Sainte Foy Tarentaise
Week 2 : 17 ~ 23 May 2020
After some feedback from one of our readers I’ve decided to rename this edition of the diary and the previous one as ‘Déconfinement in Sainte Foy’. This makes more sense as we are no longer in full lockdown, but have started the process of relaxing the lockdown restrictions.
There will be plenty more mind changing before we are out of the woods, but for now, the desire to restart the tourist industry and allow French people to have their summer holidays is taking precedence over everything else.
Larch liqueur
Following last weeks introduction to Larch liqueur, I have been out searching the forest for some bright pink Larch flowers. These trees are only in flower for one week per year so you have a small window of opportunity to harvest them and prepare your potion.
Thankfully for me, living half way up an Alpine mountain means that for every 150m of altitude I go up or down the mountain, I move backwards or forwards a week in the seasonal growth phase of a plant. This assumes of course that the plant in question grows in each altitude segment. The Larch grows up in the Monal valley, so I’m in luck! I climbed up 300m, went back in time, and found what I was searching for!
Crocus, Poppies and Nettles
At 2,000m the first crocus are just starting to come through, but in La Thuile there are radiant poppies in full bloom. However, it is the humble nettle which has caught my attention this week. A marvellously flavoursome culinary ingredient, if 
perhaps a little stingy to pick. Saying that, they grow readily around here, so there’s no shortage of picking practice to be had.
Nettle tea has been drunk for thousands of years to relieve inflammation, and nettle bread (pictured above) is a real treat, but this week’s favourite is MattyG Cook’s Stinging Nettle Pesto, and it is well worth the effort to make.
Where are the stags?
I am puzzled. Each evening for many days now I have seen several ‘biche’ female deer in the small openings in the forest on the track up to Plan Bois. So much so, that I have called one such opening in the forest, ‘The Deerpark’. But they are always female deer, and there is never a stag. Why is this?
Albertville
Partly, just because we could, and partly because it felt liberating to do so, we travelled out of the valley for the first time in ages, to Albertville for a shopping trip. Unfortunately, the bars and restaurants are still closed, other than for take outs, so there was no lunchtime treat this time. A picnic by the river in the spring sunshine is a mighty fine second best though!
Most of the shops there had a compulsory mask wearing policy, with an enforcement guard at the entrance. It was a strange sight, as if everyone had come dressed to rob the place, and you weren’t allowed in unless you hid your face and ideally wore gloves to guard against leaving fingerprints.
Ultra Trail de Mont Blanc
Some disappointing news pinged its way into my inbox this week. The management committee of the UTMB has decided to cancel this year‘s event. This is something which I’ve been looking forward to ever since I was lucky enough to have had my application accepted, and it has been the focus point for all my trail running training.
Taking place in the last week of August, the UTMB is the longest and most demanding of a series of seven trail running races around Europe’s third highest mountain, Mont Blanc (4,809m). The races range from a modest marathon distance with 2,300m of ascent, to 170km with 10km of ascent.
If you decide to run the Ultra Trail de Mont Blanc, your 170km will take you through three countries (France, Italy and Switzerland), three major alpine regions and eighteen French, Italian and Swiss municipalities. Your 10km of vertical ascent will provide you with some stunning views on your way round, and there will be manned check points and refuelling stops along the way.
If you are ever in Sainte Foy during the week of the race, it is well worth a trip out to watch the race, and I highly recommend nipping over the Col du Petit Saint Bernard into Italy and on to Courmayeur for a day trip. The ice cream is fabulous there and you can’t fail to be impressed by the runners.
A word of caution for anyone thinking of entering next year. This is the holy grail of international trail running and you will need to accumulate enough ITRA points to qualify for the draw, (gained by completing other trail running races). There is a limit of 2,300 runners in this race, and such is the worldwide demand, there is lottery system which often takes you three years to win a place on the start line.
If you are lucky to get a place in the race, and are considering winning it, you will need to put aside 20 hours and a few minutes. If your goal is merely to finish, you will need to get round in less than 46 hours 30 minutes. There is a cut-off time at each service station which takes out roughly half the racers each year.
A few years ago, one of my friends missed the cut by 30 seconds, after 15 hours of running. He complained, unsuccessfully, that it took him 15 minutes to cross the start line due to the number of competitors. One can only imagine the pain.
Bank Holiday Thursday
Finishing on a more leisurely note, we had another Bank Holiday this week. Being the Catholic country that France is, they take their religious ‘jours fériés’ Bank Holidays, very seriously, and on the day they fall. This week Ascension Day fell on a Thursday, which I suppose is as good a day as any to have a Bank Holiday. The French love to ‘faire le pont’ (literally, ‘make the bridge’), and take Friday off as well, making a nice long weekend of holiday.
In France, if the Bank Holiday falls on a weekend, there is no day off ‘en lieu’, in place of, or to replace the missed day off. Consequently, and as happened a couple of years ago, if Christmas Day falls on a Saturday, the French finish work on a Friday afternoon, celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, then go back to work on Monday!
Bank Holidays seem a little superfluous to me in times of lockdown, and given the lack of weekly normality at the moment, all the days feel the same to me. It could be the 93rd of April for all I know.
