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.

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.