Guest Bloggers, P-Cubed Style

Bonjour,Vous avez des Guest Bloggers cette semaine!

But who, you ask, has hijacked the prolific Peggy from her role chronicling life chez Rue Rice?

Well, we are a mixed race and species family - one mountain girl from Northern California, one mountain

boy from Scotland, and a 7 month old Italian Mastiff/Labrador puppy named Poppy.

So, in the Street Blogging Patois of the hip-hop generation, we’d like you to give it up for the Phattest, Dopest (Guest) Bloggers on the web – P-Cubed… … … (or, er Phil, Patty and Poppy).

A quick introduction:

We live in Chamonix in France. Chamonix is in France, but is not French. It is really now an international village, the global capital of mountain sports (or as popular nomenclature would have it – “the death-sports capital of the world”). The town nestles in the shadow of Western Europe’s highest mountain, Mont Blanc, and is home to a disparate collection of dedicated athletes, professional mountaineers, ski bums, dirtbag climbers, talented artists & musicians, long-haul airline staff, IT & Financial gurus and people like us – career-minded folk who love the mountains. In Chamonix, we’ve found a place where the same day can include skiing, snowboarding, rock-climbing or cycling as well as a full day’s work in the office. Now that represents a fine balance between life and work!

Texan Terror Trail

So how did a flatlander from Texas fair in the vertical environment of Chamonix? Well, Mrs. Rice and her crew rocked into town to visit us a wee while back. When we say “rocked”, perhaps we should re-phrase that to “teetered” into town… …and we’re not talking “Texan strappy heels” teetering here. Nope, Brandon & Peggy picked a route that climbed over the stunning Col du Forclaz and then descended on vertiginous narrow roads to the valley floor. The seemingly endless drop to one side and the steep cliffs upwards to the other had Brandon gripping the steering wheel in stony silence (a rare feat in itself), Jaylee vomiting in the back the whole time and Peggy... ...well Peg was the calmest of the lot. She simply popped some tranquilizers. Apparently that was the easiest way to cope with a road on the edge of a cliff that boasts not a single barrier.

Their visit was great fun and included lots of song singing, ice cream eating and walks. Brandon and Peggy got the chance to chill out a little from the frantic pace of Paris life. Happily for them the town functions on "Chamonix Time" - a fairly mellow and haphazard temporal universe that, if nothing else, is exceptionally good for calming the mind.

Jaylee and Aidan ran riot and were constantly giggling , playing and basically being kids. However, they did think that Patty was a complete weirdo, because she had to wear ski goggles on top of sunglasses during their entire stay.

Rather than a fashion statement for the ever hip Hescock, this was atually due to the severe snow blindness she inflicted on herself by forgetting sunglasses and thinking her Latin-American retinas were up to the task of dealing with high altitide sun during a day's ski touring up to the Grand Saint Bernard Monastery over the border in Switzerland! [BTW an amazing place and well worth the visit!]

Goodbye for now...
On that note, we will sign off and hope that Peggy and Brandon are soaking up the sun, letting the kids have plenty of time in kid camp, and that they have successfully taught the French the importance of pool side beverage service!

...we did attempt to find photos from the visit and have failed terribly! ARGH! We will do better tomorrow, we promise.

By the way, this last photo is for all of you to know who Jaylee gets her style from. Yep, Patty Hescock does indeed wear cowboy boots with her dresses! Never be afraid to be yourself sister!