march news

The season is almost at an end and we can hardly believe it has flown by so fast. Never does time fly this fast in ‘real life’! It’s going to take some adjusting I think! Probably a good thing then that I’m back in the classroom less than 2 days after setting foot back in NZ. Dom’s ease back into work is a little less full-on though. He has 2 weeks or so to ease himself back into the collar and tie. Won’t that be a sight after 18 months without :)

We have had a good February and March at work in the chalet and skiing wise too. We’ve had great groups of people in and good snow conditions around the resort…especially when you know where to go to find them. It’s brilliant to know the mountain as well as we do now and know where you can safely nip off to for some secret untouched snow or empty pistes and lifts.

Claire and Jules on our favourite lift - the Plan Bois

As well as skiing and the work to keep us amused we are lucky enough to have - quote by one of our guests – “The best bar in the world” right here in our village. Greg the bartender (the wearer of a specially designed wooden tie), accompanied by Steve-o his right hand man have kept us entertained night after night with their antics. They are about as friendly as you can get and if you get them on the right night there is dancing on tables, hanging from the roof beams while singing and dancing, French rap, organised French line-dancing to Cotton-Eye-Joe (when did that song become cool again?) and table cleaning by means of a table slide: spraying it with cleaner and taking a run up from across the room with a tea towel positioned across his chest. If only video clips could be posted on the blog! What a treat! It all sounds very immature when put into writing, but its absolutely hilarious when you see it and just what you need when you leave work.

The bar staff have recently posted some of their antics on youtube.com, check it out. either do a search for 'gregs bar' or click on one of these links, hopefully they will connect you straight up to the clips:

greg and some of our chalet guests trying their hand at table diving: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuqGewdbv4g

greg (our landlord) table dancing with rob (one of our guests) - not for the faint-hearted!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBMylfsgswc

Carnage times!

All in all, not much gossip or events to note but just thought we’d touch base and say hi to everyone.

Our stray dog friend - Puppy.

photo session

Hey all, have managed to get a few photos on the blog, woohoo!

Been a long time coming. Enjoy!

Dom and Jules having a 'where's my ski' moment.

Great off piste tracks behind though!

Jules and Claire

Jules and Nick on the chairlift in front

Dom and Spooner on her visit

One of the villages in our ski area 'Arc 1950'

February news

Dom enjoying the weather and the snow

Well we can hardly complain about the lack of sunshine in the Alps this year. We are lucky to have day after day of blue skies and no wind which makes the mountains look absolutely amazing…but the big but…I think we would all be grateful to have a bit more snow!!! We are getting so used to skiing on ice that when the snow comes we end up falling all over the show as we’ve forgotten how to move our skis when we have resistance against them! Admittedly we have now had 4 big snow dumps so far which has given us some awesome days out, some of the best we have ever had, but the problem though is that with the sun it just doesn’t last. Never mind. There is still 8 weeks left of the season (I can’t believe we are already half the way through the season!!!), and the chance for more to fall.

Dom, Nick, Jules and I all have our fingers crossed for a week or so of snow in March so that we are able to do ‘the big trip’. A 120km off-piste ski trip where you ski through 3 different resorts in a day with a guide who times you along the way. It’s supposed to be wicked. You ski your way right up to the top peaks of the resorts and ski down into the next mountain range. We are very excited about the possibility of doing it though it’s far too rocky at the moment to attempt it. We did do a leg of it the other day - down the back of the Belcotte Glacier in La Plagne, it was a bit hairy in places but heaps of fun. We were shattered afterwards though which is a bit worrying as it’s the last 20km of the trip and it was all that we did that day. Oh well. Will see how it goes!!!

Preparing for the Belocotte trip, getting the big cable car over to La Plagne

A celebratory drink afterwards

In the chalet, Dom and I have been lucky enough to have some pretty cool guests through this year, a definite improvement on last season where we seemed to get the most ‘interesting’ groups out of the 3 chalets. We have also been able to avoid getting in many children so far (due to the uks stricter rules that you are now not supposed to remove kids from school during term time). This is brilliant as we only have to do 1 dinner sitting opposed to the main dinner and a kids high tea. Woohoo! Dinners are also going well and I think we are producing some pretty cool food this year. We have just put good old nz pavlova on the menu, its going down a treat!

Anyway, hope this finds you all well. Lots of love XX

January News

We are fully back into the swing of things now. The bed, work, ski, afternoon nap, work, drinks and sleep routine is flowing smoothly and we are really enjoying ourselves and the season. It is sooo much easier the 2nd time round and so much less stressful. Suppose it helps that we have great guests so far though as well.

Dom and I had an amazing 1st week at the chalet and are now nearly finished our 2nd. Both sets of guests have been cool though this weeks ones are pretty hyper and slightly off the wall. We have become fonder of them in the last few days though!

