As it's Sunday, Vicki is obviously working ridiculously hard to change the chalet over from this morning's departing guests to those arriving today. And as luck would have it, they are arriving early. Joy. So even less time for Vic to get everything sorted and cleaned up. I, on the other hand, have had less work than a Morgan Stanley tea-boy. According to the old hands in the ski school, this is probably the worst slump they have ever seen. And I am one of the few "lucky" ones as I had a good start to the month with some full days and returning clients. But a total of 40 hours over a month is not anything to write home about. But the snowy conditions have meant that at least the free skiing has been pretty awesome. So can't really complain too much! So the situation being what it is, I am sitting in a cafe, having a pleasant drink, surfing the world wide web as I believe they call it, watching the snowy drizzle come down.
We took the opportunity of the sunny weather last week to go ice-skating at the sports centre. However, we were the only ones there and the whole thing was slightly eerie to tell the truth. We started out by helping ourselves to the skates in the hire room (you have to love these trusting Swiss...) and proceeded to skate around for about an hour, all on our own. We felt like we had broken into the place and kept expecting an announcement to come over the tannoy informing us that the police had been called and that the exits were blocked. But luckily no arrests were made and so we took the opportunity to practice our backward skating and hockey stops (well half of us did at any rate). It was fun, but you do miss the crowd watching and staring at other people going round when you stop for a breather.
And the biggest scandal of the season so far occurred the other day when someone vandalised the lift in our apartment block. Shock horror! They did quite a good job of it, spray painting obscenities across the three (carpeted) walls of the lift. And knowing the Swiss authorities, the culprit has probably handed themselves in and been given a good, stern telling off, before being made to apologise to the owners and promising never to anything like that again. Bless. They haven't made much of an effort to clean it off, although they did clean the mirror inside, so at least I can still check my hair on the way out the building. And see quite how wonky my eyes look on the way back in at the end of the night!
The weather has been fairly unpredictable lately, but there has been some really good snow and the lack of crowds means you can still find fresh tracks well into the day without going too far afield, which is nice. Easter will bring some people back into town, but according to the bookings for those two weeks, it is going to be nothing like Christmas or February half-term.
The only development was the arrival of Kate's birthday present to me, which the Swiss postal system eventually deigned to let me have after three weeks. This was a funky little DAB radio, which has given us a slightly more varied musical repertoire to listen to. iTunes has been great, but we are definitely starting to know pretty much all the songs by heart. The downside is that e do tend to stumble on some seriously dodgy Swiss, German, French and Italian songs. And why, by the way, do foreign artists insist on singing in English, when they can't pronounce half the words even close to anything properly?!?!? Sorry, that really gets on my nerves.
Less than a month to go now, and we are slowly coming to terms with having to go home. Although I think Vicki can't wait! She will then be able to be a lady of leisure, swanning around town having lunch with anyone who will have her, and generally rubbing my nose in the fact that the roles are finally reversed!! Hopefully, the weather will have improved a little by the time we get back as the thought of getting in to grey, drab London really doesn't fill me with joy. We are however postponing the return by a couple of days, as we will be staying in Geneva to relax and explore a little. We will probably try and swing by Gingins so that Vicki can see the beautiful village I grew up in (or in Vic's terms "the back of beyond hovel" I grew up in ;o)). If anyone with a big car fancies coming to pick us up from Gatwick on the 27th, get in touch! I'm sure we can recompense you with some lovely Toblerone... or maybe a cuckoo clock?
And there are still some very good last minute deals for anyone who fancies...
Sunday, 29 March 2009
Monday, 23 March 2009
O.O.S.S.
Nope, not the sound I make in the mornings after a particularly heavy night. It stands for the Official Opening of the Seasonnaires' Season. This momentous event happened on the weekend of my birthday (15th March for those of you not paying attention) and basically means the end of hordes and hordes of tourists, leaving the slopes for all us hardworking, dedicated snowsport professionals. It also means there is less work around, allowing for more crazy nights in the pub until the early hours!! Double bonus. The flip side though is that no work equals no money. Boo. But that's what savings are for. Hurrah!
