Farewell to Meribel

Farewell to Meribel

Sunday, 20 April, 2014

No need to count every spoon, packing stress, marmottes and notches on my pole

So this is the last time we will be travelling down to our place in Meribel after 14 years, not counting the half a dozen earlier years when we went there under the Bien Ski umbrella. There is a finality about this time.

This will be the last time I have to check the inventory at the end of the ski season as the tour operator hands  the place back to us.  This time there will be no need to count every spoon, note every scratch on the furniture and check under the mattress that the beds are not broken.  Le Chalet de Meribel is sold and, suddenly, it doesn't matter. That will be a hard habit to break.

Packing for the journey is more stressful than usual. Its not just trying to work out what will be needed at the end of April when the weather can be both warm and very cold, especially on top of 2,900m Saulire. We also have to bear in mind that we will need lots of space in the car for the return journey when we bring back some of items we want from the Chalet.

Let's try to look on the bright side. The fun we have had with family and friends, the things we have learned about life in the mountains especially in summer. The hikes, the views, the marmottes. Carving notches on my walking pole.




Farewell to Meribel

Monday 21, 2014

Frappe la rue early, the cathedral disappears, what happened to Willi Betz? So Long MaryAnn

Up half-an-hour before the alarm and have sandwiches prepared for journey before I realise I can go back to bed for a little longer. Excited? Who? Me?

Result is we hit the road (frappe la rue Jacques!) by 8am and get to Folkestone early enough to get on a Eurotunnel train one and a half hours earlier than booked. That’s good.

“Drive on the Right” signs tell us we are in France. No need to remind us mes amis, we have been driving this route most years for nearly two decades. Follow the signs for Paris until you see the signs for Reims (pronounced Rance, don’t ask me why).

The flat countryside is unusually green and then V reminds me that we usually travel down later in the year when the land is harvested, ploughed and sometimes baked brown.

I start to think about things I have learned over the past 20 years on this road which runs through flat and boring agro-industrial land until we reach Reims where the magnificent cathedral could be seen clearly as you drove past the city. No longer. The new section of autoroute takes you too far away to see the cathedral and the ride is the poorer and more boring for that.

Another, personal, loss is the disappearance of the Willi Betz trucking company. For years the huge yellow and blue trucks were so plentiful that we played the "Willi Betz game" to pass the time. Essentially this meant that whoever spotted the first one triumphally shouted out “Willy Betz” to the chagrin of the others in the car who saw it a second too late or had missed it altogether.

The rest of the journey was then interspersed with shouts of "Willi Betz" as someone spotted another yellow truck with the name on the side in huge blue letters. Whoever spotted the most before we reached our destination won. The winning total once almost got into double figures, if I remember correctly.

Leonard Cohen on the CD player is singing “So Long MaryAnn” and I am singing “So Long Meribel”.

Stop in Troyes for the night. Yes, it is pronounced “Trois”, like three in French, don’t ask me why.