Apparently not on any forecasts, but it’s been snowing since early this morning and there’s no sign of it stopping. Fresh, crisp, crunchy flakes to cover that awful ice that was forming over the last couple of days.

As I don’t have my camera, here are links to two web cams in the town centre:

• View from high up near the casino
• View at ground level in the town square (Place Balmat)

In other news, we had our first guest injury yesterday. First day snowboarding and one girl broke her wrist. Ow. As ever, be prepared for this kind of thing on any sporting holiday. Wrist injuries are very common when snowboarding and I always tell people it’s like judo – one of the first things to do is to learn how to fall.

Get some soft snow and a good friend. Strap yourself onto your board and get them to push you over. Forwards and backwards. A lot. Over and over again. Teach your body to react to a fall by using your forearms when toppling forward and your shoulders when losing your balance backwards. The more you do it, the more likely your body is to “remember” this when you fall for real.

Wrist guards or splints are a topic of contention with boarders. They can save your wrists, but can instead cause breaks in the forearm. This is somewhat preferable as these bones are more likely to heal with less complication than wrists. However, I believe they make it more likely you’ll get a break so it’s very much a balancing act.

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More snow in Chamonix!

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This means you have to be good to get through the interview process. But it doesn’t end there as you then have training and a lot ofp eoplke don’t seem to realise (despite being told) that this is a continuation of the interview. Mess up, fail parts, act irresponsibly and you can find yourself on the next flight home… on your own dime.

Yup, drop out of training or leave before the season is over and – under your terms of contract – you’ll have to make your own way home. If you’ve been out long enough to earn any money, you may be lucky enough to have your flight booked for you, and then have it taken off your paycheque.

Simple fact is, working a season is a lot of work and people don’t seem to realise that. You’re on duty for quite a few hours and you simply cannot be tardy or unprofessional. If you are – especially during training or in the early stages when it’s easy to replace you – you can expect to be going home.

Both last year and this year we’ve sent people home from training. Often it’s almost a matter of course – pick the worst offender and make an example of them. It proves we’re serious and other staff behaviour does indeed improve very quickly once word gets around.

If you don’t want to be the victim who proves the point, don’t give us (or whoever you work for) the chance. Be professional. Work hard. Wake up on time. Don’t – as one muppet did the other day – stagger drunk, vomit-covered and with blood dripping down your head into the wrong room and try to clamber into bed with a girl you don’t know at 6am. Despite being rather impolite, if you’re in this state at 6am, the chances of you making lectures at 8am are rather slim.

I can’t say for certain but I do think such expulsions will be common across all the companies. There are far more many people wanting to work than there are places available. So don’t push your luck. If you’re into the lifestyle, don’t mind working hard and enjoy your snow sports then working a season is fantastic. But you simply can’t get away with being lax.

If you get hired, you’re in a privileged position. Don’t mess it up!

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Thinking of working a season?

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A brief report of the last little while then. The focus of the last week or so has been the visit of Esther and Antsje, two lovely young women from Friesland. That’s the far north of the Netherlands and an area which actually has its own language. Imagine the Dutch version of Wales – they have their own arguments about putting flags on numberplates and recognising their language as well.

I originally met Esther in Darwin where we shared a hostel room twice. She now actually lives in Haarlem on the west coast having moved from Amsterdam where I last saw her. Her visit was my way of repaying her for her kind hospitality on The Walk. Oh, and Harlem in New York is indeed named after Haarlem in the Netherlands. After all, New York was originally New Amsterdam!

The two ladies arrived on the 4th by bus from Geneva. I swear I told them I could collect them from the airport, but the happily made their own 2-hour way top Chamonix where they’d pre-booked skis (yes… skis… *shudder*). They got settled in and I showed them quickly around the town during my split shift. Ski lessons were booked and as I returned to work, they went to pick up their equipment.

Over the following few days I did my best to get out of the office on time. Ish. Not easy but at least I didn’t have to drive to any of the other resorts. The Dutch pait gradually got better at skiing. Esther’s more or less a complete novice having only had a few lessons back home. Antsje has skied before, I believe. This did result in them ending up in different classes, but by the Friday when I caught up with them to take to the slopes it was obvious that Esther’s not a bad learner. Even more improved by the Monday when I had another day off, as she tackled a couple of tough reds up on Flégère. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant on the peak of Brévente. The views were simply stunning.