So an easy week for me as far as work went, with only a couple of hours on Sunday and Monday (today) with a young lady from NZ - and one of the best pupils I have had so far! It makes a change when someone actually gets it quite quickly. And nice sunny weather obviously helps too! Actually Vicki said that it is a strange sensation not to have had any rain at all for about 4 months! Very strange... It will be a weird experience landing back in London in April, under what I can pretty much guarantee will be drizzly grey London skies. Not really looking forward to that bit.
The weather has been quite good to us recently. The last week has seen pretty solid sunshine and reasonable temperatures, apart from a couple of days where we had a cold snap. So cold in fact, that on Friday when Vic and I went up for a few runs, we came down alot quicker than we had anticipated. This was not helped by the fact that Vicki got cocky with all the warm weather we had had, and elected to go up without a hat or shnood (the neck warmer thingies, like a small never-ending scarf), despite my "expert" advice to the contrary. I would like to say I dealt with it like a grown-up. But that would be a lie. I may have gloated a little, and I may have said "I told you so". And I may even have uttered something along the lines of "na-na-na-na-na-naaa". But my memory is not what it used to be. You know how us oldies get...
The next week is forecast to be snow, snow and more snow. And the first flakes have actually just started falling, as predicted. Woo-hoo! We had discussed whether we thought any more snow was likely to fall before the end of the season. Which, when you are sitting in a t-shirt and sunglasses on a terrace supping a cold beer, is a hard thing to imagine, to be honest! But the weather gods are obviously smiling on us all this year. Bring it on.
Last week was also a relatively relaxed week for Vicki in terms of hours, as the owners were in again for a week, and they were quite happy to re-heat whatever Vicki had made that morning for their evening meal. Which freed up time to go skiing, go out to dinner, and generally spend more time together. Which was nice. We managed to go up and make the most of the sunshine, taking a few action shots of me, as well as a static one or two on the slopes and in the pub! That night finished quite messily, despite our best intentions. Damn that cheap beer.
So an easy week for me as far as work went, with only a couple of hours on Sunday and Monday (today) with a young lady from NZ - and one of the best pupils I have had so far! It makes a change when someone actually gets it quite quickly. And nice sunny weather obviously helps too! Actually Vicki said that it is a strange sensation not to have had any rain at all for about 4 months! Very strange... It will be a weird experience landing back in London in April, under what I can pretty much guarantee will be drizzly grey London skies. Not really looking forward to that bit.
The weather has been quite good to us recently. The last week has seen pretty solid sunshine and reasonable temperatures, apart from a couple of days where we had a cold snap. So cold in fact, that on Friday when Vic and I went up for a few runs, we came down alot quicker than we had anticipated. This was not helped by the fact that Vicki got cocky with all the warm weather we had had, and elected to go up without a hat or shnood (the neck warmer thingies, like a small never-ending scarf), despite my "expert" advice to the contrary. I would like to say I dealt with it like a grown-up. But that would be a lie. I may have gloated a little, and I may have said "I told you so". And I may even have uttered something along the lines of "na-na-na-na-na-naaa". But my memory is not what it used to be. You know how us oldies get...
The next week is forecast to be snow, snow and more snow. And the first flakes have actually just started falling, as predicted. Woo-hoo! We had discussed whether we thought any more snow was likely to fall before the end of the season. Which, when you are sitting in a t-shirt and sunglasses on a terrace supping a cold beer, is a hard thing to imagine, to be honest! But the weather gods are obviously smiling on us all this year. Bring it on.
Last week was also a relatively relaxed week for Vicki in terms of hours, as the owners were in again for a week, and they were quite happy to re-heat whatever Vicki had made that morning for their evening meal. Which freed up time to go skiing, go out to dinner, and generally spend more time together. Which was nice. We managed to go up and make the most of the sunshine, taking a few action shots of me, as well as a static one or two on the slopes and in the pub! That night finished quite messily, despite our best intentions. Damn that cheap beer.
