A little later than usual the winter finally arrived last week ... and did so in spectacular fashion, with plenty of snow and temperatures down to -12.

We took advantage by heading up to the Plateau de Beille, one of France's premier Nordic Skiing resorts and only 20 minutes away by car, for a bit of much needed practice. There was a festival atmosphere there as it was the resort's 20-year anniversary, so access to all the pistes was free for the day, which we weren't about to argue with! There were plenty of other fun things laid on for the day too, like live music and magic shows, excursions on the piste-basher and a huge floating inflatable dragon which was determined to eat the candles from the 4m-wide snow-cake built specially for the resort's birthday.

The husky dogs were out too, seemingly raring to go for another season of haring across the snow-covered plateau with gleeful people in tow.

Then today the sun came out again and with perfect blue skies and dead calm it would have been a great day for climbing, but we missed out this time. Never mind, the forecast for tomorrow is quite good too.

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