A man of many hats

Do you sometimes wake in the morning and decide which hat to wear? I have much the same issue when I awake, should I spend the day working on my music related interests or my activities with Currencies Direct? Obviously the chap on my picture today who I photographed at the Col de Tende tunnel on the way to Limone yesterday faced this dilemma and in the end could not decide which hat to wear, so he chose to wear both of them.

Which hat? I know, I will wear both

So we arrived at Limone just in time for lunch in the brilliant sunshine. Nowadays, being a less than intrepid skier I decided that luncheon was at least as attractive a proposition as skiing. Coupled with that I had a cripple in the car, that nice lady decorator still suffering from a sprained ankle, and the rest of the family suffering the continuing fallout emanating from her as a result. She seems not to be able to grasp the simple principle that her sprained ankle is not my fault. In any event the blame has clearly been placed on me, there can be no other explanation for her poor manners.

Lunch was attempted at the top of the gondola, for which two tickets cost 20 Euros, but once we got there, that nice lady decorator was unable to negotiate the snow down to the intended target restaurant on her crutches, so we had promptly to turn around and take the gondola back to the village. We found a charming little restaurant in the old village called Diligenza where we had some of the best trout and sea bass I have ever experienced. Having lunched long and well, I made the decision to delay my sortie onto the slopes until this morning.

We got to our hotel in Limone, called Hotel Limone (damned inventive these Italians) where that nice lady decorator reminded us that the last time we stayed in the town itself as opposed to Arracador where we resided last week, we had stayed in the Hotel Touring (now sadly closed), also known as Hotel Diesel because of the smell that emanated from the basement. Sprog 2, the female one was aged about thirteen at the time and was awoken at 2am by the head board in the bedroom next door crashing rhythmically into the adjacent wall for some time before hearing the exclamation “magnifico” through the wall. My explanation that the Italians are passionate about football did not convince her that the sounds and exclamations she heard were that kind of sport.

Apres ski was commenced at the slightly unpreposessing Hotel Petite Meuble, which the french speakers amongst you may translate as Hotel of little furniture, and sometimes the literal translation is best. Less furniture would have been better than was there, and no furniture at all would have been better still. Anyway, the bombardinos (a local Italian liquer coffee smothered in whipped cream.) were top quality so a couple of these were required in order to set us up for the evening meal.

It was on the way back that we spotted the St Patricks Irish bar, so there was no choice, it had to be tried before dinner. A pint of Guinness was slightly ruined by a whole village full of noisy Italians unsuccessfully trying drown out the commentator on the Juventus versus Parma Seria A football match showing on the TV, but I suppose it at lest had atmosphere and decent furniture.

This morning I will ski with the sprogs whilst hop-along decorator seethes nearby, then lunch I think?

Chris France