A Lurgy Lays us Low!

Market Day at Les Carroz

Well it's been a quiet couple of days for the Oxleys. Graeme has been struck down by a lurgy and he's feeling pretty sorry for himself. Staying inside and keeping warm has been the priority at the moment!! Today saw a visit to the local doctor for the diseased one!

What an experience! It should come as no surprise that la salle d'attente (waiting room) was jam packed with people nursing an assortment of skiing injuries and winter illness'. What was amazing was the "french way" of dealing with the chaos. I have previously observed that the French are "Queuing Experts". The waiting room was another example. There was no "name taking or calling". People just waited patiently, using every available chair to sit on or wall to lean against. There was no numbering system, everyone politely took note of who had arrived in the queue before them no matter where they were seated and all proceeded in an orderly fashion. If there was any doubt, a polite group discussion took place and the correct person took their turn with the doctor.

Another reason for the overcrowded waiting room is that a visit to the doctor is apparantly a "team sport" in France. Everyone, not just the children, appeared to have at least 2 or 3 supporters with them. Again, the children were all superbly behaved, quietly reading their books or playing their computer games. For the record, the only screaming children we have seen so far have been english!! (What do they do with badly behaved French children? Do they still use la guillotine???)

Graeme was very lonely on his own without any family members to wait with him. There was no way I was going to sit beside him, in what I deemed to be a prime germ breeding pit. I was going to be no help at all if I too succumb to the lurgy!

So to entertain myself, I visited our local market. Tuesday morning is our usual market day in Les Carroz and to date we have always missed out due to travelling or skiing commitments. (Aaah we're just so busy!). Given the christmas influx, the crowd was impressive....and so too the range of cheeses and sausages on offer. A serious education and tasting programme will need to be undertaken in January when I can actually move freely between the stalls! I am sure I will be up to the challenge!!

I returned to the medical centre to find Graeme much happier after seeing a doctor and receiving a prescription for a range of (we hope) miracle drugs. The fact that the doctor was a young and extremely atractive woman, I suspect may have also helped improve his demeanour!

Tomorrow is NYE and we have been invited to join the Teste Family for a special dinner. We are very keen to attend and Graeme is doing everything he can to get better! We have our fingers crossed that with another quiet day and the miracle drugs we will see an improvement.

There has been little photographic work done over the last couple of days...so sorry but this is the best we could do!

Graeme has become obsessed with the tiny European car - "Smart Car" Owned by Daimler Benz, designed in Germany and made in France. A perfect solution for European cities, this car is so small - 3 of them can be parked in the same space as one ordinary sized car. His personal favourite was, of course the sporty version !!

And finally...another possible reason for crazy French driving...

We're wondering whether they have a sticker for "Danger!! Terrifed Tourist au volant?"

Andy gets her first "BOF" and Graeme gets sick!

Left Graeme at home to do the ironing this morning! Seriously! He said he wasn't feeling well enough to ski! He said "he'd do the ironing". Now I am really worried!!

Since I'd packed the car and had on all my ski gear, I thought I'd go skiing for the morning at least. The plan worked a treat and until about 10:30am I had the mountain to myself. And then the crowd descended. I spent a lot of time skiing on the very edge of the piste ready to dive off the side at the slightest hint of danger.

I can't honestly say that my french is improving. Although we are having frequent lessons and trying to absorb as much as possible - it's a slow road! Graeme is quite good at writing and comprehension but he is relunctant to speak. In contrast, I boldy spout forth a constant stream of incomprehensible french and get myself in to no end of trouble!! Graeme is often so embarrassed by me that he subtly moves away or tries to get on a different chairlift to me.

So this morning, determined to make the most of my freedom, I took the opportunity to practice my french with every unsuspecting person with whom I shared a chair. Talking to people on the chairlifts is perfect! I have them CAPTIVE!! They can't escape!! But the French don't seem to be naturally keen to chat with strangers!! And while many of them try to ignore my ramblings, they are stuck with me until the lift ends! However, this morning I found that saying "Je viens de la Nouvelle Zealande" (I come from NZ) was a really effective "ice-breaker". This fact proved to be intriguing enough to get them talking.

But this morning I earned my first French "Bof" . If you are wondering what this is, see the picture below or for more information - click on http://french.about.com/library/weekly/aa020901g.htm.