Also during the week we’d popped out for food on a couple of occasions, as one does when one has visitors of such high standing. OK, I wasn’t too posh the first time as we hit Midnight Express as usual. We joined some of my work cohorts for a meal in Le Caveau another night and experienced some of the worst service ever. This was a crying shame as I’d been telling E & A that, based on my past experience, this was a great place. But being bumped back an hour for our table because they screwed our booking up, then waiting over an hour longer for the food just wasn’t acceptable.

Conversely, on Monday we headed for MBC which has notoriously bad service but half price chicken wings on a Monday. It also has some other great dishes, but I’m a cheapskate so I go for a nice volume:Euro ratio. Lo and behold – wonderful service. The food was superb as well. Antsje had the “appetiser” version of one of their burgers and just about finished it. Esther had crispy duck, and I had 24 chicken wings. And a medium bowl of their cross-hatch cut chips. And a pint.

While I stayed late at work, the girls worked through a few of the films I had on my hard drive. The one night I was back early enough, we watched Kingdom of Heaven, which it turned out they’d seen before but which we all enjoyed. Ridly Scott does it again. I still think Gladiator was a little better but this is certainly worth a couple of hours of your time. In between other things I also finished ploughing through all three seasons of Deadwood. A great series, but one which never got the chance to end properly after being cancelled by HBO before the story’s natural conclusion. A shame, though maybe not for those offended by slightly off-colour language…

As far as I’m aware my Dutch visitors are now back in their respective homes. Their visit coincided with the first snow we’ve had for some time, though it turned to rain just as they were leaving. Hopefully, it’s still snowing higher up and we’re just getting the damper end of things down here.

And this brings us back around to this week.

You may have noticed that I’ve added some photos for the first time in ages. I will try to continue doing this, but it’s a pain with the theme I’m using right now. I’ve had to add new tags to the CSS to get them to stagger left/right, and if I have one complaint about WordPress, it’s the clunky editing interface. I do have a Plugin that changes things to a much superior editor, but this doesn’t work with the file browser so I have to swap back and forth to insert the images into the text.

As I promised. One post a week minimum on here from now till the end of the season.

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Here’s a promise…

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She arrived late on Thursday evening, not helped by the mont Blanc tunnel having roadworks inside. Thankfully she got to the Jekyll just in time for the comedy show starting. This was our late work’s Christmas do – it’s far too busy around Christmas itself for an office party in Chamonix, so Sheridan delayed it until now and we had a nice three-course meal and tickets for the comedy night. Giuly’s single ticket was only 10 Euros in advance (meal and ticket was €35) and the entertainment wasn’t too bad at all. Well, two out of three comedians were funny. The other just… wasn’t. Still not bad for a night out.

We didn’t stay out on the beer too long as Giuly was only here for a couple of days and had a carful of ski equipment to use. Yes – despite being a lovely person, she’s a skier. I suppose we all have our faults.

I’d changed my shifts so I had Friday off and after ferrying lost luggage around on my day off a couple of weeks ago, I’d scrounged an extra half-day as well. This meant we had pretty much all the daylight on Friday and Saturday to get out and play on the snow. Friday was spent up Brévant and Fleger, where we sunbathed at lunchtime at around 2400m. A beautiful big dog came and sat with us, begging scraps off our sandwiches. I also rediscovered how much fun sledging is by sitting on my board and scooting down some smaller hills!

On the way back down to Chamonix in the bubble lift I spotted an Ibex. I saw loads of chamoix when I was trekking in France and Italy, but I’d not seen one of these smaller deer-like creatures before. It just stood on the slopes and watched the cars as they slid by on the cable above.

Back in town, I introduced Giuly to the gastranomic wonder that is Midnight Express which she enjoyed. Praise indeed from an Italian! To settle the evening off, we watched Nancy Drew which was much better than either of us expected. An early night as we wanted to be up early to dodge the Saturday crowds.

This, of course, didn’t happen. But we tactically dodged the crowds by getting on the bus later than anyone else. It was still busy – the busiest I’ve seen all season as I’m normally out midweek – but not too bad. I expect things to pick up further next week with the UK half terms. Today’s trip was to La Tour, which I’ve heard very highly spoken of amongst the skiers on our staff.