This week her chalet has been rented out on a B&B basis, so once again, her evenings should have been free. However, the powers that be have assigned her some random jobs to do in most evenings. But we will do what we can to enjoy the snowy days nonetheless. In the meantime, take care one and all.
Friday, 13 March 2009
Winter to Spring - the passing of seasons
It appears spring has definitely sprung. Once again, the temperature reached about 13 degrees and the sun was beating down on our faces as well as the snow. The upside is being able to lounge around on terraces supping a beer or two whilst getting a nice tan until much later in the afternoon. The downside is having to wade through slush puppy on the lower slopes to get home - where's Moses when you need him?! But we have had a decent amount of snow to at least give something to melt, rather than just going straight down to grass. Proper dumping snow fell like un-sieved icing sugar for a good couple of days earlier this week, which was nice.
Vicki has had no clients in this week, so requested to shadow the reps around the resort for a few days. She has now seen quite how little they do compared to the hard-working chefs, hosts and chef-hosts. ;o) It has been a nice experience for her to see a few of the other jobs around the resort actually, and it gives her some idea of what else is on offer, should we ever decide to come back for another season... (if you listen carefully, you can actually hear the sharp intake of breath from Brussels as you read this). But we did take the opportunity of her having a couple of days off to ski a little further afield all the way across the 4 Valleys. This is not a particularly great day's skiing, as there are a lot of tracks and drag lifts to contend with, but at least Vicki was able to ski somewhere different for the day! The earliest start for her this season on the piste lead to her latest finish on the piste as well - so a proper day's skiing, almost like a proper tourist! And the beer in the sunshine on the terrace was well-deserved.
I decided to take the week off to be able to spend some time with Vicki in her quiet week. And in any case there is very little work going, as the resort is eerily quiet. But I did accept a lesson this coming Saturday, as a little 5-year old girl who I taught in a group lesson a few weeks ago requested me (well I think her parents actually did, but you get the drift). So I get extra kudos from the school for taking a lesson during my holidays, and hopefully I will get a nice tip for some birthday drinks! I asked to extend my holiday to the end of Monday 16th, to give me some leeway to recover from what could be a messy Sunday. My birthday will be spent in the pub watching France vs England in the 6 Nations. Seeing as most of my mates from the ski school are French, it could be interesting to say the least. The suggestion has been made that each camp should drink their national drink - the French on Pastis, the Brits on lager. That suits me fine as we can see who comes out on top after 80 minutes!!
We also took the opportunity this week to try out the restaurant in the only 5-star hotel in town, the Chalet d'Adrien. It was an absolute delight and reminded us of quite why we work to earn money. Although someone in the kitchen appears to have accidentally typed in 100 instead of 1, in the quantity field under "Truffles". Everything comes with truffle oil, truffle sticks, truffle shards, truffle grated, truffle pyramids! It got a little too much, and this is obviously how they justify charging exorbitant prices for all their food. But it tasted delicious all the same and was worth every penny. We are on a mission to try out all the restaurants in town, except the dives of course, before the end of the season. So plenty of nice food to come in the next few weeks hopefully!
In the meantime, I am slowly coming to terms with actually properly getting into my 30s... It is bad enough telling people you are 30 here as that is only just out of your 20s, but 31... Crikey. That's proper old! Oh well, just one thing for it - best get blotto so I can forget all about it!
More sun forecast for the next few days, with some snow announced for next week. So it could yet be a pretty damn good end of season. So for anyone who fancies a last-minute jaunt to sunny snowy Verbier, you know where we are!!