The "Bof" came as a response to my questioning a delightful couple from northern France whether they liked Rugby! It was a shame really, as I had been on fire! I had learned that they lived in the Haute Normandie, that they were staying in Morillon where they had an appartment and that in summer they rode horses (at least I assumed that ....or maybe they grow them for meat?? (ie., eat them?). I'm not sure whether they said monter or manger a cheval). But they don't like Rugby - the man even used the word in a sentence! "BOF, Rugby is not the French Game!! Football is the French game! " And on that unfortunate conversation dampener we alighted the chairlift and I wished them "Bon Ski". To avoid another "Bof" in the future, I figure I will need to ascertain more clearly which French departments (regions) follow rugby before asking that particular question again.

I decided to head home at lunch time as the jostling for position on the chairlift was starting to resemble a rugby scrum. It was so rough that a guy actually fell off the last chair I caught for home. His wife was obviously annoyed at something he said and gave him a shove just before he was about to sit down. It was ugly!! No point practising my french with these people - they were Russian!

I returned home to a sad possum. Graeme is not all himself. To the doctors tomorrow!!

Il fait froid! Aujourd'hui, nous allons de Annecy

The weather is cold! Today we go to Annecy.
That's -11C in the top left hand corner of Pepi the Peugeot's TV!!! Sunny, but seriously cold and frosty conditions at the moment. Being Sunday, the busiest ski day of the week and the middle of the Xmas/NY holidays we decided to give the hill a miss. We have been assured by all the locals that the slopes will be empty in January. We are getting a fussy, n'est-ce pa?

Today's itinerary took us on a lovely round trip journey through the mountains and along the length of Lake Annecy to our destination - the city after which the lake is named. Along the way, Graeme's mother had recommended that we visit a little town called Talloire. She still has very fond memories of a beautiful meal at a restaurant located on the shores of Lake Annecy.

A summer vacation town, most of Talloire was closed down for winter. But we had no trouble finding L'Auberge du Pere Bise. Prime position - right on the lake! What a shame they were closed for winter - we could have spent the whole afternoon nursing a small cup of coffee and gazing at the serene view.

1/View to the town - Talloire. 2/ The Restaurant Pere Bise

Arriving in Annecy around lunch time, we found a cheap and cheerful creperie just outside the old town. We chose it because it appeared full of French families and the busiest restaurant of any we had passed. It proved to be a good choice!

Annecy has a fascinating medieval village and a towering Chateau, which according to the french information we could decipher, has only recently been renovated. For most of the 20C it had been occupied by various armies, both french and occupying who obviously did not care that much for renovation!! Apparantly it was so bad that the city of Annecy finally bought the Chateau back from original owners for E$10! It's now a fascinating museum, showcasing both permanent Haute Savoie exhibitions and various special art exhibitions.

4/ The Chateau d'Annecy

And finally....we think we have solved the mystery of those mad-cap French drivers! Look closely at the photo below.........

they let their dogs drive!!

The Hoardes have Arrived!

1/ The "unofficial gendarms". 2/ Their backward bicycles!!

Les Carroz is truly in the festive spirit. In addition to the beautiful christmas decorations and lights at night, during the day actors posing as "Gendamerie" interact with the shoppers, performing little skits and causing a lot of laughter and chaos. They have been riding through town on "backward" cycles much to our amusement. How on earth they haven't slipped on the diabolically icy footpaths or been run down by a random car, I'll never know.

Our definition of "busy" will need to be "redefined!! The hoardes have started to arrive. There are queues for the parking, the lifts, all the shops..in fact I think that if more than 3 people accidentally stand one behind the other, a whole bunch of other people think that it must be a queue for something important and obediently line up behind them!

But the French seem wonderfully patient. For 3 days we have stopped at our local Pharmacy to buy some more Glucosomine tablets to lubricate the "creaky old knees". But everytime the queue has been the length of the shop, so we have continued on. Today, we had run out of this miracle drug so there was no choice...we had to line up & take our turn. As I mentioned, the French seem totally unconcerned by the crowds. The 3 pharmacists working at the counter politely greet each customer and the conversation appears to deal with all the niceties, "Hello, How are you ? Nice to see you back here this christmas. Where are you staying? Are you enjoying the snow?....how is the boil on your second cousin's bottom clearing up?".......you've got the idea! This chit-chat continues oblivious to the queue building to the point where the front door can no longer close and the line has taken a "U-Turn" to snake the length of the small shop. But through all this, the French talk in hushed tones and the children play quietly. The only time the amicable peace is disturbed is when an English speaker arrives and announces "Gor Blimey - what a queue!" at the top of their voices!! No wonder the French think we "Anglais" are uncivilised!!