Giuly loved it, I wasn’t so keen. It’s definitely skier country, with lots of steep, hard snow and a couple of long, shallow runs. Shallow and flat are very hard for boarding on, which is a shame as the scenery up there is fantastic. It’s just hard to concentrate on it when you’re trying very hard not to catch an edge or swerve and shove a group of three skiers off the edge of a narrow path as they undertake you. tempting as it may be.

I headed back into town at lunchtime as I wanted to watch the match on telly (I wish I hadn’t), but Giuly stayed there until they virtually kicked her off the mountain. I had work in the afternoon and was very glad to come home to a home-cooked Italian meal! My compliments to the chef!

As I had airport duty on the Sunday morning, it was another early night. I don’t think I woke Giuly as I snuck out past the bunks at 6:45 and when I got back later in the day she told me she’d gone back up Brévent for a few hours. We had a quick wander to the MBC for a sneaky beer (great site-brewed beers, excellent food, crappy service) where Giuly caught the last ten minutes of the Italy Six Nations game (England won, but who’s bothered about egg-chasing? Really?).

And that was about it for my Italian visitor. She headed off and hopefully dodged most of the queues on the way home. I crashed out and watched some old episodes of Spooks while blowing my runny nose into a hanky. Yup, I’ve had a cold the last few days (far away from man-flu, but annoying all the same) but I have to say that getting out in the snow and fresh air really seems to have helped.

So another visitor down and a couple of weeks free before Esther and her friend come down from Amsterdam. At least I know she’s used to bunk beds as we shared a hostel room in Darwin a few times!

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Italy comes visiting

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I’m on to my second visitor in a week with Nic flying in on Monday morning. On the same day, Delphine departed after a short stay on her way back to Nice from Paris (and Bruge, and Brussels, and Berlin…). Nic’s opted for the “stay at ground level and paint things” course of action during her visit. Delphine had a go at snowboarding on one of the nursery slopes and after a day of trudging up and sliding down hill managed to stand up for most of the time. She did damage her thumb slightly with an awkward landing, but on the whole she departed uninjured.

On Sundays I’ve started “repping” one of the buses home from the airport. This is a great chance to chat to some of the guests and is usually quite relaxed as there’s not often more than a dozen people heading to Chamonix on the last flight. This week, however, there was quite a delay. One of the planes coming in with passengers booked with one of our competitors had a pilot who… let’s say “didn’t have much experience”. Or he was blind.

Essentially, he would prepare to land, start to descend, chicken out and fly up and round again. This caused a backlog with all the other flights as well. While I’m all for equal rights for the “differently-abled”, hiring a pilot who needs to land a 150-seater aeroplane using nothing but his sense of touch is pushing things just a little too far. The passengers, when they finally arrived, were in good spirits. One even commented that “you have to pay for rides like that at Alton Towers!”

The only downside to the Sunday work is that I can’t catch any of the footie that’s televised which means I miss the Boro game next weekend. I do get to catch what promises to be a dull encounter against Villa the following Saturday and an inevitable trouncing by ManUre two weeks after that. Jolly-ho.

Coming up, I have visits from Giuliana (I hope) from Turin; Esther and friend from Amsterdam; Viv from back home; and Leah from back home (again!). There’s also a “possible” regarding Sharon and a friend of Noah’s from Israel. I just realised that every one of my visitors is/will be female. I’m going to get quite a reputation here!

I’ve also started planning my summer out. I have a couple of weeks to spare over June around the festivals, so I’m thinking of doing the Baltic states as well as (maybe) Berlin and Warsaw. Somehow I need to get an updated passport as I also want to go to Vietnam again and I only have one spare page in my existing document. However, I’m not going to be in the UK for long which means I might have to resort to the pricey “appointment at the passport office”. A 10-year, 48-page passport on a same-day service is a whopping £123. Ouch.

And yes, I know I still haven’t posted any pictures…

The vacation planners are much interested to provide all-inclusive vacation packages of the different travel agencies. You may enjoy the fantastic as well as romantic resorts of the world if you are guided properly by the travel guide. You may stay for a while in the travel lodge of the different airline companies in airports.