Vicki has had no clients in this week, so requested to shadow the reps around the resort for a few days. She has now seen quite how little they do compared to the hard-working chefs, hosts and chef-hosts. ;o) It has been a nice experience for her to see a few of the other jobs around the resort actually, and it gives her some idea of what else is on offer, should we ever decide to come back for another season... (if you listen carefully, you can actually hear the sharp intake of breath from Brussels as you read this). But we did take the opportunity of her having a couple of days off to ski a little further afield all the way across the 4 Valleys. This is not a particularly great day's skiing, as there are a lot of tracks and drag lifts to contend with, but at least Vicki was able to ski somewhere different for the day! The earliest start for her this season on the piste lead to her latest finish on the piste as well - so a proper day's skiing, almost like a proper tourist! And the beer in the sunshine on the terrace was well-deserved.
I decided to take the week off to be able to spend some time with Vicki in her quiet week. And in any case there is very little work going, as the resort is eerily quiet. But I did accept a lesson this coming Saturday, as a little 5-year old girl who I taught in a group lesson a few weeks ago requested me (well I think her parents actually did, but you get the drift). So I get extra kudos from the school for taking a lesson during my holidays, and hopefully I will get a nice tip for some birthday drinks! I asked to extend my holiday to the end of Monday 16th, to give me some leeway to recover from what could be a messy Sunday. My birthday will be spent in the pub watching France vs England in the 6 Nations. Seeing as most of my mates from the ski school are French, it could be interesting to say the least. The suggestion has been made that each camp should drink their national drink - the French on Pastis, the Brits on lager. That suits me fine as we can see who comes out on top after 80 minutes!!
We also took the opportunity this week to try out the restaurant in the only 5-star hotel in town, the Chalet d'Adrien. It was an absolute delight and reminded us of quite why we work to earn money. Although someone in the kitchen appears to have accidentally typed in 100 instead of 1, in the quantity field under "Truffles". Everything comes with truffle oil, truffle sticks, truffle shards, truffle grated, truffle pyramids! It got a little too much, and this is obviously how they justify charging exorbitant prices for all their food. But it tasted delicious all the same and was worth every penny. We are on a mission to try out all the restaurants in town, except the dives of course, before the end of the season. So plenty of nice food to come in the next few weeks hopefully!
In the meantime, I am slowly coming to terms with actually properly getting into my 30s... It is bad enough telling people you are 30 here as that is only just out of your 20s, but 31... Crikey. That's proper old! Oh well, just one thing for it - best get blotto so I can forget all about it!
More sun forecast for the next few days, with some snow announced for next week. So it could yet be a pretty damn good end of season. So for anyone who fancies a last-minute jaunt to sunny snowy Verbier, you know where we are!!
Thursday, 5 March 2009
We're back!
I know, you have all missed us. Contrary to what some people may be saying, we have not been arrested and locked up for drunk and disorderly conduct. Well not yet anyway. It is simply that our trusty laptop decided to give up the ghost. Now in normal circumstances (ie not stuck in a Swiss ski resort where “the internet” is regarded as magic and divination) this would not have caused too many problems. However, being out here the laptop has become a real lifeline to civilisation. A few calls to various friends in high places – or at least in places where “Logon Initialization Failure” has slightly more meaning than in Vicki's or my brain – lead us to the conclusion that we were up a certain creek without a ski pole. But luckily our expert friends cheerfully informed us that a simple disc should be able to solve all our problems. Just one disc. Simple. Ah... that would be the one disc which we very carefully packed away and put into storage, lest we lose it on our travels. Bugger. But divine intervention (well we certainly refer to him as God over in these parts) was able to send us a replacement disc, with very CLEAR AND IDIOT-PROOF INSTRUCTIONS. Which is lucky, because even with those in hand I struggled something chronic to get the thing to work. But in the end, brute strength prevailed over technology and I managed to get the disc into the computer. Now to work out how to get it to do whatever it is supposed to do.... Not to bore you with the finer details, it eventually worked and here we are back in the land of the connected. Thanks to all those we spoke to, you know who you are. You are life savers!
