What's the French Word for BBQ?

I will admit, that after 5 months of a carefree existence, today, we experienced a small dose of that pesky emotion - STRESS! After much dispute about the weight of our ski bag, we borrowed Liz's scales to confirm that it was indeed, hugely heavy at 34kg!! There was no question, unless we lightened the load, we would be paying excess luggage. Back again to Madame La Poste for 2 more boxes! Not quite what we had envisaged.

2/The French Get Together - a BBQ in the late Spring Sunshine

2/ Geraldine, Bertrand and their baby boy

This afternoon, Rick & Liz had kindly invited a few of our local french friends for a casual BBQ in the late afternoon spring sunshine. Joining us were Bertrand, Geraldine and their gorgeous baby boy, and Christophe and his young son - Taos, Gavin & Sue and their "fur baby" Winston.

It was a lovely relaxed afternoon as we enjoyed a delicious array of meats and salads. We're not quite sure whether our teacher, Liz was proud of efforts to speak french or cringing in her boots! Graeme and I find that we can generally get our message across with a bizarre mixture of language, charade actions and arm waving! At least Christophe was used to our tortured attempts at Franglish!!

We are still struggling to come to terms with the reality of going home. We keep saying it, but our time in France has just gone so quickly. In the blink of an eye, the wonderful winter we have enjoyed has disappeared and been replaced with a sunny and balmy spring. All around our village, the crocus, daffodils and tulips abound. There is a feeling of frenetic energy as all the building projects around the village spring to life after the dormancy of the long winter.

3/The "fur babies" - Winston and Biggles

As the BBQ discussion turns to visiting NZ, I wonder how many of our Araches friends will actually make the long journey. Only R&L have been there before and truly know how far away it is. We have observed in our short time that France has many attractions. Compared to so many other European countries, there is still a feeling of spaciousness here. With so many climates and different environments, it is easy to understand why the French are not renowned international travellers.

We'll have to wait and see!!

4/ The Gang - R+L, G&S at the end of the night!

Let the Packing Begin!

Hmmm, time to start the dreaded task of packing. It is amazing how much "bidule", "truc" and "machin" (our 3 favourite french words for STUFF), we have managed to accumulate over the last 5 months. The miserly economy class baggage limit was foremost in our minds today as we began the daunting task of clearing Le Refuge of our detritus.

After discovering that it would be cheaper to pay Marie to personally fly to NZ with our skis, we have decided to rely on the old fashioned solution. La Poste!! Still frightfully expensive, especially if you do the conversion to NZ $. Nevertheless a check of the Lufthansa website revealed that excess baggage was charged at E30/kg...making La Poste seem positively reasonable.

A typical morning of hilarity ensued at our local post office as we endeavoured to work out the most cost effective and secure solution to our postal problem. Our charming madam La Poste was wonderfully helpful, but as always our "..orrendous francais" presented the usual confusions.

Eventually, everyone queuing in the post office helped us with translation as we searched for the right box, mailing option and insurance decision. It will never cease to amaze us how often the wrongly maligned french have come to our assistance when we are making a huge botch of things. Contrary to the popular opinion, we have consistently found our french locals to be wonderfully patient and helpful. Everyone from the bank manager to the fromagereuse, the apothecary to the publican has been very kind and welcoming to us. We have been humbled by the amount of help we have received over the last 5 months. It will certainly give us pause for thought when we return to NZ and hear someone struggling to find their feet in our little town.

This evening we have been treated to a delicious "slap up" meal in Chamonix with the usual anglo suspects. Part farewell for us and Dave & Sue who leave Les Carroz for a new chalet in Les Gets, and part celebration to mark the end of the winter season, we enjoyed a delicious meal at the golf house restaurant in Chamonix. The food was totally delicious and for France (fairly reasonably priced). Joining us were R&L, welsh G&S, irish D&S and also english friends of R&L - Tania and Brian. Tania is a physio and Brian is a builder working with Rick in the summer. Keen ski tourers, it's a shame we didn't meet up with them at the beginning of the season rather than right at the end. But that's been the way of things as the reality of our imminent departure is really starting to sink in.

