I really want to write a post about our next expedition but unfortunately Katie (also known as Hitler on occasions) has said that we have to wait so instead I thought I would tell you about the highlights of our trip to France.

In a very respectable third place comes the weather. I don’t know about you but there is something spectacular about the weather in the Mountains at this time of year (spring that is). Not only is it the perfect temperature but the snow is just great for touring and the air is half filled with the smell of summer coming up from the valleys below.

In second place is Katie’s face as she learnt to abseil without a harness. Slightly harsh I know, but it was one of the funniest things I’ve seen for a while. It’s an incredibly important skill to know in climbing and mountaineering expeditions in case something should happen to your harness and you need to get down a vertical cliff. As a general rule I use a technique called ‘South African abseiling’, quite why it has that name I don’t know. What I do know is how painful it is! Katie managed to get to a point where it hurt so much that you start laughing at the ridiculous amount of pain and you are torn between been afraid of going any further and knowing that down is the only way for the agony to end. Sadly I didn’t have a camera to hand and so you will simply have to imagine it.

And in first place was the acquisition of the most ridiculously large printer ever. My Dad owns a print house in the Alps and he very kindly donated an old printer to us so we could print out proposals and promotional material for our expeditions. It is a truly fantastic toy! And with typical disregard for the cost of the inks I set about printing the largest pictures I could to test out our new gadget. I have since discovered that it will print 36 inches wide and a fairly respectable 300ft long. We now have hundreds of huge maps and prints all around the flat and not enough wall space to put them up. The only down side of it is that Katie isn’t overly impressed about the fact that it occupies a huge portion of the house now!