All this to say that the last three weeks or so since our last post have been relatively uneventful. Vicki has of course been working her little fingers to the bone in the chalet. Her guests have mostly once again comprised of small children, but this week sees her taking care of three adults - a welcome change, with no kids' tea, fast eating in the evening and guests who take breakfast when they say they will! And a bonus is that fry-ups are not required, thus freeing up her time to do the cleaning and other tasks requiring her attention. Last week also saw the reintroduction of her having to her food orders online. This is a new system which definitely still has some flaws to iron out. But when her manager asked for feedback, I am not sure he was expecting quite the list a Chartered Marketer, formerly responsible for the publication of numerous websites, would deliver! But at least this means fewer trips round Co-Op for Vicki, barging other companies' reps out of the way and fighting for the tills. But she has managed in amongst all that work to take the board out again for a few runs. The beginner slope behind our flat has proved an ideal blooding ground for her. And now that she is linking turns on there, the next step is to head up the mountain and try the proper slopes... watch this space!
My two weeks of half term were actually not as bad as they could have been. I was given some children both weeks to take care of, but thankfully all good skiers and only one for the first week and two for the second. And the first week allowed me to be entertained for lunch in the only 5 star hotel in Verbier, the Chalet d'Adrien. For three days! The clients decided that they would rather eat all together (the other two kids each had their own instructor...) and so we eat - at their expense of course - on the sun terrace, lapping up the rays and looking out onto Verbier from on high, three days running. This was actually the start of the rather alarming warm weather. On one day, the thermometer on Vicki's chalet's balcony actually read 25 degrees Celsius!!!!! That is so wrong it beggars belief! My second week of clients had me leading a 9-year old and a 11-year old around for the week. This started with the worst white-out of the season on Monday. Now for those of you who have never had the pleasure of a white-out, the best analogy I can offer is that moment when you turn out the lights in a completely dark room before trying to navigate your way back to the bed. And generally this ends up in stubbing your big toe rather painfully against the bed before stumbling back and cracking your funny bone against the wardrobe. Now imagine this on a pair of skis, with no idea of whether the slope is wide, narrow, steep, flat, rocky or covered in some other poor sod's skis and poles who has just taken a tumble. But thankfully, due to my superb navigational skills and expert skiing, I was able to lead the two (slightly nervous) kids back to safety - along with a few others who took the opportunity of following a ski instructor back down the slope! That week also saw me tach snowboarding to the 9-year old boy. Now the more observant of you will have seen that I have no qualifications whatsoever to do this, but this being Switzerland, you can do whatever you like. Apparently, I got on OK, as he was linking turns pretty well after only three afternoons!
The last few days were brightened by the appearence of my mate Bryn from the UK, having decided on Thursday to come out for a short break. So on Friday evening, we were able to sit down in the pub below the flat to watch the France game in the 6 Nations together, whilst having a Diet Coke or two... And this pretty much continued for the next three nights as the rugby, the Carling Cup Final (did I mention Bryn is a Man Utd fan...?) and my weekly team meeting gave us far too many excuses to end up in the pub far too early. But we coped. Just! Bryn did manage to get some good snowboarding in, and as I was only working mornings, Vicki and I were able to meet up with him for a few hours in the afternoon. Bryn left us on Tuesday morning, and we were then able to sober up and get a few hours' kip.
I have some VIP clients of the ski school's for the next three days, teaching a little 4 year-old, which could be fun. And having just come off 6 mornings with a 3 year-old, my inane kiddie patter is coming along nicely. Although I think Vicki would prefer it if I kept the "pee-pee" and "ow-ow" talk to the slopes... March sounds like it could be quiet work-wise before the last rush at Easter, but I am doing ok for the moment. Vicki has next week off, so I am going to try and get a few days off to coincide with hers. We may even get to spend some more time together! Once again apologies for the long absence, we will definitely try to get some more updates in ove the coming month!
Cheers all!
