A long catch up

Due to recent complications & the distinct lack of posts, this blog is going to be a long 1.  So, make sure the boss is out, you’ve got a cup of tea & your phone is on silent (I’m assuming you’re reading this at work, why would you waste your own time?).

The reason for the lack of emails, blogs, Skye & general e-contact is the on going saga of our internet problems.  As my many previous gripes have said we’ve had to buy 2 Wi-Fi dongles at a considerable cost, neither worked & the shops wouldn’t take them back.  Not only that they now appear to have corrupt the internal modem on my laptop so we couldn’t access the internet at all, anywhere.  A few computer wiz’s had a go but to no avail, I’m sure 1 of you supper brains could work it out but it’s far beyond us mountain dwellers.  So I sit here typing away on the only solution left open to us, a new laptop & as lovely as it is it is an expense our rather tight budget could do without.  Who do I blame, those pesky French of course.

Enough about that, back to real the business of what’s been happening here.  The last time I blogged I think it was raining out side, its been a bit of mixed bag since but the last proper snow we had was Christmas Day when a dump of 30cm came down but from then on its been bright sun & getting gradually warmer, this is all well & good but it also means the snow is getting worse by the day.  Looking out of the window now it is still blue skies & a crisp mountains skyline but it is also ice & slush on most of the lower runs.  Snow is now a necessity.  Send all your snow this way please, then you can get to work on time & I can fanny about on my board.  That’s weather dealt with, next.

Christmas.  It looks like a Christmas card out here but it never felt much like it.  Christmas across most of Europe is celebrated on the 24^th & is a much simpler affair.  There is no mad rush in the super markets, presents are very few so shopping is not really done & there is no annoying f*cking Christmas songs.  I haven’t had to endure Slade’s last Christmas, Mariah c*nting Carey singing about who she wants for Christmas & the Pouges on auto repeat.  It’s been delightful.  We did the French thing so we had our Christmas dinner on the 24^th.  The wife cooked a slap up 4-course meal & after a few drinks in town we came back & gorged ourselves on copious amounts of food & drink & very nice it was too.  On the big day itself whilst you we’re all ripping open hundreds of expensive & pointless presents we had 1 between us.  That’s right, just 1.  We didn’t even get each other anything (mostly because we had just spent a small fortune on a new laptop).  The wife’s lovely uncle had sent us out with a big box & when we opened it, to our pleasure, it contained a selection of spicy food stuff, corn based treats & chocolate.  We intended to spend most of the day boarding but as it was snowing really hard we did 1 run, had a hot chocolate then came down & spent some quality time on the sofa.  As we had the busiest work day of the year to come on Boxing Day we didn’t even have any booze, (rock & roll).

Christmas Day

That brings me neatly on to the next subject, work.  The wife & I have been happily working away together every weekend cleaning apartments on change over-day.  This has been relatively easy work.  But my skill & enthusiasm in the cleaning department got round the resort & I got offered, & accepted, a job working for Oxygen Ski School.  Next to ESF (who until very recently did not allow non-French people to work for them & dominate the French Ski-school market) they are the biggest ski-school & equipment hire in Val.  They haven’t quit noticed my extensive skills as a snowboard instructor yet so I am working alongside another English fella as ski/boot technician.  Not just that either, I am on there high end Chalet fitting service.  This means we go round all the best Chalets in the resort (which are up to €30,000 a week) & fit them for boots & ski’s without their rich little ase’s having to venture into the cold. It seems a perfectly natural course of events to me, start cleaning, promoted to ski technician!  I have got to hear some amazing names of spoilt rich kids as well.  The 1^st one was called Italy, we’ve had a Ned, Dash (after the Incredible’s), Cosmo, Rupert & countless Tilly’s.  And they’re just the English 1’s.  I’ve managed to keep a straight face so far but I cant see it lasting

My boarding is improving gradually as well.  I can now do icy reds without too much hassle (& limited falls) but I did manage to have my worst fall recently.  I was just off piste going down a relatively tame red run when I see a small mound of snow which would make an ideal kicker to do a little jump off.  I turned towards it, straightened up & gunned it, but instead of my board going up & over the it it went straight into it, got caught up in deep snow (possibly hit a rock but I couldn’t be sure) & sent me into a forward summersault.  The wife said I initially landed on my feet but the pain in my head & neck suggested otherwise.  I rolled down the mountain before coming to a crumpled halt waste deep in my own mini avalanche.  Luckily the snow was quite deep & I only landed on my head, so no lasting damage.  I got a round of applause from a fellow random boarder so it must have been a good 1.  I’m not the only 1 falling over though, the wife managed quite a spectacular fall the other day sending her poles & skies in all directions bruising her ribs & confidence in the process.  All ok now though.   

Floating down the mountain

It’s not been the falling that has sent us to the medical centre though.  Its been the Sesonaires cough.  We’ve both had the obligatory cold all over Christmas but I caught a nasty chest infection off one of the lads I was working with, being a man though I shrugged it off & carried on but the poor wife was so bad she couldn’t breath so we paid a little visit to the infamous Dr Al who soon put pay to skiing & drinking for a couple of weeks, well, for her anyway.

We managed to get New Year’s Eve out the way before we got struck down with the worst of the lurgies & it was a cracker. We went to our Favourite little bar called The Lodge for drinks & dinner in the restaurant upstairs but it started off with an afternoon boarding with a mate (the wife was feeling a bit ill so she needed a rest before the drinking) & the compulsory post ski drinks.  It was a lovely sunny day so we had pint up the mountain on a packed out sun deck before going back to a bar called The Chalet.  As I told the wife I only had 3 pints (didn’t want to spoil the evening) but the wallet suggested I had at least double, its not like me to lie to the wife about how much I had to drink?  As I was half cut (I know on only 3 pints, who’d of thought it) it was a very quick turn around on the bath & changing then straight out to The Lodge.  The meal was ok but the drinking went on to around 4am & it was great.  They do NYE much more than Christmas & it was just 1 big party everywhere.  The downside, as there inevitably is, was the hangover the next day.  I managed to get away with it with little more than a morning headache & afternoon beer sweats, the wife though, dam.  I’ll say no more, we’ve all been there.  It was lucky I got away with it, as I had to drive the tricky mountain roads in the dark for 40mins to pick up our friends who were visiting Val for a week.  That week has just gone & it was great to see them both & to have a fellow boarder & drinker with me all week.  The body now needs a few days to clear the beer from the system but a blinding week was had.

And I’ll finish with a top tip from my own personal experience.  If you happen have a bit of dodgy food that stops you being more 5m away from a toilet.  If you’ve had to sit on the thrown 10 times in an hour, if the passing of solids are but a distant memory but now its not just liquid that’s exploding out its like battery acid, if every wipe of the triple ply feels like an angle grinder & all thought of wiping fills you with dread & all you want is a nice soothing clean, then don’t, & please take it from me, don’t what ever you do mistake baby wipes for Flash bleach toilet wipes!!

Happy New Year All.