Mountain Train Journeys & Dining with Bovines!

The Mont Blanc Tramway - in summer (not my photo).

There's still snow now!

Tragically, today of all days, our camera's memory card decided to die. So there's no pictures to accompany a pretty good sort of day. I'll do my best with a few words and some photos from the internet.

After 83 days of skiing, despite the glorious spring weather, we've decided to take the day off and do a "touristy" trip on the Mont Blanc Tramway. Leaving from Saint Gervais -Le Fayet, the tramway heads up into the mountains. Another French engineering feat, it climbs steeply (24% gradient) up to the Les Houches/ Saint Gervais ski area. The views of the St Gervais /Les Contamines valley to the west and Bionnassay Glacier and Chamonix valley were, as always, breathtakingly beautiful. Admittedly we had seen these views before while skiing at Les Houches earlier in the season, but we were pleased to see that the Les Contamines resort, where we are headed tomorrow, still looks to have good snow!

Coming from Australia, a flat land, dominated by beaches and deserts, the mountains of New Zealand were always something special for me. But now, having lived with the dramatic scenery of the European Alps for the last 5 months, I think I may have over played their beauty in the past to our european Te Wanaka guests. Especially for the French, Swiss, Italians and Austrians, our Southern Alps must actually seem quite "ho-hum". NZ's, wild weather and lack of infrastructure is also a double-edged sword. While the lack of "people pressure" and feeling of isolation is appealing to some, the inaccessibility of our mountains make them daunting and possibly, quite boring to the average person. Certainly there are no "telepheriques" and access to the high mountains in NZ is reserved for the seriously fit and skilled mountaineer or those with enough money to afford a helicopter. There are few "mountain-top" restaurants or places to stay of a european standard in our mountains.

I guess the reality is, that unless there is a huge shift in population, there will never be a european level of infrastructure in NZ. For such a tiny country, the NZ Department of Conservation and NZ Alpine Club does an amazing job maintaining all the tracks and huts we do have. Let's be thankful for that!

Dining with Bovines!
Returning to Araches in the evening, we joined Rick & Liz and their friends, Simon, Carol, and their grown children Jo & Andy for an interesting dining experience.

Jo has been staying with R&L for 4 weeks during the season. She's a delightful girl and gives Liz a helpful hand running the chalet during the busiest periods. We've skied with her and enjoyed meeting up with her again and getting to know her family.

Back to that "interesting dining experience"? Travelling to Samoens, about 20 minutes drive over the hill to the valley parallel with us, we arrived at a fully operational farm yard. The cows were still in their winter shed. Pigs, dogs, chickens were everywhere. The strong smell of silage and hay filled their air. Our shoes were quickly covered in mud, straw and cow poo, as we strolled through the shed making the acquaintance of all the cows, who, were soon to be our dining companions for the evening!

Tucked into the corner of the shed was a glass room. Set up inside were two long country tables laid with red gingham table clothes and baskets of bread. Every night of the week during the winter season, the hard working farmer's wife prepares a traditional Haute Savoyarde feast for her family and 15 other paying guests! Much of the ingredients are produced on the farm, sausages, cheeses, meats, and vegetables are all grown on the farm or sourced locally.

The fare is seriously hearty and the quantities ...well even Michael Phelps (the swimmer) may have had trouble finishing the servings of Tartiflette, Diot (Sausages) and Pottage (plate of meats). Add to this home made pate, basketloads of crusty bread, green salad and dessert and we were starting to have waistlines resembling the girls chewing their cuds outside.