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Been neglecting you…

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Quite simple, really. A lot of ‘boarders carry a small rucksack with stuff in. I usually use it to store my clothes in. As I get warmer, I strip layers and pop them into the rucksack. I also use it to carry my lunch. Herein lies the tip – get a strong lunch box and don’t otherwise carry anything squishable. Sandwiches have an amazing ability to work their way into a nook or cranny right where you’ll land on them when you (inevitably) fall. Bananas are the same, and anyone taking a cardboard carton of juice snowboarding without securing it in a sturdy plastic lunch box is a fool or a person who enjoys having all their clothing soaked in drink.

You’d think it would be common sense, but the last time I went boarding with a group around half of them had lunch that looked like it had been run over by a steamroller.

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Tips for snowboarders

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There are a few rules on the mountain. A very few. Basically, they revolve around politeness and common sense. Most people seem to get these rules, or are just polite by instinct. An annoying number don’t.

1. The person lower down the slope has right of way. That means if you’re cannoning down a piste at 80km/h, it is your job to avoid people further down (they can’t see you, remember?) and it’s not their fault if they swerve into your path. This can easily be avoided by skiing/boarding within the bounds of your ability and the current terrain. If you’re on a narrow piste, don’t go so quickly as someone else can get in your way more easily. It’s common sense. I see too many skiers in particular crouched in a “speed” position, zooming down green runs where beginners are trying to practise.
2. Don’t stop, sit down or rest in the middle of the piste. If you have to stop for whatever reason, get to the side. This includes the areas just off the lifts. Again, just today I had several incidents where I saw skiers blocking the exits from lifts as they ski’d off, then just stopped on the middle of the run. On one of the green runs, I saw three people stopped while one of their friends built a small ramp off-piste. The boarder was to the side of the piste, the two skiers in the middle, round a corner and under a crest from the upper part of the run – and therefore in a bloody stupid place to loaf.
3. Before you set off, check uphill to ensure you won’t get in someone’s way when you set off. Again, skiers assume they don’t have to – my experience – though I notice boarders making the same mistake from time to time. However, tie this in with the previous point and at least most boarders are at the piste’s edge so less likely to get in someone’s way.
4. Give suitable clearance when overtaking someone. This one really, really gets my goat. Boarders are more likely to be guilty of this one than the others in my experience, but skiers are horrendous for doing it. Cutting someone up is rude and dangerous. Just because you’re used to haring downhill at speed and letting someone slip past you on the inside doesn’t mean that the kid who’s skis/board you missed by 3cm doesn’t mind either. So often I have seen skiers/boarders wooshing past people with virtually no distance to spare and the person they’ve narrowly missed panic and fall. Sure, you’re great and you have control, but the person you’ve just gone past had no idea you were there till you overtook them – it’s scary especially to a learner.
5. Don’t pull in and stop suddenly on a slope right in front of someone. I have had arguments with skiers who’ve done just this – never a boarder. They cut me up, skid to a halt and then I either collapse in a heap, collide with them or clip their skis. They complain that it’s my fault due to point number one – I’m higher up so it’s my job to dodge them. Thing is, one second they weren’t there and then *pop*, they appear and block my way. This also happens when I’m just about to set off. I’m stationary, about to start sliding and a skier decides to stop in the one path I can take to get some momentum. Imagine you’re parked on the side of the road. You’re indicating to come out and just waiting for a car to go past. Is passes you… then stops half a metre in front of you and puts on its handbrake. Pretty damn rude, isn’t it? You can get round it, but it takes effort and the guy could have parked two metres further down and given you space but just decided to ignore you.

There are more “rules”, many of them spelled out on a per-resort basis. I’m sure you can see by looking at the above that they’re simple enough and generally are common sense. I also try not to rail against skiers in particular, but as I said it’s just my experience that the vast majority of people who do cause problems are skiers. The ratio hugely outweighs the number of skiers:number of boarders one.

Anyway, besides all that I had a good day off and finally figured out how to snowboard again. I can now actually go down a good few runs without falling on my backside. This is a good thing. I’m getting there! I feel sorry for the guy (a skier) who was airlifted off in dramatic style by helicopter, however. He was conscious and hopping prior to being loaded on the trailer of a Skidoo so I suspect just a badly broken leg. The worst I’ve had so far is a bruised botty – and I hope it stays that way.

