End of season

Samoens is entering hibernation.

Seasonnaires are staggering back to what is mostly described as a grey reality, the last tourists have gone back to their lives and the all year residents of the village are starting to crawl out of their dungeons, in which they've lived the lives of slaves, serving demanding chalet guests over the lucrative winter.

We've moved into a basement apartment under chalet Moccand, a ten minute walk across town from our last place. It's a bit bigger, it's got wifi and we don't sleep directly next to the stove. The downside, however, is that whenever there's guests in the chalet above we can't talk too loudly or run around naked. Another con is that we only live here for a month so we live pretty much out of suitcases. Whenever there aren't any guests we can use the massive garden, barbeque and hot tub - fingers crossed we'll have at least a week without any guests. Sometime around mid May we move into a central flat, an infant's stone throw from the local...

Duties at work have changed slightly, from being strictly cleaning we are now getting more maintenance work.

After the worst (most snow lacking) winter since 1949, trees are already green in our valley, and it's pretty cool to, every day, see the green line little by little walking up the hills around us.

Carl got second and Sally first price in the end of season cleaning competition.

The last carve of the season was done in Chamonix - four runs in Grand Montets before walking bow-legged through town where we managed a bit of window shopping and a cold beer before heading back.

There's been someone leaving every day, so the leaving parties have been back to back, which is why I'm writing these last words with twitchy eyelids.

Tickets for home visits are booked; 30th May - 6th June Stockholm, 6th June - 13th June London, then we've hopefully got a couple of weeks work at Glastonbury Festival lined up. See y'all soon!

Good night,

Lots and lots of love

PS. If you fancy a holiday in the french alpes, contact us, we can hook you up with either free or cheap accommodation, lots of fresh air, good walks, climbs, mountain- and road biking, rafting, sun bathing, wine drinking, cheese eating and/or sitting-on-your-ass-doing-nothing in a friendly, genuine town.

Wet dreams of powder

Hello,

We're alive. April flew past and left us slightly over worked and hungover. Sally was 27, now she's 28 and now it's March and Carl's turn to turn a quarter of a century.

Last Monday was a good day. It was our day off in the week and it just happened to be the day following two days of constant snow fall, so we went up with the first lift and got covered in beautiful untouched powder snow. Worth mentioning also is that our sister Emma was over with Sanna from Sweden and came up on the mountain with us. Unfortunately Sanna couldn't saddle up, due to a much too recent operation in her knee - bless her for being strong and giving us the awsomest week in spite of her missing out.

So with Sanna and Emma leaving last Wednesday after a week of wrecking every soul in the village, we are starting to feel human again and can get back to life in an alp village in its last week of mid term hysteria.

Within a month, half of our seasonnaire buddies will be packing or already gone back to where they are going and this week we are making big decisions for our little selves, whether to stay or to leave and if so: where to go? Decisions decisions...

Well, that's all for this time.

No, it ain't. We could use a new name for the blog. Suggestions?

Godspeed You followers of the world's most unfrequently updated blog

See ya

and then the snow came...

No, it didn't. It just got colder again.

However, the drop in temperature has allowed the snow canons of the Grand Massif to operate and most pistes and lifts are open. With a shortage of nice fluffy powder, we decided to have a go at snowboarding.

For Sally this meant, after only having a few weeks of learning to ski, she was back to square one. After two weeks on the board she grasps balance and turns very well, but at the moment she's back on skis, just as a reminder of how a run without falling over can feel like. She is adamant to pick the board back up and learn it - she damn well better after all that moaning!

Having tried boarding back in his mid teens, Carl found it easier to pick it back up and is still going strong with it, even though the icy slopes have brought a fair amount of pain and anger. The other day a somewhat clumsy child (with a stupid hat) fell and could have been crushed into fine mist, had Carl not, with the reflexes of a jungle cat, risked his own skin by taken evasive action and had a gracious fall on his ass. Some might argue the child deserved being crushed which would have saved face for our modest, everyday hero. Nobody went home in a bag that day and that's what matters.

Yesterday we finished up quickly (big up to clean guests), and went for a stroll in and around our town. Visited Samoens humble, but cosy botanical garden. Explored the river side and had hot chocolate. At some point, possibly delirious from the kick of newly arrived smuggled Galaxy chocolate, Sally said she'd swim in the river. Not when summer comes, or even spring time, but now, Winter time. Any other time the river will be too wild. Carl will be there with dry clothes, towel and camera.

We've chosen not to bore you further with tales of work and Carl's developing human hair phobia, so that is what we have to share this time.

Until next,

x

PS. If you find yourself with a spare minute, don't hesitate to do us a little snow dance.

Pics and quick update

So far so good, 2011.

Been skiing a few more times since last, no snow though, so the billion tourist who came over xmas seem to have taken the snow back with them, the mountain is close to bare.

We went up Monday and Tuesday and had a good time though. Monday we met up with Sally's work friend from London, Kevin, who is doing an off pist course in Flaine (the biggest resort in Grand Massif), but he was pist off :) about the lack of snow. We had a go in the pist with him and his friend Daniel but they soon had to continue with their afternoon classes. So we met up with Paul and Hayley from work and together we had a few good runs and explored further.

Tuesday we went up with Lewis and Becky, from work, and they took us around Morillion. It's a smaller area than Flaine, but better when visibility is low due to the pists being narrower and surrounded by trees. Sally had a gracious fall when she had a go at a small jump (it's a hobby she's picked up on her own). She lowered her speed to next to stand still and on the top of the jump, she now glided over, she accidentally put a pole between her skis and went over it. Flat on her face with skis lying scattered around her Carl finds her.

New Year's Eve we had friends from work over for drinks and cheese and face paint. After pre drinks we went to the local for count down. At ours the face paint action got out of hand along with drinks - Lewis had a female breast on his bald forehead, Sally looked terminally ill with blisters and black eyes, Carl was a STI rebus.

Lots of love from us

X

Stolen Christmas tree & smuggled presents

View from 1600m

Flaine, 2500m

Wanted

On our way up from 700m to 1600m - where fun begins