Such a wonderful and unusual dining experience. We wondered if the cows outside in the shed appreciated the continuous comings and going? I imagine it would be excrutiatingly boring to be locked up in a shed for 5 months every year and some human entertainment each night might be quite fun for them. We wondered whether the farmer moved the cows around so that each had a turn at the window to watch the funny two legged creatures feeding? The bovine obsessed cartoonist, Larson, would have a field day with this dining venue.

What a shame our camera decided to malfunction - oh well C'est la vie!

A Quick Recon & We Introduce Rick to Telemarking!

Shaking off the sunny sky blues, we got ourselves motivated today.

A busy day today! We want to take a quick reconnaissance of the Flaine back-country, be back in Les Carroz by 11:30 to meet Rick for telemark lessons and then home for dinner with Hubert & Marie.

1/ Flaine Backcountry - Desert de Plate

It's been so hot here this week, that I am seriously worried about the stability of the snow pack.

There's been no frosts overnight and the freezing level is floating between 2200 - 2600m. There's a heap of natural wet slides around and I tossed and turned with nightmares about falling down Flaine rock holes or getting caught in an avalanche. I am driving Graeme crazy with all my fears and making it impossible for him to plan any tours! Who'd be married to me?

Compromise was a "dawn raid" of the Flaine backcountry. The deal, no freeze-up, no go! We were on the first telecabine from Flaine to the top 2500m at 8:45am. Looks like all my nightmares are groundless. The snow - she was locked up solid! All the holes are well covered but still easy to see. It was a slick, quick run down to the floor of the Desert de Plate but it gave us a much better idea of all the aspects and angles. Much to Graeme's relief, I am much happier about touring there now. Back up at the top of Flaine at 10:30 am for the lift down and back down the hill to meet Rick in Les Carroz for his first telemark lesson.

2/ Having a good look around Flaine backcountry in the early morning sunshine

3/ Ground Zero - Rick not looking confidant about this Telemark Caper!!

Oh no! We've created another telemark enthusiast. After a nervous start, Rick picked up telemarking really quickly. By the second run he was linking turns and by the fifth run we had moved off the beginner slope to something steeper! Well done Rick. Graeme likes to think it's his tuition that does the trick. I'm not sure about that ....I am also his student. Rick's comment of the day. "I like it much better than snowboarding!" Well duh!!!???

4/ I'm not sure I should put a caption to this one?

This evening, I invited Hubert and Marie for dinner. Marie has been here for the week with the kids and Hubert has joined them over the Easter break. French children are on holidays again! Can you believe it? Two weeks in Feb, 2 weeks over Easter, 6 weeks July/August, 2 weeks Oct/beginning Nov, 2 weeks at Christmas. That's 14 weeks of holidays! If my calculations are right, that's 3 -4 more weeks than Kiwi kids get? Add to that, children in the Haute Savoie region don't go to school on Wednesdays - well there's skiing to do, after all!!

Conversation is alway interesting with H&M. Their english is perfect (unlike our abyssmal French), but I still think some things are lost in translation. Marie tried to tell me that French people don't drink that much. Using their family as the example, she told me that she and Hubert only have wine on the weekends. Hubert explained that he also never has wine at business lunches or during the working week. I'm not sure about this? We saw Hubert after a hectic week of wine-tasting (business trip) in the S-W of France. Do you think they are kidding us?

The other classic French observation arose because Hubert is now sporting a very nice new pair of bifocal glasses. They look very smart on him, although he is concerned that he can no longer see his feet clearly anymore? I reassured him that "feet aren't that interesting!" But the discussion about spectacles led us to a question about whether you have to have an eye test to get a drivers licence in France. "Well....no, not really. If you are wearing glasses in your licence photograph, then you can be fined if the police pull you over and you're not wearing them" explained Marie. "But if you don't wear your glasses when the photo is taken, even if your eyesight is poor, then there will be no penalty" Marie chuckles wickedly. "Silly French way, hey?" "No not really....it just explains so much!" I reply.

It was a late night as we delved further into the french education system, familes, working mothers, house design...so much to talk about...so little time.

