SkiBike Tour 2014-15 - House Hunting Time
Posted: Monday, 9 March 2015 by Mark Kinnon in Labels: 2014-15 Tour, France
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Well today has been a very different sort of day out, to say the very least. Leaving at midday for a pleasant drive through the countryside, steadily following the river Giffre upstream to the village of Morillon, a few kilometres from Samoens and on the edge of Grand Massif domain.
Flooded by the warm sunlight, bouncing over the ruts and potholes of this familiar road, this area no longer feels at all foreign. It has now been four years since I started coming to this region; in many ways this is now home and it is London which feels more and more alien with each passing year.
I have to face the fact that I have never really fitted in with British life at home; I don't like football, I don't care a jot about the TV soaps, the Royal Family or brainless tabloid newspaper gossip column celebrity tittle tattle.
Many of my on-line friends are based outside of the UK, many I have never met, yet I feel I know them better than any of my countrymen. In London, only the tourists smile as they grab their selfies on London Bridge; anyone who has to endure living in London bears the grimace of stress and hardship as if it were a badge of honour. Croydon is becoming more like a war zone, tensions are permanently high, there have been riots, you can be stabbed to death for looking at someone the wrong way, or because they want your bicycle!
My family have a history of itchy feet; my Scottish and Irish grandparents escaped rural poverty for a better life in Liverpool, whilst my Hungarian and Czech grandparents fled first from Hitler and then Stalin. The time has come to face the fact, that my relationship with my home country has withered and died, it is time to seriously consider pulling up the dead roots and find out whether there is a more fertile soil elsewhere in which to plant them.
I have been to Morillon many times, it is the perfect route from Geneva to access the Grand Massif domain, just an hour from the front door to the mountains on a good day. The Les Chenets estate agency is a short walk from gondola lift station.
I met the charming and efficient Frédérique who took me on a swift tour around four properties in Morillon and two in Samoens. It was entertaining to switch languages back and forth like a linguistic slalom course.
Each place had its plus and minus points, I now need a period of reflection to sort them all out and see which one would be the best compromise; who could resist waking up to a view like this?
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| The Giffre valley - this area no longer feels foreign |
Flooded by the warm sunlight, bouncing over the ruts and potholes of this familiar road, this area no longer feels at all foreign. It has now been four years since I started coming to this region; in many ways this is now home and it is London which feels more and more alien with each passing year.
I have to face the fact that I have never really fitted in with British life at home; I don't like football, I don't care a jot about the TV soaps, the Royal Family or brainless tabloid newspaper gossip column celebrity tittle tattle.
Many of my on-line friends are based outside of the UK, many I have never met, yet I feel I know them better than any of my countrymen. In London, only the tourists smile as they grab their selfies on London Bridge; anyone who has to endure living in London bears the grimace of stress and hardship as if it were a badge of honour. Croydon is becoming more like a war zone, tensions are permanently high, there have been riots, you can be stabbed to death for looking at someone the wrong way, or because they want your bicycle!
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.... (Pink Floyd - Time)
My family have a history of itchy feet; my Scottish and Irish grandparents escaped rural poverty for a better life in Liverpool, whilst my Hungarian and Czech grandparents fled first from Hitler and then Stalin. The time has come to face the fact, that my relationship with my home country has withered and died, it is time to seriously consider pulling up the dead roots and find out whether there is a more fertile soil elsewhere in which to plant them.
 |
| Les Chenets estate agency in Morillon |
I have been to Morillon many times, it is the perfect route from Geneva to access the Grand Massif domain, just an hour from the front door to the mountains on a good day. The Les Chenets estate agency is a short walk from gondola lift station.
I met the charming and efficient Frédérique who took me on a swift tour around four properties in Morillon and two in Samoens. It was entertaining to switch languages back and forth like a linguistic slalom course.
 |
| Morillon - who could resist walking up to a view like this? |
Each place had its plus and minus points, I now need a period of reflection to sort them all out and see which one would be the best compromise; who could resist waking up to a view like this?