Earlier this morning, we joined the Teste family to watch their youngest "speed demon" - Camille compete in a race. She scored a silver medal! The crowd went wild!! Actually that was just the family!

While the sun was is still shining, the temperature has dropped over the last couple of days and it was only about -8C. We got really cold waiting for Camille's run to start and we never really got warm again despite skiing pretty hard during the late morning. In the end, the cold drove us home early for a late lunch at "Le Refuge" (our little apartment). Not necessarily, a bad thing mind you, as we had failed to do our homework and Liz was coming to us for our lesson at 4:30pm.

After school, we headed out for drinks at a nice little new bar in town, with the usual crowd and another Irish couple called Dave and Sue. They also run a chalet just near Gavin and Sue. So it appears that there is a little "ex-pat" network forming. Ended up having a Pizza and hearing all about Gavin & Sue's campervan trip through Europe. Seems to us that it won't be long until they head to NZ for another campervan extravaganza!

3/ The Racecourse 4/ Camille's silver medal winning style

A white Christmas indeed!!

1/ Graeme - hard at work on the slopes!!

Joyeux Noel!! Happy Christmas!!

A temperature inversion with a thick layer of cloud at our village this morning and the need to make lots of Christmas phone calls saw a late start from the Oxleys!! We didn't hit the slopes until 11am this morning. And even then we took life at a leisurely pace. With the increase in skiers and the bright sunshine, the snow is not quite as good as we have been enjoying this past month! We will need all the glucosomine we can get to help the knees recover from the coming days of punishment in la "busse" (moguls). They are starting to get very large on some of the ungroomed runs!!

We met Liz, Rick, Gavin and Sue for a casual lunch today and then joined Hubert and Marie and their extended family, Marie's sister, brother-in-law, and their son for a ski. They are all strong skiers!! They also all speak excellent english! Aaah to be fluent in more than one language!!

At the end of the day we returned to the Chalet and where we had prepared a "treasure hunt" for the Teste Children. We had bought some Santa chocolates and we thought they might enjoy using a transceiver. So we hid their parcel deep in the snow with one of our tranceivers and they had to use the other one to find it. Boy, they were quick! I don't know if it was the incentive of a present, or it's just that children are naturally intuitive and don't "over analyse" how something works that made them so speedy. I wish I was so quick!! (So does Graeme!)

2/&3/ Hubert as usual, took it all in his stride and blitzed down through the mogul field on 195cm straight skis at warp speed!

And lastly, after dinner we headed in to town to see "Quantum of Solace" - the new James Bond film. It was the English version with French subtitles. Our little cinema in Les Carroz is quite stylish. The seats are really comfortable and we were very surprised how quiet it was. We had walked to town early thinking that it would be busy. Obviously everyone was exhausted after over indulging on food and wine and perhaps skiing? Surprisingly too, most of the audience were French not English.

Walking in the snow at night is always lovely. It takes us about 30minutes to walk to Les Carroz, but we have found a very pretty route, through the chalets and along a pathway well away from the road. However, with all the pedestrian traffic in the last few days, the track has become quite icy in places. On Christmas Eve, we found ourselves slipping and sliding all over the place and while we struggled to keep upright, Graeme kept saying that we should buy some "shoe crampons" that he had seen in a local camping store. Little did he know that Santa had already bought him these nifty devices. Last night was the first test drive of the shoe crampons, and although my feet were still slipping from under me, Graeme was steady as a rock, striding forward with confidance. He likes his Christmas present!

Santa comes to visit & OMG Aiguille Du Midi!

1/ Our lovely Santa arrives

Santa doesn't do things by half in our little village!

Arriving by horse and carriage and departing by hot air balloon. What style! And to top it off, our Santa could ski! After alighting from the balloon at the top of beginner's slope he went for a ski with all the children. How good is that? Actually we loved it too!! Although the we skipped the skiing part as it was a little fraught with 100's of small children, concerned parents (some on skis and some not) and all manner of dogs madly dashing about to add to the general chaos. Poor old Santa!!

