March 17, 2024

It’s been a supremely social week.

Thanks to a million-to-one-chance (which, any Terry Pritchett fan will know, is almost a certainty to come true) four more of my core surf crew from Canada have been in town.

The first two were here partly to see me, and partly to undertake a week of adventure on the famous Chamonix to Zermatt “Haute Route”. I was meant to join them but pulled out of the trip in December after realising the likelihood of being in shape for it was slim. Other than the loss of my deposit, I do not regret that decision. My knee is still far from being back to full health, and 7 days of agressive skiing would probably be a huge mistake right now.

I tried lifted up the backpacks my friends were carrying for the week. They were difficult to get off the ground.

Yup, I definitely made the right call.

Still, it would have been an incredible challenge had I been able to go. Six days travelling through remote mountains and complex terrain. Traversing Glaciers and spending nights in alpine refuges. Three course dinner each evening, largely consisting of potato, cheese, and cake I would guess. It’s the first week many of these huts have been open - as they don’t host guests in the depths of winter.

The second half of the surf crew were here at the same time by chance. Their father lives in a house just down the valley, and they had come for a family holiday to show their toddler Corbin the Alps for the first time. The stars aligned, and so six Canadians found themselves feasting on melted cheese in the French restaurants of Chamonix, in a town that only one of us actually lives in for more than a few weeks of the year.

On Saturday we took a short drive to Pleine Joux, a closed ski resort and popular paragliding launch site up above the town of Passy. We stood and watched numerous people prepare their wings and float off into the abyss while the Corbin tried to repeatedly ride his bike off the edge of the cliff with them. His grandfathers dog, Luna, a beautiful Germen Shepherd, pottered around with us, barking at strangers and rolling in the snow as dogs like to do.

After eating far too much cheese the night before together, it was only fitting that we sat down for another cheese based lunch. I decided to order some smoked salmon instead to give my blood vessels a break from the fatty onslaught. Of course, on arrival, it showed up with a yogurt pot sized tower of cheese as an accompaniment. Well, who am I to turn down more cheese when it’s served on a platter to me. When in Rome!

After driving home, my friends spent a few hours packing up their belongings for the week, before disappearing off into the wilderness. It was a little strange to have an empty breakfast table again the next day. But I look forward to the next time they’ll be sitting around it with me when they’ll have so many more stories to tell. If they make it. Their legs may give up before they reach the finish line.

In the mean time they have left me with a lovely gift to entertain myself - a new French children’s book about a wolf who climbs mountains.

I yet haven’t figured out how this new type of books is going to fit into my life.

I usually read two types of books. The first, some sort of non-fiction, typically on the theme of startups, marketing, human behavioural science, and very occasionally, mountains. (Currently: The Art of Shralpanism). The second, some sort of novel. Often in the fantasy space. (Currently re-reading: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality). These two species fulfil different functions. The first: education. The second: entertainment.

I’ll read the non-fiction educational books either in the mid-afternoon or early evening. I’ll never read those last thing because they require more focus and I forget their content much more if I’m close to sleep. Pre-bed reading is saved for the novels.

More recently, a third type of book has entered my life - my four French workbooks. But these are more like assignments to be completed each week, that required proper concentration and dedicated focus time of an hour or two. They often require a computer on hand with an internet connection to aide with translation. I mostly complete these on the weekend at some point.

So, when should I read my new illustrated book about a wolf? If I was a child, I would read, or have it read to me before bed. But I’m not a child and nobody reads me bedtime stories anymore.

It’s French, so it feels like homework, and will almost certainly require computer aided translation, which again means it can’t be a bedtime book. But it’s a fictional story, with pictures, which should almost certainly be a book one reads for fun - making it an evening book in my previous categorisation. It’s definitely not about business, so it doesn’t fit in the afternoon schedule.