Fresh snow and foie gras.....

What a week it has been.....after all those weeks of no snow, we've had a couple of good dumps just in time for the half-term madness here. With friends holidaying here, it's been the usual fine balancing act between joining in on their holiday, and not forgetting we have work to do too! But we've done pretty well, with three days on the slopes, and still managing to get a couple of new bookings and keep our other clients happy :-) We've done pretty well on the foodie front as well, with second meal of the season at my favourite 'L'oeil du boeuf', then on Thursday the most superb fireworks up in 1850, followed by a foie gras fest at the 'Bistrot Du Praz'. We were blessed with the most beautiful day yesterday, and had great fun skiing over in 1650, rounded off by a late lunch in the sunshine at the Bel Air - top day! So we'll be on pasta for a week after all that lot.........well, at least until G's birthday next week. But perhaps we'll have one of our nice picnics on the slopes, which are just as good!

Cooped up!

I'm feeling a bit 'cooped up' here at the moment - I always feel like this when I'm indoors all day for more than two days. Yesterday was kind of enforced, however. I was all set to finish off my morning's work, get emails sent before heading off for a swim in the local pool, when our internet just stopped working. I did all the usual unplugging of modem etc., phoned Orange (forget that!) and finally phoned our trusty friend Alex who always seems to be able to get to the root of the problem. And he did, thank-you Alex! But having not finished my work, then spent three hours resolving the internet problem, I then had to finish my work, and by then it was the end of the day and all thoughts of going swimming were long gone so I thought I might as well do some of my (increasingly large pile) of accounts. So can you blame me then for curling up on the sofa and watching 'Come Dine With Me'!?

So today, backlog cleared and internet working, I shall be heading off shortly for a swim, once again in the absence of any fresh snow to ski on. A bientot!

Friends, laughter and dancing.....

We rolled in at 2.30 am this morning - I never do that anymore. Having had dinner round at a friend's house, we decided to have a bit of a boogie in the kitchen cum living cum dining room that all of us here in the Alps live in. Even if we'd left two hours earlier, I'd have had a great evening with lots of easygoing banter and laughter - so good for the soul! But dancing - air guitars (Guns n Roses), twisting (Beatles), and generally shaking our thang - I just love it! I may look daft, I probably pull the most bizarre facial expressions - but there's just nothing like a good boogie.......top night!

Still no snow - it's becoming a rather boring topic of conversation here (aren't conversations about the weather always!) but quite pertinent to our work and way of life here in the Alps. So I'm heading up to the slopes tomorrow to see how they're fareing (sp?) and get some fresh air - early night required after last night's excesses. Nite nite x

Sunburned chins, and non-existent punctures.....

So having looked back at my (not too) recent blogs, I can say now that it has not snowed here for four full weeks. Here. In the French Alps. It has snowed in Scotland, in the Pyrenees, in Austria, and probably lots of other places, but no, here in Bozel (900m), Savoie, Rhone Alpes, the thermometer has hit 19 degrees C in the last couple of days. Can't complain though - at least the sun is shining, and I know it certainly is, because today I burned my chin. It's not that it juts out in particular, but I guess when one wears helmet and goggles skiing, there aren't many other exposed bits to burn......

Last time I wrote, I was looking forward to my spa afternoon, and very relaxing it was too. Jacuzzi, hammam, sauna, then lolling around in a bathrobe drinking herbal tea reading mags with a view of sunny Mont Vallon - bliss. Until we got back in the car, switched on the engine, and a new message popped up on the dash 'Crevaison - changer roue'. Our car is rather fond of messages, but this was a new one, and it didn't take long to translate 'crevaison' to 'puncture'. The helpful diagram on the dash even showed me which tyre was punctured. Except it wasn't. Now there's a dilemna. Not really - the tyre was clearly fine - quite unnerving though with the STOP warning light on the entire time you are driving, but with our car I'm quite used to that. Apparently a friend had a similar occurrence and chose to put a smiley face sticker over the STOP warning light as she found it so offputting while driving (I like that!). The lovely Giley had the tyre checked out down in Moutiers and was told there was absolutely no puncture - I was (and rightly so!) a little concerned about doing a return trip to Geneva (4 hr round trip) with a bad tyre. So the tyre pressure sensor was faulty. Why do I need a tyre pressure sensor, can't I just check them out every so often as I did with all my old banger cars? Back to our helpful Renault garage here in Bozel, who had agreed to take a quick look just before I set off for the airport. I left the car for one hour, came back and drank coffee and watched Bob Geldof jump up and down on a trampoline (daytime TV - say no more.....), thinking I was going to return to be told I would need a new sensor and that'll be approximately 200 Euros including VAT and labour. Imagine how happy I was to return to be told 'C'est tout bon!' - Hurrah! but why? Apparently when he plugged the car into computer (really?) or vice versa it all reset itself ET VOILA! and furthermore 'c'est un cadeau'....ie. you don't have to pay me anything for doing that. Well there you have it, my faith in mechanics restored forever - good on you M. Renault, my shoulder knot has once again disappeared.....

I will spare a thought however for my friend who parked her car on an icy drive here in Bozel earlier today, got out of the car only to watch it slide down the road, through a garden and some trees and into the side of someones house.......oh la la!

Birthdays, bubbles and bad blogging.....

OK, I'm a bad blogger as I've just realised I have not written for 22 days - although mid-January was supposed to be a quiet period, I seem to have been dashing around like a maniac! Not always work, sometimes I'm dashing to go skiing with the girls, then home to do some work, then to the pub.....and so on it goes! The main conversation point of everyone here at the moment is 'When is it going to snow?', as it hasn't for around 3-4 weeks. The slopes are bearing up well, although the bottom of my skis are beginning to resemble what I imagine the surface of the moon looks like (sorry Skiset.....). Memorable recent events include a girls skiing day to Val Thorens, on a gorgeous bluebird sunny day, with a tipsy lunch and apres-ski to the point that I missed Pilates (sorry Ginny.....), then Burns Night, hosted by Jane, which was a fun evening, and last week a ski with the Churchill boys followed by a great lunch at La Soucoupe. It was my 37th birthday (gosh am I really that age.....) on Saturday - normally such a great day to have a birthday, but it was spent hosting a corporate weekend, and was probably the busiest day/evening of our entire season. It was lovely to return to Bozel on Sunday evening and have a few quiet drinks with good friends, however.

Bubbles are a big part of my blog today - not just the champagne I drank at the weekend, but the Chenus bubble that broke down yesterday for around 2 hours, stranding lots of poor skiers, while I happily skied below in the sunshine - adding weight to my general policy only to take gondolas when it is freezing cold or snowing, as I like being in the fresh air on the chairlift. Thankfully my brother-in-law wasn't on it (Willie, you know who you are!). And lastly the bubbles that I'm going to enjoy in the jacuzzi on my spa afternoon tomorrow - can't wait!

Will try not to leave it so long before writing again, in the meantime please please please can we have some snow!!