The times they are a changing...

Today something terrible happened. I was browsing the condiments aisle in Migros, when I heard something awful coming over the in-store radio. A Christmas song. Not just any Christmas song, but some dreadful modern arrangement of Little Drummer Boy, sung as a duet with the girl warbling away with X Factor-esque trills and squawks. This is my least favourite of all the Christmas songs in any case (closely followed by The Pogues - I'm sorry, I just can't stand it) but on 18th October? I know we moan about Christmas being thrust down our throats too early in the UK but I'm pretty sure this is the earliest I've ever heard festive music being piped over the airwaves. There are Lebkuchen in the shops too, along with candy canes, Santa chocolates and other Christmassy things. I'm not sure I'm ready yet. Christmas means 8 months pregnant and the imminent arrival of a noisy little bundle - I need more sleep first.

On the plus side, the season changing has some other, much nicer, repercussions. We were away in Belfast over the weekend to visit Andy's parents and when we returned, the stretch of the Alps that we can see from here had become noticeably whiter. Usually it is just Mont Blanc that glows big and white on the horizon, with the rest of the mountain chain alongside it looking, well, brown and rocky. But now it is all noticeably snowier, and Andy is starting to get that worrying 'ooh, winter climbing' glint in his eye. This snowy spectacle is a little dangerous for drivers though: I'm sure there must be several accidents every year caused by people just gazing up at these amazing big mountains as they rattle along the dual carriageway.

The Jura mountains aren't high enough to have a snow dusting yet, but they too are changing. Carpeted from top to bottom in thick green forest, the Jura are now steadily turning golden as autumn sets in. It's hard to believe that less than two weeks ago we were sat outside in shorts and t-shirts having a barbeque, as the temperature has suddenly dropped. The days are still warm enough - around 16 degrees or so most days - but at night the temperature is hovering around freezing and there was a deep frost on Tuesday morning that didn't lift until lunchtime.

Now, I must deal with an important bit of other business. In my last blog I waxed lyrical about the food in France, essentially giving the impression that it's all fine patisserie and nice markets and that the French could do no wrong when it comes to food. I need to clarify the situation, because in the days after posting that, we experienced some of the worst food that Europe - never mind France - has ever seen. We went to stay in a hotel in Autrans, just outside Grenoble, for a couple of days, where Andy was attending a physics workshop and I was... well, tagging along for the ride. Aside from the fact that the hotel looked rather too much like it was once used as a Nazi mountain hideaway (built in 1939 too...), it had a swimming pool that I seemed to have to myself, cows clanging away in the fields and beautiful mountain scenery. The food, however, was categorically awful. Dinner on the first night was a piece of cremated meat and some stodgy pasta. No sauce. For lunch on the second day we were served some kind of pungent (i.e. on the wrong side of ripe) overcooked fish with a bizarre curry-esque sauce and cauliflower so over-boiled it was reduced to piles of mush. We couldn't wait to leave and promised ourselves that we'd get away that evening in enough time to stop at a nice restaurant on the way home to re-stock our bodies with nutrients. Unfortunately, Grenoble was too traffic-heavy to consider stopping so we ploughed onwards and had hit the motorway before we had managed to find anywhere. Becoming increasingly ravenous and grumpy with it, I insisted we stop at a motorway service station just outside Chambery. Surely the French, of all people, know how to do motorway services properly?

I will never speak ill of service station food in the UK again. Andy ordered a macaroni cheese and was presented with a dish of dry, brown tubes, all the life completely sucked out of them. I ordered a burger, which to be fair was cooked freshly for me, but which was served with totally disgusting, overboiled and totally inedible 'mixed vegetables'. We paid 20 euros for the privilege. When Andy plucked up the courage to take his macaroni back, trying to work out how to explain in French that he simply couldn't eat it, he began by saying, 'I'm sorry it's....' At which point the lady jumped in and said 'awful, I know. What would you like instead?'

Unfortunately, the evening got worse before it got better. We missed our turning on the way home and ended up at a Swiss border we didn't have permission to cross, or else we would end up on the Swiss motorway without a pass. On the approach, we were flashed by a speed camera. We then did an illegal u-turn in front of the police and had to drive 10km in the wrong direction before we could turn around and head for the correct turning. In turn, this meant we had to pay the motorway toll (péage) in both directions for 20km of road we didn't intend to travel upon. We're interested to see if the Swiss motorway authorities manage to track our car down to our UK address to send us the speeding ticket... Andy says, 'Of course they will. They're Swiss.'