Xmas dinner was a success, (mainly because we flagged cooking a whole turkey and went for parts instead) and the guests were happy for us to chill with them and be part of the celebrations. We even played the Gracefield School Secret Santa present game with them all which went down a treat, though lasted for a very long time. It was funny to see everyone get into it and joke presents such as a sausage become the most desirable things in the world to have!

We are now onto New Years Eve, though that time in NZ has now passed and most of you are probably in high celebratory spirits while I sit and write this sober! We have plans to head down to our local pub after work tonight though. Will be good to catch up with people and have a few drinks. As a bonus, we have a day off tomorrow so won’t have to worry about getting up in time to cook and serve breakfast! Yey!

Another plus side is that for the first time since we arrived here nearly 3 weeks ago, we are due some snow!!! The mountain is getting pretty rocky in parts and I have taken some huge chunks out of my skis, Dom’s been a bit luckier but his are still showing some damage! Will be good to have a new coating…will also be excellent timing for the snow are people are due back at work shortly leaving us heaps of untouched snow to play on!

Not much else going on here, both Dom and I are in good health and spirits and no injuries to speak of yet – touch wood.

Hope alls well with you all too.

December news - belated!

Hello all and MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR.

We are now back in France and man its cold!!! You forget how cold winter can be. Especially up a mountain in the Alps. No complaints though, the colder it is the more snow there should be…theoretically. There is a bit of a disappointing amount around. Much less than this time last year, but it will surely get better in the coming weeks. Fingers crossed!!!

So what have we been up to?

Dom and I had a pretty uneventful, though very long and tedious plane journey back to the Alps via Brisbane, Singapore, Dubai and finally Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris before embarking on the train leg. That’s where it all turned sour. What a crack up, I don’t know why we were surprised. Anything involving Dom and I and travel always seems to be a saga!

We were supposed to get a train to Bourg St Maurice at the bottom of our mountain and we could do it in 2 ways. Either go now and have to change trains in Aix or wait 4 hours and have a straight trip. We were cold at the station and eager to be on our way so opted for the go now.

We bought our tickets and waited to find the platform number on the screen. 7 minutes before our train it still hadn’t been announced so Dom went to investigate. Turns out the train we had just bought tickets for wasn’t running!!! Luckily we could still use our tickets for the next one which was a bonus, so we decided to just go on the next one even though we would have missed our connection. Better to be half way there than stuck 7 hours away. Who knew if the next one would end up running!

So we got to Aix and as we thought, we had missed the connection. We set out to find the next train as our timetable said there would be another in 2 hours or so (the one that was coming straight through to Bourg from Paris that we earlier rejected). Unfortunately our timetable and the train departure board showed some discrepancies. There were now no trains to Bourg at all until tomorrow. We were so close to home but still so far.

After ringing our bosses we then decided to go to the next big city, Chambery, as more trains might run from there. Without too much more trouble, we managed to get there. On arrival we found a whole heap of people with skis and snowboards and in obviously in the same boat as us. A good choice of station! Again, all trains to Bourg from here weren’t running either. Luckily for us (as it was near 8pm and we had been travelling for over 40 hours and were pretty much asleep on our feet), the train people realized they couldn’t get away with this many disgruntled people and put on a bus for the 70 of us. Hooray!!! We could finally make it to the Alps and to bed. What a trip!! Ha ha. Comedy eh!

So here we are now. We left NZ a week ago today and are now settled in and happy with the way things are looking. We have a wicked apartment to live in. 5 star compared to the one we had last year ‘the dungeon’. We even have an oven and fridge freezer and best of all, a bath!!! Might not sound like much but it beats last years shower taped together with tape, a non existent kitchen and a windowsill for a fridge!!!

The chalet is all up and running too, cleaned, stocked with food and decorated for Christmas. Dom and I get in our first guests tomorrow. We are looking forward to trying out our new menu and getting into it all again.

Needless to say, since being here, we have also found a bit of spare time to go skiing. There is not a major amount of snow, and not all the lifts are open yet, but it was such a good feeling to be out on the snow again and back on our favourite runs. We are looking forward to many more days out!!!

Will leave it there before I bore you all senseless. Have a good day, week, xmas and new years :)

October news

Well, it’s been a while I’m sorry to say and I apologise to anyone who’s checked the site and found no updates for the last 2 months solid! Opps! I actually had no idea how many of you check to see what’s going on with Dom and I. I’ll try to be better in the future :)

At the moment Dom and I are in Wellington, back home and it’s great to be back! We have had a blast these last few weeks catching up with family and friends and old work people. It’s like we have never been away!