2/ Santa's spectacular departure

Since the weather is truly stunning at the moment, we took the opportunity to duck over to Chamonix and take the spectacular cable car up to the Aiguille Du Midi. Words really can't describe the views from the top. The whole structure is an engineering marvel! It is perched like a space age eyrie on a granite pinnacle at 3842m. To the north, Mont Blanc towers above everything at 4810m. And below, the famous Glacier Du Geant, Vallee Blanche winds its way down the valley.

While we mere mortals wandered the ramparts, protected by strong safety barriers, a procession of mountaineers nonchalantly climbed up from below or along knife edge ridgelines and casually swung themselves over the barriers to re-enter civilisation. A few skiers too, were making their way along the roped ridgeline to begin their route down the Vallee Blanche. Hopefully this will be us a bit later in the season!

We spent most of the afternoon, wandering through this amazing structure and gazing out onto the incredible mountain vista. No wonder Chamonix is considered a climbing mecca!

1/ The "tight-rope" catwalk between the twin pinnacles of the Aiguille Du Midi

2/ The Spire

Tonight we're off to see the "latern lighting" in the village and then out to dinner for a tradtional Savoyarde Cheese Fondue.

To the top of Les Grand Montets!

The exciting exit from high Cable Car at Les Grand Montets .

Well just for a change this is Graeme doing the typing so this could be 2 or 3 days out of date by the time you receive it - 2 finger typing is my specialty!!!!

Today was spent at Chamonix or more specifically Les Grand Montets, only this time we went all the way to the top (3275m), and what a sight it was! You know you are high when most of the Mont Blanc massive is below you except for Mont Blanc itself. Desending from the cable car was an experience, a flight of very slippery metal stairs led us down to the saddle below the Gondola station where it was skis on and a sideslip down a very icy wind blown slope for 50m and then fantastic snow and a 1300m vertical drop ski to the mid station of the cable car. If you skied to the base it would be over 2000m vertical drop to the valley floor - that's quite a ski run. Over 3 times the vertical of Treble Cone in one run!

2/ Oops!!

After lunch we headed back up and as Andy dropped into her first turn a "snow snake" leapt out of the snow grabbed her and sent her straight down the slope into a metal sign announcing the imminent cliffs!!! A couple of British lads raced to her rescue and after seeing she was OK, burst out laughing!!! They couldn't quite work out how it all happened but fortunately no harm was done apart from a cracker bruise which should blacken beautifully over the next few days and a bent sign post!!!!

After skiing over 4000 vertical metres and who knows how many kms, in just over 3 hours we (Graeme) decided to call it a day and head back into Chamonix and see how many full length fur coats we could spot. Chamonix is a beautiful and relatively unspoilt town considering its popularity as a tourist/outdoor mecca for at least a couple of hundred years - Wanaka could learn some leasons.

3/ Serious Saucisson!!

It appears that there will be a lot of alot of saucisson (sausage) eaten over Christmas! This is one of many magasins (shops) which are bursting with regional produce.
Watching the alpenglow over Mont Blanc & the Aiguille du Midi as the sun set was truely breathtaking - can't wait to take the cable car up the Aiguille du Midi - hopefully tomorrow (Christmas Eve) if the weather holds - what a way to spend Christmas!

Traditional Savoy Dining & Meeting Georgina & Family

1/ A gathering of our guardian angels. Clockwise from Graeme, Hubert, Marie, Andy, Liz & Rick (Not quite sure what Rick was looking at? We think he was worried Graeme was going to steal the steak!? )

Last night we enjoyed a delicious evening meal at a very traditional Savoyarde restaurant, called Les Molliets. It's actually located on the ski slopes of our ski resort, Les Carroz, but can also be accessed by car. It's a wonderfully atmospheric restaurant. A converted cow barn, the walls are covered with historical skiing equipment and traditional farming implements. But it's a "blokey" place. There are no women. The owner & his son wait on you, his male chef prepares the delicious Savoy cuisine and another fellow serves you a drink at the bar. I suspect that even the obligatory "restaurant dog" that wanders through the place begging food, is male!