Reality Hits!

1/ We'll be finding our way home shortly. Good thing we don't have to use a map -
as you can see -we are a little challenged in that department!

Reality has hit today! In just over 2 weeks we will be leaving France and starting the long journey home. I'm not sure why we both felt it so keenly today.

Maybe it was because we went back to our French lessons today. We still have 2 to complete. And it was obvious how much we had regressed during the last two months! Aaah, we paid the price. Poor Liz, was totally frustrated at our efforts! "Must try harder" was stamped all over our homework.

As lunch drew near, we finished our french and relieved our poor Professor from further torture. Joining Hubert for a sunny lunch in the garden, neither of us felt much like doing anything. It was too late in the day for ski touring.

Over lunch we kept exclaiming to each other and Hubert "how the time had flown". Both Graeme and I are not coping well with the long sunny summer days of the last couple of weeks. It's been nearly 2.5 weeks of continuous blue skies and temperatures in the 20's in the French Alps. Not to mention that pesky daylight savings. Am I sounding like the equivalent of the Christmas Grinch yet?

Right oh! I'm back to the blog after a nice cup of tea and a lie down. Much better. Hubert has also cheered me up no end by warning us that this warm period is the "false spring". There will be another dump of snow before we go and the temperatures will plummet alarmingly. Excellent!

Car, Excess Baggage & Summer Continues

1/ Araches farm house and lane

Well France Meteo has obviously got the forecast wrong. No rain today. 20C and not a cloud in the sky. No more procrastination! Much to the relief of our aching joints there's no skiing planned today. We are off to do the food shopping in Cluses and undertake the tricky french task of booking Pepi in for his 10,000 scheduled service. We also have to turn our minds to shipping all our excess luggage back to NZ - groan!

2/ Farmhouse #2

Catching up with Marie this morning, she has given us a fright. She expects that the scheduled service will be about E300. A little naively, we really hadn't given the cost much thought. We are now kicking ourselves that we didn't hand back the car before the service was due and make other transport arrangements. Rick had offered to loan us one of his cars on many occasions. We're feeling a little foolish now.

Rehearsing our french all the way to Cluses "Je voudrais reserve la revision dix mille kilometre pour notre voiture" . The young man at the service counter spoke little English and he shook his head explaining something negative in rapid-fire french. The major flaw with our french is that we also rehearse an expected reply and our subsequent interactions. But when we are thwarted from the beginning with a totally unexpected answer we're in trouble. We were in trouble now.

We pulled out all our bits of paper, the Carte Grise (Registration Papers), our lease with Peugot, contract with Drive Away Australia, the car manual, our passports....his desk was now strewn with important official looking documents. This was sure to impress the young lad that we new what we were about. But no, he was still shaking his head. This was not going at all well.

After 15 minutes of frustrated conversation from our young lad and totally confused responses on our part, we finally figured out that he couldn't do a 10,000km service because the first service for our model wasn't until 20,000km. Aaahaa....."maintenant, nous comprendon!" An unexpected result but hopefully a good one. We still had a problem because our contract with Peugeot/ Drive Away Australia clearly required a 10,000km service. But this was hardly the nice young man's problem. Thanking him profusely and leaving him with a bemused expression on his face and a good story for his morning tea break, we retreated gracefully taking all our bits of paper with us.

Back at Le Refuge after our shopping trip, we have contacted Drive Away Australia, (who fortunately for us, are fluent in English) to ask for a clarification of the conflicting contract terms. Fingers crossed we will be spared E300! If not, we will get them to do battle with our Peugeot Service office. They can try and explain to our young man in Cluses how to do a unscheduled scheduled service!

Next hurdle....the luggage. We really would prefer to travel without our skis if at all possible. A few weeks ago, we had contacted AirNZ about unaccompanied baggage and also been to Geneva Airport to see the airfreight people there. But the skis could only be shipped to Christchurch and we'd have to organise a customs clearance ourselves. Major hassle.

