Joyeux Noël!

Christmas...

Well Christmas has pretty much passed us by with little more than a blink of an eye.  It was just a normal day at work (well for me it was - my guests are Jewish and so didn't have Christmas Dinner... in the big chalet, however, it was a little more manic as they had to do the full works!).

We did manage to get out and ride in the afternoon so that was pretty cool - it just lacks Christmas atmosphere around here, despite the Christmas lights and decorations in the town, and the guy dressed up as Santa skiing down the mountain!  I guess people who come here over the holidays just want to escape Christmas?

We had planned to go out for a Christmas drink after work but ended up just having a glass of vin chaud in Dan & Becky's apartment and then we went home!  We'd opened our presents in the afternoon and spoke to my family on Facebook Video, and managed to get hold of Ian's family in the evening so we got to speak to everyone to join in with some of their Christmas cheer!

Guests & Work...

We're one day away from having finished our first two weeks of having proper guests... we haven't poisoned anyone and the chalets didn't burn down - all round success I'd say!  We're getting into our routine now which doesn't feel so great at 6.30am!  The last week or so hasn't been so bad in the morning as the roads have been quite clear so it only takes about twenty minutes to get door to door.  Today, however, took somewhat longer due to the heavy overnight snow and Ian losing the car keys whilst digging the car out!

We're getting quicker in the mornings doing our food prep and cleaning so have been able to leave at around 11am - except on changeover day which is Saturday.  Last week we didn't leave until 3pm and had to be back at 5.30pm... Rubbish!  Hopefully tomorrow won't be so bad.  After the New Year the little chalet has its changeover day on Sundays so at least we won't have to blitz two chalets in one day then.  Evenings aren't too bad - we start at 5.30pm and have two hours to cook the meal ready for service at 7.30pm.  We serve three courses (plus coffee and cheese, if the guests want it), clear everything away and get things ready for breakfast the next day.  We usually finish at around 9pm, sometimes have a beer with Dan and Becky but usually go straight back to the apartment to have a snack or a beer whilst we chill out before bed.  Rock and roll!

But here's a couple of good reasons for doing it all...

Tips and amazing scenery to ride around!

The Riding...

We've had some really good afternoons/days out since we've been here... There's tonnes of good runs around La Plagne, the resort is so big it'll definitely keep us entertained for the next five months!

We had a lesson with Oxygene Ski School a couple of weeks ago - Dan and Becky paid for us to go on a lesson especially for seasonnaires... a bit of a 'get to know people' and also for us to be able to promote Oxygene.  The lesson was quite good actually - a bit of a shame that it was blizzards and visibility was so poor we could barely see a thing!  Still, we got a few good tips to help us improve.

We've also enlisted Dan's help, as he's an ex-pro snowboarder - he took us out on Wednesday and showed us how to carve properly... can't wait til he starts showing us some freestyle moves!!

We've taken some more GoPro footage so as soon as we get round to making it a bit more interesting than the last video, we'll get it uploaded.

Until next time!

November signing out.