Tuesday 16th - Friday 19th February, 2010

Reflections on a magnificent week in the French Alps:

A top holiday. Excellent company, plenty of snow, great chalet & superb food. Here are a few random memories.

I took the opportunity to ski on my own for a short while on Tuesday. During this time I sat on 6 ski lifts. Here is a summary of my experiences:
On one occasion I had the chair to myself.
On 4 occasions I shared the lift with French people, ranging in age from 11 to around 65. After the initial exchange of elbows in the queue they were, without exception, absolutely charming. They all offered an initial greeting, allowed me to practice my pigeon French and proved to be very engaging companions for each 5 - 10 minute ride.
On the sixth occasion I filled an empty space on a chair between 2 English people. I know they were English because, as soon as I had moved into said space, the chap to my left offered a sarcastic 'thanks very much'. I looked to my right & realised I had inadvertently sat between him and his son. I apologised, and offered a conciliatory remark which was completely ignored and, for the duration of the journey, I was made to feel about as welcome as an unflushed turd in Mrs W's freshly cleaned commode. I thought better of pointing out that I had every right to occupy any empty seat on a chairlift, and that had he wanted to sit next to his son he should not have left a space in between them. Instead I kept silent and reflected on the fact that, out of 6 chairlift journeys, I only encountered one ignorant, obnoxious person, and that person also happened to be the only Brit I sat with. Coincidence? I hope so, but I fear not.

One afternoon the unthinkable happened - the cable car broke down. Memories of FCC came flooding back as we debated what to do. The choice was simple: (a) stay in the queue and hope they fix it quickly, or (b) hop across to the, by now, spectacularly busy chairlift. Eventually we decided on plan b. Good move! Although we arrived 15 minutes late for a lesson, we later heard that the cable car had been out of action for around 2 hours. Bad enough for those of us trying to get up the hill, but far worse for those trapped inside. Whilst each car provides perfectly functional accommodation for 6 people taking a five minute ride to the top of a mountain they are not spectacularly well equipped to deal with the either the ingestion or excretion requirements of those six people over a 2 hour period. I imagine that some slopping out may have been required.

During a Vin Chaud stop after one of our lessons we discovered that it takes a minimum of 6 years to become a fully qualified ski instructor in the Alps, and that the key stumpling block to qualification tends to be the 'speed test'. As far as I can recall from our conversation this requires the candidate to complete 2 runs down a championship standard Giant Slalom course within an 18% margin above a benchmark time. Said benchmark time is the average of runs set by 3 world championship standard skiers (Alain Baxter, bronze medal winner at the 2002 Olympics, was one such skier this year - so they are not messing around). Seriously scary, it can take many attempts just to pass this element and many never get there. A dark race suit is de rigeur so as not to highlight the brown 'go faster' stripe.

Now what else happened .... oh yes, our chalet caught fire. Just after we'd finished our first course one evening there was a loud banging on the door and two very excited ladies pointing at the roof. We hurried out to see that the chimney had turned into a Roman candle, flames shooting skywards. The ladies' primary concern was that we should call the fire brigade. Their secondary concern was that we would have to pay for said Fire Brigade to attend as we were not French! We were reassured to learn from our chalet hosts that the Fire Station was brand new, located close to town for rapid response, and with state of the art equipment. They were duly summoned. We waited outside while our hosts went back inside to set about the fire. 25 minutes later the fire was out, and the fire brigade arrived with wailing sirens, flashing lights and very shiny chrome helmets. They charged excitedly into the chalet, charged out again, climbed up on the roof and climbed down again. Clearly disappointed to find nothing to point their high powered hoses at, they reluctantly allowed us back into the chalet to resume our dinner while they set about clearing the chimney. This involved one brave fellow (Vincent) on the roof, shouting down the chimney at his colleague in the lounge, telling him where to stick his poker for maximum effect. After dislodging several kilos of charcoal and dust they appeared satisfied and retired outside to share a glass of wine, or several, with our host who eventually persuaded them to leave with the aid of a case of red. All very convivial, but I suspect that if the fire had really taken hold there would not have been much chalet left by the time they arrived. Still, all's well that ends well.