Scouring the internet well into the evening, we tried all the usual suspects DHL, UPS, FedEx only to find that when we entered the dimensions & weight of our ski package the quote was over E2,000. Surely this was a mistake. I know that NZ is close to the South Pole, but not that close!! No nearer to a solution, we have decided to enlist Marie's help and see if she would be kind enough to contact a number of our leads and explain our requirements in French.

Breaking our frustrating shipping search we joined Rick and Liz for an early dinner of Fajitas and an Italian debrief of our time in Livigno. I think we have inspired them to go to La Skieda next year.

They are also going to Italy in June. Renting a gorgeous house in Umbria, they will be joined by some UK friends for a cycling training camp. Both Rick and Liz are involved in cycling events over the summer. Riding from Paris to Geneva, Tour de France or some such ridiculous length of ride!

What is it with our age group? Is it a realisation of our impending mortality? Mid-life crises? What? All the news we hear from home is about friends joining running clubs, cycling around or swimming across lakes and... god forbid running marathons. Makes Graeme and I want to lie down and have a nice cup of tea. But we can't escape even here in France the land of sensible things like red wine and cheese fondue....Rick & Liz have also caught the biking bug.

The Most Delicious Meal in France!

2/ The Crew!

For weeks now, Rick and Liz have been planning a special meal for their friend Andrew who is now staying with them. Andrew aka "Jock", wasn't able to come to Rick's 50th birthday dinner back in October. To compensate, Liz planned an encore performance especially for Andrew last night. Attending were also Andrew's wife, Jane and his friends Richard and Mikki. It was a lively crew!

Rick and Liz organised a young chef from the local area to prepare and serve the food. Roman is a talented young chef, who like most chefs, has spent huge hours learning his profession. But he now has young children and has decided to take a more "regular job" at the local hospital. But it's hardly inspiring cuisine and he loves the opportunity to cook beautiful food. We were in for a treat.

Tonight's menu was:-

• Fois Gras on home made fruit bread, with a champagne sauce and chive garnish served with a sweet local white wine.
• Langostein (flat lobster meat) with wilted spinach in an orange sauce
• Sorbet of pear and pepper
• Pan seared eye fillet with baby turnip poached in saffron and pureed garlic potato
• Camberbert cheese stuffed with truffles
• Rocket Salad
• Chocolate souffle with peppermint creme

To accompany such a fine meal, Rick spoiled us with an array of fabulous french wines! For more photos of the evening - click here

It was well into the morning when we finally rolled from the table and wobbled back up the hill to Le Refuge. I'd like to think that we were as quiet as church mice and didn't wake Dana, but I suspect that's just wishful thinking. Luckily we're not skiing tomorrow. I can't quite believe I just said that!!

2/ The Fois Gras

3/The Langostein

4/The Chef - Roman

Aaahaa! We've Found a Way to Slow Dana!

1/ Can you believe it? It's started snowing again!!

2/ Most of those are our tracks!!

Finally! We've found a way to slow the "unstoppable Dana"! Make her follow us down through the trees in deep powder snow on her short, skinny piste skis!! I know its unfair...but it's all about "survival of the fittest!" And that is surely not Graeme and I, when compared to Dana! I suspect that she may have even broken a sweat for the first time! Even more astonishing was her admission of tired legs at the end of the afternoon! Welcome to our world...Dana!!

Our incredible luck with the snow continues. Just as we really began to believe that spring had arrived, it started to snow again! The snow continued pretty much all day and while the visibility was poor, with a season's skiing under our belts we can always find sheltered tree runs.

3/ Andrew, Rick & Graeme!

We returned to Le Refuge for lunch after an awesome morning playing in the powder. I'm not sure whether Dana would describe her morning in quite those terms!