All this to say that the last three weeks or so since our last post have been relatively uneventful. Vicki has of course been working her little fingers to the bone in the chalet. Her guests have mostly once again comprised of small children, but this week sees her taking care of three adults - a welcome change, with no kids' tea, fast eating in the evening and guests who take breakfast when they say they will! And a bonus is that fry-ups are not required, thus freeing up her time to do the cleaning and other tasks requiring her attention. Last week also saw the reintroduction of her having to her food orders online. This is a new system which definitely still has some flaws to iron out. But when her manager asked for feedback, I am not sure he was expecting quite the list a Chartered Marketer, formerly responsible for the publication of numerous websites, would deliver! But at least this means fewer trips round Co-Op for Vicki, barging other companies' reps out of the way and fighting for the tills. But she has managed in amongst all that work to take the board out again for a few runs. The beginner slope behind our flat has proved an ideal blooding ground for her. And now that she is linking turns on there, the next step is to head up the mountain and try the proper slopes... watch this space!
My two weeks of half term were actually not as bad as they could have been. I was given some children both weeks to take care of, but thankfully all good skiers and only one for the first week and two for the second. And the first week allowed me to be entertained for lunch in the only 5 star hotel in Verbier, the Chalet d'Adrien. For three days! The clients decided that they would rather eat all together (the other two kids each had their own instructor...) and so we eat - at their expense of course - on the sun terrace, lapping up the rays and looking out onto Verbier from on high, three days running. This was actually the start of the rather alarming warm weather. On one day, the thermometer on Vicki's chalet's balcony actually read 25 degrees Celsius!!!!! That is so wrong it beggars belief! My second week of clients had me leading a 9-year old and a 11-year old around for the week. This started with the worst white-out of the season on Monday. Now for those of you who have never had the pleasure of a white-out, the best analogy I can offer is that moment when you turn out the lights in a completely dark room before trying to navigate your way back to the bed. And generally this ends up in stubbing your big toe rather painfully against the bed before stumbling back and cracking your funny bone against the wardrobe. Now imagine this on a pair of skis, with no idea of whether the slope is wide, narrow, steep, flat, rocky or covered in some other poor sod's skis and poles who has just taken a tumble. But thankfully, due to my superb navigational skills and expert skiing, I was able to lead the two (slightly nervous) kids back to safety - along with a few others who took the opportunity of following a ski instructor back down the slope! That week also saw me tach snowboarding to the 9-year old boy. Now the more observant of you will have seen that I have no qualifications whatsoever to do this, but this being Switzerland, you can do whatever you like. Apparently, I got on OK, as he was linking turns pretty well after only three afternoons!
The last few days were brightened by the appearence of my mate Bryn from the UK, having decided on Thursday to come out for a short break. So on Friday evening, we were able to sit down in the pub below the flat to watch the France game in the 6 Nations together, whilst having a Diet Coke or two... And this pretty much continued for the next three nights as the rugby, the Carling Cup Final (did I mention Bryn is a Man Utd fan...?) and my weekly team meeting gave us far too many excuses to end up in the pub far too early. But we coped. Just! Bryn did manage to get some good snowboarding in, and as I was only working mornings, Vicki and I were able to meet up with him for a few hours in the afternoon. Bryn left us on Tuesday morning, and we were then able to sober up and get a few hours' kip.
I have some VIP clients of the ski school's for the next three days, teaching a little 4 year-old, which could be fun. And having just come off 6 mornings with a 3 year-old, my inane kiddie patter is coming along nicely. Although I think Vicki would prefer it if I kept the "pee-pee" and "ow-ow" talk to the slopes... March sounds like it could be quiet work-wise before the last rush at Easter, but I am doing ok for the moment. Vicki has next week off, so I am going to try and get a few days off to coincide with hers. We may even get to spend some more time together! Once again apologies for the long absence, we will definitely try to get some more updates in ove the coming month!
Cheers all!
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