We spent the first bit of time after arrival in Auckland with Dom’s family which was good fun and nice for me to get to know them better. I then headed down to Wellies and Dom followed a week later. It was busy night after busy night for us both – catching up with different people but we weren’t complaining (well maybe a little! Everyone needs a little bit of sleep every now and again)

So, we have been based in Wellington for the majority of our trip here (about 2 months all up). Luckily though, Mum and my step-dad Ian managed to come up with a time consuming project for us…Renew the paint job on the house. Thanks! We have actually had a lot of fun doing it – even though the final bits of sanding are dragging a bit – bring on the painting!!! It’s great to have something to do during the day as almost everyone we know down here is at work. Good to end up with a bit of extra cash too.

From here, we head back up to Auckland for a bit more time with Dom’s family and then fly off back to France (on the 11th Dec) where the ski season awaits us! We are soooo excited already at the prospect of daily skiing and running our chalet again.

We hope this email finds you all well. Will try and post another update soon when we have some more news.

august news

2 out of 45 vans left to clean shut down and officially our camping season is over!!! Woohoo!

We are pretty excited and happy to be done and dusted here. It’s been great fun and an experience, bit not one we are overly keen on repeating for the sheer cleaning factor (I seriously can’t believe how much of everyday we spend with rubber gloves on and a cloth in our hands). For other reasons we are also stoked because the end of this season means the start of the next winter one (in case you can’t tell we are VERY excited about being back on the slope skiing everyday) and a trip home to NZ in between which I am over the moon about! 2 years away has passed quickly but we have both still missed everyone back home and can’t wait to catch up.

In other news it was great to have a visit from the Aussie couple from our ski season on the August bank holiday. We had the full Ski Hiver team back together and had a blast reminiscing and talking crap. Also managed to squeeze in some beach trips and have a surf with Gav – the surfing legend. Really felt I had made progress when I caught the same (big) wave in with Gav and managed to have a good laugh and shout at each other on the way in without solely concentrating on not falling off. Yey.

Also had my cousin Simon and his girlfriend come out a week or so before that. It soooo good to see happy smiling faces around us - all the customers seem so guttered to be away on holiday – go figure! Again managed to squeeze in a bit of sunbathing, a pool trip or too and a surf down at the beach in with them in amongst cleaning yet more vans.

So from here on in, we intend to finish up cleaning tomorrow, leaving a few days spare for tidying up loose ends and stuff. Next step will be a fleeting trip to the Uk to MOT the car (what a pain!) 300 miles or so and 2 ferry trips for a piece of paper – grrr! After that we will come back to the Vendee and pack up our stuff and start the voyage to NZ!!! Gonna take 10 days or so to drive around the west and south coast to get to the Alps, stopping off along the way to check out some of the big name cities and places and see how the rich people live. Will then park up the car at our ski job in Peisey and get the train to Paris to fly home from there. No dates booked as yet but should be back in a month or so!!!

Look forward to seeing most of you then xxxx

july news

Fun and excitement here at Camping Le Clarys Plage!!! Funnily enough our company that requires us to do next to no work to earn our keep has put us to work at long last. We are busy!!! Busy in the sense that we have every single ones of our annoying mobile homes filled at the moment. Ahhhh! We don’t know what has hit us. Good for the company though – we did wonder how they made their money with so few vans occupied at a time!

So, 45 filled vans…45 families on site…and endless problems as you could well imagine! It keeps us amused though. We are currently in the middle of potentially kicking a group of 6 families off the site 1 week into their 3 week holiday as there has been soooo many complaints about their behaviour and noise levels amongst other stuff like picking fights with the security guards! Tonight we had to go around and deliver an official letter from Mr Matthews himself saying if there are any further complaints they will have their holiday terminated. The lead man of the group went off as us about the official letter, and we fear he will rip shreds off our area manager when he comes to follow up on the letter today. Classic. We won’t be sorry to see them go though. I hope we survive the night without them burning down our van in retaliation!!! Ha ha.

Maybe it’s the heat that’s making everyone crazy and complainy. It’s certainly having an effect on us! How on earth we are supposed to clean vans when the outside temperature is 43 degrees celsius??? At that temperature outside, inside a tin van it must be way hotter than that. We have sweat dripping off every part of us. It’s disgusting! Once we have the cleaning done with we spend the rest of the day submerged in water – either in the pool, the cold shower or the sea. When not under water we move about lethargically trying to figure out if it’s cooler in the van or outside under the gazebo, these decisions taking place with a fan held up to our dripping faces yet having only the most minute affect. I didn’t even know temperatures like this existed! It’s crazy. People are predicting the heat wave will last through into next month too. Oh dear. On the upside, at least it’s not winter and freezing cold…plus we both have kick-arse tans!

Hope alls well with the all of you, wherever you are in the world :)

PS - trying to get some photos up and going but struggling for some unknown reason. Will keep trying.