After lunch we met up with Rick and his very "popular" friend. I say popular, because Andrew is the MD of Bolle in Europe and Rick and all his friends including Graeme have benefited from some very well priced sunglasses and goggles thanks to Andrew.

Skiing to stumps we were rewarded with some late afternoon sunshine to match the pristine powder runs! Amazing!!

4/ Andrew doing some "field" testing for Bolle goggles!

Tonight we tried eating on the Slovakian timetable. Even though it was only 5 o'clock, as soon as I was in the door, I started to prepare dinner. I must agree that Dana might actually be on to something with this early eating idea. No snacking on junk food and plenty of time for the system to digest before heading to bed. Which I must admit was about 9 o'clock for us all. Even the mighty Dana was keen to "hit the hay"!

A Student Flat Farewell Party

1/ It started off well...Liz & Rick and their "Good Impression"

Things may have got a little out of hand last night. I'm not sure. It started off neatly and then deteriorated. The pictures tell the story!

Plans for another pasta meal last night were hastily scrapped after we scoffed a gigantuan penne dish for lunch in Courmayeur yesterday. A quick chicken stir-fry and a Carrefours fruit flan with ice-cream was the replacement. We were worried that Rick and Liz were going to be disappointed. But they confessed that, they too, had overdosed on a rich Savoyarde dish of bread, potatoes and cheese at lunch time. They were terrified we were going to treat them to a Kiwi version of a raclette ( another rich melted cheese dish)! Collective sighs of relief all around.

Entertaining at Le Refuge is a bit like partying in a student flat (except it's warm and more hygenic!!). Gav and Sue joined us for dessert after they had finished work. So it was a cosy eight around the kitchen table!

2/ Gav and his Rudolph impression.

I have no idea what we talked about but the wine and conversation flowed until well after midnight. A late night for us!!

3/ Sue and her "well we're not quiet sure what?" impression.

It was a bleary eyed quartet who greeted the sunshine this morning. After a professional packing job, the Wanaka'ites were ready to go. One last quick visit to see Rick and Liz and then it was back to Annecy for the TGV to Paris and then the long flight home. At least Leanne and Mike will get a chance to rest those weary ski muscles.

It was a sad farewell. We've thoroughly enjoyed their company. The time has just flown by. Here's hoping that a few more of our friends win lotto or throw caution to the wind and decide to visit!!

4/ Graeme and his "Village Idiot" impression!

Scarily this photo was taken this morning - after the party.

See No Evil, Ski No Evil

1/ And the snow continued over night!!...

Did we mention that it snowed again last night?

Ho Hum!! It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it! Last day skiing at our home hill for Mike and Leanne. Mike was determined to make the most of it and wanted to ski to "stumps". The snow was a little heavier than we have had earlier in the week. "NZ Champagne Powder" I explained to Rick who was not finding the consistency to his liking. He was also not helped by the pair of children's skis (165cm) he had accidently taken from his friend's hire shop. Their width did not compensate for the lack of length as Rick found out!! (Isn't that always the way??)

We thrashed all our local haunts and even showed Rick a new run - "Telegraph Road" in Samoens - here's the footage. The sun even came out to join the party. Topped of by an afternoon panochet (beer & lemonade) on the deck of our mountain chalet. Perfection.

2/ Three Wise Monkeys!!

Despite the near perfect skiing conditions. There was some dissention in the ranks. An accusation of "Powder Poaching" has been levelled at this blog author! The only comment that I will make in my defence is that unlike the blokes, I don't need to mess about at the top of an untouched powder slope discussing routes, lines, snow consistency, equipment function ...or whether the planets are aligned!! For goodness sakes...if you tally the line will be poached by a pesky snowboarder. Sacre bleu!

Guilty as charged....!!

3/ A cheerful pair at the bottom of Telegraph Road!

Big Night, Big Day. Skiphilia???

1/ An Owens/Lewis Gathering

As always a big night with the gathering of the Owen & Lewis clans. A delicious venison fondue with poached pear for dessert. There's a story about that poached pear, but the tale of the venison fondue is much more interesting.

