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!)
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!
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