The travel deals of the different travel agents are preferable if they charge very reasonable rates. The cheap airline tickets are available by the different travel agents to facilitate the passengers of the different areas. The cheap travel insurance quotes are very assistive to provide all safety measures against the risky traveling. The cheap cruises are also included in the travel deals of different vacation planners to facilitate the customers.

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A word to skiers

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Around Chamonix at the moment, you can often here cannon-like blasts in the early morning. These are set charges being blasted to shift snow in controlled circumstances to help prevent avalanches. Recently, I went to a meeting organised by Henry’s Avalanche Talk in a local bar. It was a superb introduction to the dangers involved in skiing and snowboarding off-piste. Definitely recommended if you’re in the Chamonix area – they’re done regularly and cost very little.

The reason this post came us is because we’ve lost at least one staff member – an experienced boarder/skier – in an avalanche recently. It can happen to anyone. He was a chef at one of our hotels and by all accounts a really nice guy. I can’t say I knew him, but it’s always sad to hear of someone dying while pursuing a hobby when they should be enjoying themselves. Another important thing to bear in mind is that those that cause avalanches aren’t always the only victims – anyone downhill is in serious danger as well.

Soap box time over, folks. But if you’re going to go off-piste – please, please be aware of the dangers.

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Avalanche!

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This week I have mainly been hanging around with Leah. She made time in her busy schedule (i.e. the long winter holiday) to pop over and spend new year with me. We had a few really good nights out, got rather tiddly, ate some decent nosh and Leah tried her hand (or rather backside) at snowboarding. Her sis is apparently pretty good, having spent a fair amount of time in New Zealand. Leah didn’t do too badly for a complete novice, but we didn’t have an enormous amount of time for her to practice.

But back to the previous weekend and Geneva Airport. Now, look at a map and you’ll be aware that Switzerland is part of Europe. However, it is <em>not</em> part of the European Union. There are many agreements between the EU and Switzerland, one of which involves the freedom of movement of people – citizens of one can travel through the other unhindered and without a need for visas. You generally speaking won’t have to stop at a customs point on a border and so on.

However, if you’re an EU citizen and you <em>do</em> get stopped on the border (they randomly stop vehicles) then you must have your passport. Any other form of ID is not sufficient. Likewise if you fly in/out of Switzerland then you require a passport.

For those who are not EU citizens, it gets slightly more complicated…

If you’re from outside of Europe and you plan a holiday here you generally apply for your visa in advance (depending on where you’re from). The family who had the problem last week were from South America. They did as so many other people do – landed within Europe (I assume in the UK in their case) and their visa was checked, sorted and they went on their way. From then on, travel within Europe is fine but generally the visa will expire when you leave Europe and try to re-enter.

Ah, now I just made the same mistake they probably did. I said "Europe" when I should have said "the EU". They booked a holiday with us, hopped onto their plane in London or wherever, got off in Geneva… and then found out that they didn’t have a visa to enter Switzerland. Their holiday destination was actually to be in France, but we use Geneva as a main hub as it’s a larger airport than our alternative (Chambery).

Technically the fault lies with the airline as the family should not have been allowed on the flight in the first place. But airports make mistakes (witness my visa-less flight to Australia) and so they ended up stuck at immigration in Geneva Airport. We did get the situation sorted and they caught a later bus to their resort. Apparently there’s a French area or something at the airport where they were allowed to pass through, but don’t expect this to work for everyone.

So it’s a simple warning – when traveling, don’t assume that every country has the same immigration regulations for you as every other – even if they share borders.

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Travelling to Europe? Sure?

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It’s been a hectic… however long since I last updated. I’ve been round umpteen sites, fixed umpteen things, met umpteen-and-a-bit people and realised beyond all doubt that France Telecom are British Telecom with funny accents. That is, they’re bloody useless. We still have two offices with no working telephones, though FT say the lines are live because if you call them there is a ringing tone down the line. The fact that the phones in the office don’t ring (or have a dial tone) is seemingly irrelevant. File under “ongoing”.

Printers have been distributed to most of our sites by a third party supplier. A shame they should all have been distributed by now. And those that are out of ink should have had replenishments by now, but no sign of the packages. This resulted in one trip for me out to Les Arcs to take out a backup printer and ink the day before transfer day so the resort could get all their welcome packs done.