Hunting is still a popular sport in the European Alps as attested by the abundance of outdoor stores all stocking an impressive array of knives, guns, (blowdarts?) and other weaponry. A french friend of Rick and Liz is a prodigious hunter and arrived this autumn with a whole haunch of wild venison for their freezer. Aren't we lucky to be sharing in the spoils?

Venison is a perfect meat for fondue. Sliced thinly and cooked quickly it's tender and totally delicious. Accompanied by an assortment of mustards, salad and a delicious potato gratin it made for a scrumptious feast. Fondues are fun meals. They force you to eat slowly and really savour the flavours. Both Graeme and I are guilty of "woofing" down our meals like they will be our last. With a fondue this is impossible. There is time for good conversation instead. Watch out, we'll be dusting off our fondue set when we get home!

I think Rick and Liz really loved the Bartons little gifts from NZ. A beautifully carved stone koru but even more significant were a couple lacquered stones they had collected from the shores of Lake Wanaka where they met on that fateful February day.

As the evening the wore on, the snow continued to fall outside. I could see that Mike and Graeme were getting twitchy. There was a lot of surreptitious glancing out the window by the pair. It was going to be another one of those powder mornings!! It has snowed continuously since Wednesday night! It'll be deep! And the weather forecast is for sunshine...does it get any better?

3/ First in the Queue!

And despite Leanne's lack of enthusiasm for the task, we were first in the lift queue waiting for the lifts to open this morning. "What time does the telecabine open" asked Leanne? "9am!" we replied. "Well, why the hell are we here at 8:30am?" she groaned. And suddenly the fog cleared and I saw ourselves through her eyes. This skiing thing must be a mental illness...skimania, skiphilia?

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines mania as, “The excitement manifested by mental and physical hyperactivity. Manic behavior patterns include hyperactivity, increased energy, and heightened mood. Left untreated, the person’s judgment is impaired resulting in reckless and dangerous behavior. In severe cases, delusions and hallucinations occur." Hmmmm!

Food for thought! Mike, Graeme and I seemed to be sharing the same delusion that we are still young hot skiers. But the reality is somewhat different. I fell asleep in my helmut at lunch time today!!

3/ The Helmut Kip!!

But as promised the sun came out and even Leanne started to share in our skiing hallucination. While she would have preferred a good long hard ....shopping trip. She did admit to "Hitting her Groove" this afternoon!

4/ That's Leanne on the left with a "Groove Grin!"

Whoo Hooo!! The Snow has Arrived & How!!

1/ Andy has got rather good at shovelling snow!

2/ Mike learning the finer points of snow clearing!!

All right! It's got serious now! Continuous snow for 36 hours! We've had another 30cm at Le Refuge and up to 50cm at Flaine overnight. This is awesome! No sign of it stopping yet either!! Mike is well impressed. Leanne less so!

Leanne has been such a good sport! She is not a skiing enthusiast and I can see that she does not share our single-minded passion for this past-time. She was ecstatic to be snuggling back into bed with her book, while the three of us headed out into the blizzard! We promised to return for an early lunch and a "nana nap". We need to be in top form! We have a big night at Rick & Liz's ahead of us tonight. We have warned Mike and Leanne that a night at the Owen's is not for the faint hearted!!

2/Mike talking to his friend Annie at the ticket office!

Mike has made a friend at our local ticket office. Mike has surprisingly good french! I would even say better than ours! He studied french at school and spent a year in the Swiss village of Morgin in the Portes du Soleil where french and swiss-german were spoken. Dropping Mike off at the our local ticket office each morning, he has charmed the lovely ticket lady (Annie) with his command of the French language. We didn't have the heart to tell him that she speaks English fluently!!

Snow continued to fall heavily all day. Visibility was fairly questionable at the best of times - think Cardrona/ Mt Buller in a white out! But with the tree runs of Les Carroz and Morillon and our better knowledge of the area, we were still able to find some good little powder drops.

