Back when I was younger, which was before now, I did one of those degree things where you move out of home, spend lots of money on booze, and then hopefully get a grade based on your ability to miss lectures. My chosen subject (or did it choose me?) was French. It was essentially the subject I was least poor at; Economics left my brain in the red, German sounded all Greek to me, and the sciences dumped me in a chemically, biologically and physically bereft state.

As part of my course, I was lucky enough to spend my third year abroad and Grenoble chose me. For those of you whose Geography knowledge stretches to "ox-bow lake" (i.e. me), Grenoble is in the Alps towards the Italian border and is subsequently surrounded by mountains, prompting Stendhal to say that "there is a mountain at the end of every street". It's an incredibly beautiful place and one which I've wanted to go back to, but had never managed to until the weekend just gone (two paragraphs of drivel to get to the point...)

Details are sparse, but myself and four other ex-Grenoblois took ourselves there and visited all our old haunts, sang all the old tunes, and spent most of Saturday in bed hungover. One girl, in extreme dedication to the cause, decided to fall in love on her year abroad and ended up marrying a French lad. She now lives there with said French beau and similarly French cat, Clawed.

Anyway, here's a picture in which everyone is sober...