Thing is, it meant I spent a couple of hours with a great bunch of stressed-out Resort Managers, reps and chalet managers. All of them were snowed under … but laughing. I got back at silly o’clock (again) that night, but was singing along with the car stereo the whole way.

Transfer day this week was the first full-scale one of the season with scenes of (mostly) organised chaos everywhere. One bus was late due to a flat tyre and bust axle, and a few decided to park up at the international terminal instead of the charter one which caused us a few problems. Aside from that it went mostly smoothly. There were a lot of children (I’m forbidden to call them “kids” by company policy) around with it being Christmas week, which made it particularly special.

It was a fairly long day and as always one of the tensest of the week. I actually ended up having a rather frank discussion with my boss regarding my role and her use of it, which could have gone very sour indeed. I had my issues and I have my duties and I felt these weren’t being taken into account so I took a pretty firm stance – adapt or I walk.

Thing is, we got it all sorted. And very amicably. In a typically English way – over a cup of tea. We even got to batting a few more ideas around which should make life easier for both of us (and everyone else) over the course of the season. Result.

On Thursday I’d been taken to Ski Set in Cham Sud (south Chamonix) to get my board and boots. I’d like to make a recommendation regarding this shop – avoid. The staff are less knowledgeable than I am, their equipment’s crap and the guy who runs the shop is a miserable arse. Part of me can see the sense in giving all the seasonaires third-rate equipment – it’s cheap and they’re probably on a really tight deal through their employer. Plus it makes sense to keep your best stuff for the more profitable punter (sorry, “guest”), especially at this time of year when it’s busy.

However, it doesn’t excuse being a miserable sod. Neither does it excuse being shirty and refusing to give staff snowboards, instead palming off crap skis on people who’ve never ski’d before. I was lucky as I went down in the morning. I got the only board out of all the local staff. The rest were told to come back in on a day-to-day basis if they wanted a board. Having said that, all the boards looked rubbish anyway. Mine was.

Up on the slope on Friday with a bunch of people from the Sapiniere, Pieter (the hotel manager) noticed something about the bindings on my board. They were the ones he’d discarded last year. The exact same ones. That would explain why they were so worn. They also fit badly and one of the plastic straps broke. This was when I discovered that I couldn’t get Flo bindings fixed anywhere in Argentiere. OK, not quite true. I did find one shop but they usually charge for the work whereas the Ski Set would do it for free – if they had the parts.

I lost two hours of slope time locating a shop and getting back to the piste. Not good. At least the company was good, with the bunch from Chamonix being of varying ability there was always someone I could catch up with. Good snow and a variety of slopes, plus Pieter available to give me some tips – thanks, fella.

Apres-board, we headed for FuBar. This is a sister bar to Bar d’Up on Chamonix and has a rather natty spinny-rotaty bull-ride. I did pretty well, managing 25 seconds on level two as my first attempt. I only did it for the free shot. A couple of beers later, Simon picked us up in the minibus and we headed into Chamonix for more socialising (i.e. beer) during which time I developed a stomach ache and a marginal case of the squits. Not a good way to spend a night out till 3am…

Back to the board – I did get it swapped out and I think I now have one of their “silver” class boards. Which means it’s slightly less crap then the one I had before, but does have better bindings. The owner’s “what is he doing complaining – he’s not allowed to do that” expression was priceless. I think he’s the first stereotypical “rude Frenchman” I’ve met. And hopefully the last.

The town looks fantastic right now, especially after dark. Lights everywhere, crowds walking around, shops selling mulled wine and hot waffles. Horse-drawn carriages clip-clopping along the streets. And best of all, wide-eyed kids absolutely sure they’ll see Santa this year because there’s actually snow everywhere. I can honestly say I don’t recall being anywhere so Christmassy in my entire life and it beggars belief but I really like it.

So, back to the now. This time last year I was in Agra. Temperature-wise it couldn’t be more different. Then I had one great mate with me. Now I have a bunch of good friends. Then I was being ferried round in a little white car playing dodgem with huge trucks. Now I’m on a snowboard playing dodgem with bloody skiers.

Variety. It truly is the spice of life.

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Well, it’ll be white here…

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