Weather window

Sat 03 Apr 2010 09:39 BST

The weather is continuing to confuse us, and, it would seem, the French Met' Office too. The forecast for the coming week seems to be changing hourly and starkly; from snow to sun, from -2'C to +14'C.

For the time being we have adopted the 'make hay while the sun shines' attitude and downed tools whenever there is a window of good weather. Yesterday presented one of those windows of opportunity. Although a little chilly here in the village, the valley near Grenoble was around 15'C. We headed down in the minibus with our neighbour, Yves, and had a fantastic 70km ride - Guys' first road ride of 2010.

I say 'road' ride, but we spent a good proportion of the time on the Grenoble cycle path which runs for miles along the leafy banks of the Isere river. The path is fantastic; well surfaced, well signposted, nice and wide and a very safe and friendly environment to cycle. It is shared by walkers, runners, rollerbladers, people riding to and from work, etc. Anyone who has taken part in a Grenoble based cyclo-randonne event with us will have probably used at least a portion of this path for the first few kilometres as it takes you - traffic free - to the outskirts of the city and to some great country roads and climbs.

Good thing that we were not on the roads closer to home as the freeze-thaw and constantly changing temperatures brought down a sizeable rock face on the road to home the other day (picture top left) - another good reason to wear a helmet!

Helyn