again my knees were so painful I almost felt like I could not carry on. I have never suffered from any form of knee pain before but maybe today the cold also affected them, I don't know.

There was a break in the low clouds and the sky had some momentary blue patches when I took this photo. There were signs on the path warning us about avalanche risk as last month when they had so much snow they had a few avalanches around here - I have added an extra of one of the avalanches.

Now I am off to pack as we leave to return home again very early tomorrow morning. It has been a fantastic week of skiing in good weather - poor Thomas never managed to get out and ski but it's that time of his life when the forthcoming final school exams are all consuming.