Sometimes your feet just never seem to touch the floor!

On the Saturday morning Jordan and Jen told us that they had arranged to meet the realtor at 11 a.m. at the apartment they had just put an offer on and "did we want to come to see it"? Now at this point, while the vendor had accepted their offer and the bank had said, in principle, it was fine, nothing had been finalized as yet, so they were still crossing their fingers. Anyway we arranged to meet them at their place at 10.45 a.m. and then drove up to St. Jeoire, which is about 15 minutes "further" into the mountains. This makes no difference, work-wise, for Jordan and for Jen it is 20 minutes closer to her work, so what's not to love!

St. Jeoire - photo Lesbrasses.com

I have been to St. Jeoire many times before - or rather,  have driven past it many times before - but I have never really stopped there - turns out it's a lovely little town! They have everything they need there - a school, parks, shops, doctors - everything they could possibly want, in fact. The apartment has two bedrooms and is on the second floor of a two-storey building with a lift and it is really nice. OK, it needs freshening up but otherwise it is "hot to trot", as we say! Before we all went in I made Jordan do the right thing though, and carry Jen over the threshold! Aaaahh, to be young again!

The big selling point of this place, though, is the peace and tranquility! It is off the main road with plenty of parking, but just 100 metres from the small high street. It also has the most wonderful, large balcony ever, with a view overlooking the Môle mountain. It isn't where they want to be forever as they want to renovate a larger place with land eventually, but as a starter home it is fabulous!

The view from their balcony

Actually, Jen sent me a message a couple of hours ago to say that they had received final approval from the bank and can pick up the keys in three weeks! They are so excited, it's lovely. I sent her a message to say I had several large boxes plus six empty trunks in my basement if they wanted them for the move. I also offered to come over and help pack - "pack" in French is "emballer". Only problem is, my phone is programmed in English and it changed "emballer" to "embalm" - just hope Jen doesn't realize I offered to "embalm" her!

After we left them we headed up to my favourite ski resort of La Clusaz, because the last time my sister was over she had bought a winter jacket there which she says is "the best jacket she's ever had" and she wanted to buy another one. While we found the right shop she didn't find what she was looking for, but we still ended up having a delicious lunch in one of the restaurants in the village and for some bizarre reason the municipal parking lot was free - between seasons maybe - either way, that was a definite plus!

La Clusaz

We could have taken a cable car up to a place called Beauregard but given the heat and the accumulated tiredness we decided to head back home for a rest - because of course we had been invited out again later that evening for a drink! Well actually it was a surprise 40th birthday party that my neighbour had organized for her daughter, Mathilde! She had invited the neighbours round for a drink but she had also been conspiring with Mathilde's friends to have them all show up to make it an even bigger surprise! The plan was for Ben, her boyfriend, to get her to her parents under false pretences and we, the neighbours, would be there as the surprise. Well that worked!

But then as we started singing happy birthday all her friends came running round from behind my hedge. To be honest, she looked like she was going to have a coronary (thankfully she didn't!). There was one slight blip in the proceedings because her mom had made a big "vat" of planter's punch which her husband had put into a cooler, on top of which he stacked blocks of ice because of the appalling heat. Only thing was, he had managed to wedge one of the blocks of ice onto the tap in the punch barrel - and subsequently emptied all the punch into the bottom of the cooler! I said to Mathilde's brother "I bet your mom went 'oh you silly goose, Michel, what a frightfully unfortunate thing to happen'" or words to that effect, at which Seb, the brother, just burst out laughing and said "I think you know mom better than that"! And he was right! She then had to dash off and make more punch (which was just a little too strong, so cheers!) but everything turned out ok in the end - mom having done a great job!

Jen, the little minx, went up to Mathilde to hug her and wish her a happy birthday. Trouble is, Jen is also a psychiatric nurse and, on occasion, has had to restrain patients, so using her nursing skills she stood behind Mathilde, grabbed her wrists and raised her arms - apparently in this position you can't free yourself - at which point the girlfriends came running over and threw her in the pool! Thankfully, she took it in good sport - but I now know not to get too close to Jen if she's in a bad mood!

Mom, Mathilde and Ben

After the cocktails we neighbours left to allow the family and friends to get on with dinner. Turns out Ben had one more surprise up his sleeve (in addition to buying her a beautiful bike - which he hid under all the green wrapping paper above). After dinner he whisked an engagement ring out of his pocket and asked her to marry him! Luckily she said yes!! But I would say that's a weekend she won't forget in a hurry - and it couldn't happen to nicer young woman!