Don't even ask what time dinner finished! The French live life to the full and while the conversation flows, so does the time!!

2/ Lucy's sister, Georgina - Alive and Kicking!! 3/ Sam, Andy & Georgina

After a killer early morning French lesson, (seriously, climbing Everest has got to be easier? ), we headed to Flaine to meet up with the sister of our Wanaka friend, Lucy. Georgina and her husband David are staying for the week with their 3 children, Sam, Katie and Charlotte. We enjoyed a fun afternoon diving through the trees with all the family and then later in the afternoon, taking a high speed tour of the slopes with young Sam as our guide. Great fun!

We also had an opportunity to see a bit more of Flaine. Poor old Flaine. Built in the 60's it was state of the art - a brand new ski village. Unfortunately in 2008, the village has all the architectural charm of Russian concrete housing apartments. But, like the ugly girl with the great personality, Flaine makes up for its less than beautiful exterior with a warm and friendly personality. Flaine, seems to go out of its way to make families and kids welcome. It is superbly set up with a village centre square, where kids can toboggan, ice-skate, play on equipment & play in the snow, while the parents look on from the comfort of a cafe, bar or restaurant. Kids are King as far as Flaine is concerned. It's the Cardrona business plan all over, keep the kids happy and the parents will keep their wallets open!!

We're off to Chamonix tomorrow, but we will try and catch up with Georgina and her delightful family before they leave this weekend.

In our own village, Christmas is in full swing. We had Christmas carols last night and on Christmas eve, Santa Claus arrives by sled and departs in a hot air balloon. Very exciting! Tonight, the snow carvers were hard at work, creating magnificent snow sculptures in our town square!

4/ Fantastic Snow Culture in Les Carroz.

However, we're not quite sure where the sculptor was headed??

Off-Piste, Monos, Dogs & People!

1/ Graeme heads off piste ...to the dark side - Samoen!!

Bluebird Sunday - and the start of the French Xmas school holidays is a combination guaranteed to bring out the frenchies!! From the number of English voices we heard today, the Brits have also arrived en masse. We had to search hard for untracked off piste today. We found the best runs on the cold north side of the mountain at Samoens (pronounced "Samwah").

Our plan to get up early be on the slopes for lift opening was a winner. Neither the french nor the tourists arose early, so we had the piste to ourselves until 11am. The off-piste isn't a problem..no-one goes off piste. The Grand Massif area appears to be a bit like Cardrona. There's a lot of emphasis on families and kids. This is great for us, as all the off-piste is left alone. Amazing!! While the resort is no TC or Cragieburn NZ for the steeps, there is plenty of little runs through the trees and in the gullies to keep us entertained.

2/ The "Mono-Skier" is alive and well!!

Very excited! While we had spotted a number of Mono-Skiers, today was our first "up close and personal encounter".

The Mono-Skier as many of you know, is an endangered species in the mountains. Once flourishing in the 80's, the Mono-Skier is all but extinct in the Southern Hemisphere. However, in the French Alps a small population of this special creature appears to have survived in at least breeding numbers ( although we have yet to observe a mating pair). These magnificent and swift mountain beasts used to be a sight to behold - with their bright and sometimes fluorescent plumage and distinctive "yodelling" call. However, with the rapid decline in numbers, their coat has dulled to become almost "camoflage like" in colour.

Our chance encounter occurred early in the morning on the dark side of the hill. Communication was a little difficult but Graeme's extensive knowledge of the Mono-ski language, saw him "break the ice" and allow this rare interaction to be captured on film! After such an exciting meeting we are now hoping for a sighting of a female and juevenile to reassure ourselves that the Mono-Skier has at least a slim chance of survival!

3/ Taking the dog for a walk

We actually took this photo for "Fish" the famous Wanaka Dog, who loves to take his owner "Pick" for a walk in the mountains. Fish, I can't say this big ol' Saint Bernard was taking his owner for a walk....looked like he was dragging his heels especially compared to the manic pace you set bounding through the deep snow looking for hares. It looked to us like he'd had a big night drinking the contents of his brandy barrel!!

4/ 2:30pm and the crowds were out in force! We headed home!!

Carving up the piste at Morillon!!

