Life is not all skiing, you know?

1/ Andy busy cleaning the oven 2/ The french homework

Well, here's a reality check for you. Our life is not all about skiing. We do actually have to do some work - housework and french study!! This french language thing is proving to be quite a challenge. We go for 2 hour lessons about 3 times a week as well as doing homework at night over the internet. Over christmas, I will also be torturing the landlord's children, Louis & Diane, by making them listen to me read french children's books and correcting my pronounciation!! At the moment I am studying a french classic - "Petit Ours Brun fait du patin" - "The small brown bear goes skating". Oh it's riveting stuff all right!!

French Observation - language!

Speaking of French - this last week's classic has seen a mystery solved for me. For the last couple of weeks I kept hearing people say, what I thought was "derriere" - "behind or bottom". I couldn't understand why they kept talking about their bottoms. The use of the word seemed to be very common in a shopping or cafe situation. Were they being rude? Were they saying effectively "up yours?" . That didn't seem right, as everyone was quite happy and polite. So I listened more intently and I finally figured out that people were saying "De rien" meaning "of nothing! " They were using the word in the context of "Your welcome..it was nothing!" Another french mystery solved!

Warning: Skiing coming up....

To reward ourselves for all our hard work this morning, we decided to have a couple of hours ....skiing ! Of course- what else? We had a second attempt to ski at Flaine. There is a lot more snow there now. I remembered that I had taken a photo of the resort when we first arrived and you might like to compare the difference ? http://araches.blogspot.com/2008/11/thursday-20-november-2008.html Today the wind had eased and they opened the big cable car that takes you all the way to the top. From 2480m the view is directly to Mont Blanc in the west. Incredibly dramatic. I took some photos but I'm sure I'll get some better ones when the weather is clearer.

Flaine avec beaucoup neige!

Les gross trous! - Tres Dangereaux!!

View of a Flaine rock hole from the chairlift!

The terrain at Flaine is vast and about 70% above the tree-line. The off-piste is endless, however there is one little catch... While Flaine is not glaciated it has a very unusual rock structure. The granite has been forced into layers (for the Kiwi's think - Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki) and then uplifted to lie vertically. The weaker layers have crumbled leaving great holes and chasms in the rock below the snow. Very similar to crevasses' but they are permanent. And like crevasses' these are perfectly safe if there is a good snow bridge over them. The other good thing is that they are relatively easy to see, as the snow forms a different pattern around them. But we will need to be very careful going off piste at Flaine especially if the visibility is poor.

No skiing tomorrow (well maybe - "un peur") - french lessons, making apple crumble for tomorrow night's dinner party with Rick & Liz and decorating the chalet for christmas.