We met up with Rick mid morning and he took us for a blast down through the trees on one of his secret runs. Here's the footage of today - go to 6/03/09. Making a film of these guys skiing was a challenge. They certainly haven't studied at the "Powder 8" school! The Director's vision was that they would all ski down in unison creating a triplicate set of perfect tracks. Alas the result was more like a trio of old mountain goats scattering in all directions. They say that a film director's nightmare is working with children and animals! I think we might have to add Rick, Mike and Graeme to that list as well.

I can already hear the howls of protest from the old goaties about this incident! Apparantly, their view is that I did not explain my artistic vision clearly enough. They were confused by my hand signals. Yeah right?...Nice try fellas..!! But no cigar!

To end the morning, Rick took us on a magical mystery tour down through the trees almost to our village. We are ashamed to say that we haven't yet found the route down through the trees and gullies to Le Refuge. Work in progress!

Back home to a lovely late lunch with Leanne. An afternoon "nana nap" for the oldies and a walk to the village for a spot of shopping for the young and attractive ones!!

3/My old goaties!! Hmm..you're looking a little snowy, Mike?

What happened on the way down?

"Chasse au tresor" - A French Treasure Hunt

Gra's team "arty photo". See their clever interpretation - spelling "RT" in the snow!

Today, we joined Rick and Liz and their guests for a "treasure hunt" around our ski resort. Every week, Liz organises a treasure hunt for their guests. She sends out two teams (usually blokes v. sheilas) to find their way around the mountain, take photographs and generally cause chaos and mayhem .

Aside from answering the clues and finding our way around the mountain we were also set a number of tasks that we had to photograph in order to prove completion. These tasks included:-

• Taking an "Arty Photo",
• Giving a kiss to a random person of the opposite sex,
• A team photo with the "largest moustache" on the mountain
• Making a snow sculpture
• Getting some air on skis.

There was also some speed time trials and ski acrobatics (horizontal 360's) down the piste to top off the day!!

The Boy's snow sculpture. Very styly.

My team was Heather (mum), and her 17 year old daughter Hannah and her friend Tilly. Graeme's team comprised Rick, Josh (Heather's son) & friend James. Our girls team, will confess to being a little intimidated by the boy's team. They had an unfair advantage with Rick on their team, not only because of his local knowledge, but he also has terrific artistic flair as evidenced by the "RT" photo. As a number of the set tasks involved sculpture and creative photography, our team conceded very early on that we were "artistically & a little directionally challenged!"

While we received only scorn from the judges (Liz & her friend Mark (Heather's husband)) for our attempt an arty photo, we did win the snow sculpture. Tragically it was not due to any great skill, but rather we lowered ourselves by using sex to sell!!. Our sculpture was of a naked & excited hermaphrodite. (We wanted it to appeal to both judges!). Needless to say the photograph was not suitable for my blog!!

We also won the "Best Air Shot". Typically the boys tried to capture a "big ski jump" on film. But alas, like most male things in the cold, the jumps were very small indeed. The clever girls from our team had absolutely no intention of getting involved in anything with forward speed and height! So we took a different interpretation and I climbed a tree with skis on. (Not the easiest task ??!!) But I was at least 3 ft off the snow, certainly much higher than any of the boys' jumps. Needless to say we were the winners of this contest!

Lastly, we left the "giving a kiss" to the young girls in our team. I mean really, who'd want a crusty ol' 42 year old laying one on them? Given the language barrier, we were hoping to make a bee-line for an English accent. Unfortunately, the Anglais were thin on the ground today. Well the sun wasn't shining and the pub was probably well more interesting!! So we had to corner some poor french fellow, throw him to the ground and Hannah jumped on him for a kiss. By the looks of him he didn't seem to mind very much!

What a fun way to spend the day, see the mountain and have a laugh!