chalet life continues

This blog thing just isn’t happening at the moment. Since I arrived back at Chalet Lou Rider so many things have been going on that I have just not found the mood or inspiration to write. So I apologise to those of you who keep checking to see what I have been up to. The time to write will return, as it always does and I will resume a more normal service.

Until then, a quick synopsis.

Since I wrote last, there has been snow, loads of snow and some great skiing, followed a couple of days later by some ‘wonderfully’ warm sunny weather, the pistes turned to ice and the mountains lost their beautiful white blankets of cover, returning to an unseasonal brown colour. Days later the same thing happens, a good dump of snow followed by a couple of excellent days for skiing before more warm melty conditions. Diane, a guest, who stayed a week or so ago provided me with some excellent tuition and we skid together most of the time she was here, improving our english and french language skills and having a great laugh together. My skiing is much improved and hopefully I have shaken off some of those lazy habits that I had gathered from last season. Dynamic skiing is the way forward, I love it.

We have just had the biggest snowfall of the winter so far, it came down constantly for over 24 hours, blown by fairly high winds most of the resort stayed closed for a day as the workers on the mountain dealt with a multitude of avalanche threats by blasting unstable snow off the mountain with controlled explosions.

Here in the chalet two helpers have gone and after a short gap, one new one arrived. Ildi took a weekend off, returning fleetingly to collect her belongings, not to be seen again and Graeme had to leave Europe before his visa ran out. So suddenly there were two of us where there used to be four, right in the busiest part of the season. Fortunately the new guy, Ian is a bright spark and is getting to grips with chalet life fairly quickly, he is only here for two weeks to learn a bit of french and also to ski. Cameron and I are filling in with a bit of extra work and have an arrangement with Clare to compensate. New postings have hit the helpX website and reinforcements should hopefully be arriving soon. Cameron is with us for another three weeks before heading back to Oz after a good stint of traveling and exploring the world.

I am amazed that ski fanatics are not queueing up to be here as it is in the most excellent location and there is an opportunity to ski almost every day. Come join us for the remains of the season, in another two weeks the school holidays will be over and the resort will return to its normal tranquil self. More snow is forecast, along with some seasonable cold to replace the warmth that has dominated the region for most of this winter.