What I like best about a day in the mountains is coming home, taking a scaldingly hot shower, curling up on the sofa under a blanket, and drinking a big glass of red wine.  Today we went to Bardonecchia, where they held the snowboard competitions and some ski events during the Torino Olympics.  It's a big resort with miles and miles of slopes.  We met a couple other families up there and while Grace went off to ski with her friends and the other parents skied, GP and I took to the snowshoe trails and walked straight up.  What took us three hours up, pausing to "take pictures" (breath), and "discuss the view" (breath), only took 1 hour to come down.  We stopped half way up to have lunch at Pian del Sol, (plain of the sun), and stopped to watch the skiers tackle the slopes at about 6562 feet!  We were walking on a trail that unfortunately is also used by crazed snowboarders and "off track" skiers so we had to keep throwing ourselves into the snow banks on the sides to avoid being plowed over.  When we got home Grace crashed early and I'm well on my way.  Every muscle in my legs hurts and it took 3/4 of a bottle of wine for my feet to thaw out.  Think I'll go to bed now.  xxoo me