"Jour commencer un pain frais et la confiture framboise par Jean Steele, Bergerac"

Very important to start the day well. And of course you can't go wrong with a beautiful breakfast of fresh bread from our local bakery topped with some of Jean's delicious Bramble Jam she slipped into our suitcases when we left. Delicious.

Interestingly, the most dangerous thing I do is to walk to the village to get the bread each morning. I do not exaggerate. The Flaine rock holes have nothing on the sneaky icy patches on our little road. The walk down is steep and I have regularly slipped and landed inelegantly in a crumpled pile by the side of the road. To top it off this morning, the traffic on the lower half of our normally quiet laneway had increased markedly. Even at 7:30am there were cars, mini-buses and vans roaring their way up the steep hill! I only had a split second to dive off the road when a delivery van hurtled towards me. I got such a fright that I ended up tumbling down the hillside in the snow. Try to picture that famous scene with Dudley Moore in the movie "10" and you will get the idea. I survived, dusted off most of the snow and although not recommended, it proved to be quite a good short cut to the bakery.

"Zoom, zoom!!

Piste city today! On the slopes nice and early again and we decided to try out one of the other resorts, Morillon. No really steep runs, but some incredibly long tree-lined piste runs. After banging our way through steep deep snow all week, it made a nice change. Actually, we did admit to each other the other night, as we stretched our tired limbs, that we were very glad we did not leave this adventure any longer - I'm not sure our bodies could take it.

Our cunning plan during this busy period is to ski first run, with a break at 11'ish for a "petit cafe noir et chocolat chaud" and then ski through the lunch period and finish at about 2pm to head home for lunch.

I'm not really sure what happened here? Left arm is under the body, right leg splayed uphill and left leg buried in the snow! Must have been a "snow marmot" (European equivalent of the infamous OZ snow snake!)

Opening Day - Where is everyone????

As the Aussies would say, so "where the bloody hell are you?" Opening day at our ski resort Les Carroz and there was not a person to be seen at 9am when the lifts opened. We had used traditional TC logic and arose at first light to beat the queues, but there wasn't one!! We felt a bit silly really. Like arriving in fancy dress when it's a normal party!! Aaah... those Frenchies have such a different attitude!

So it must be a British thing!? Rick was also up early and met us for a grand tour of the mountain. In less than an hour we had done a high speed cruise of all the pistes necessary for linking the 4 main areas. We skied perfectly groomed corduroy piste time and time again. Not another person to be seen. See photo below.

Mid morning, Rick left us to meet up with Liz and her family. They were on the beginner slopes and his duty as instructor began for the day. Both and Liz and Rick are so generous with their time for others. Good Karma to them!!

Left to our own devices we delved into the off-piste runs...and there were many. Some better than others. The temperature had increased a little overnight and the champagne powder of yesterday had changed to NZ/ Aussie powder ie., that heavy thick porridge consistency, especially on the warmer southerly slopes. But we found plenty of northerly aspects to ski where the snow consistency had not been affected.

We found a particularly challenging couloir under a chairlift in a bowl about half way between our resort and Flaine. Can't say either of us skied it particularly well, but it will be our "work in progress" over the coming months. On our way to this couloir Graeme managed a rather spectacular stack. Telemark skis have a fabulous tendency to spear themselves into the snow at all sorts of impossible angles when things go wrong. But apparantly, despite the "contorsionist" look of the fall, Gra was perfectly OK! Just like falling into a feather bed!!

One of the great advantages of our location is that we can come home for lunch. We are literally only 2 minutes away. While there are many good picnic locations on the mountain, nothing beats being able to have some hot soup and fresh bread and salads, rather than a boring old sandwich!!

We have a great set-up at our little home in the mountains. While we share the downstairs garage with our landlord, he only uses it to store the snow blower and some other odds and ends. We have our own dedicated drying room and laundry (see photo below) and plenty of space to store things. Thank goodness, as we have had to store 4 brand new tyres that came off our Peugueot when we fitted winter tyres.

And the last bit of news is that I went for my first haircut at our local hairdressing salon tonight. It's a very smartly decorated salon and the staff are really friendly. My hairdresser is Anna-Sophie and Phillipe the owner cut Graeme's hair the week before. They don't speak much english - which is good! Forces us to speak French! Can't say that I excelled myself in the language department on this visit, but hopefully they will be astounded with our progress over the coming months! Yeah right! And pigs might fly...!