Diary of a Chalet Girl doing her first season - Tignes-Enders
I no longer have any clue what the date is:
The past couple of weeks have flown by, with more drama here in ‘Tignes-enders’. There’s even more swapping around of chalet hosts, chefs having to move to different resorts for a week, various couplings and constant whisperings of ‘Have you heard!?’ It’s a job that definitely keeps you on your toes.
In my last blog entry, I’d been up since 3:30am for transfer day, not finishing till about 9:30pm. For those who don’t know, transfer day is the worst day of the week as you have to be up super early to wave off departing guests, make breakfast for those who aren’t leaving till later, ‘deep clean’ the whole of the chalet, (which takes the most time), and be ready at any time for one of the reps to call up saying: ‘Right, I’ve got five guests for you and I’m dropping them off…now!’ It’s then a case of sprinting outside, showing the new guests inside the chalet and settling them into their rooms. Dinner is then at 7:30, with possible later services till about 10pm, and you can then be up waiting for the latest guests to arrive till about 2am. It’s then up at 6 the next morning for their first breakfast!
But, with transfer day over, all eyes are set on Wednesday, or the much-loved ‘Day Off’. Last Wednesday, I experienced my first trip to La Folie Douce, a club/ bar set between Val D’Isere and Tignes that you can only get to by skiing. It starts at about 3pm with the music being heard all over the slopes, luring people to it. The plan is to buy your own supermarket cocktail first and then all meet by ‘the shed’ just outside Folie, for a dance and a drink. It turns out that skiing one-handed with a bottle of orange ‘mix’ under your arm is actually trickier than it looks... I was just praying that I didn’t fall over so as not to end up with an orange jacket.
Once inside Folie, I met my good friend Claire who works over in Val. It was a reunion full of squeals and hugs as we hadn’t seen each other since training at the start of December. It quickly became apparent that there is a definite difference between Tignes and Val. There I was in my bright green Scott jacket, (thankfully not covered in orange), even brighter sallys, fluroescent Oakleys and bling boots, standing in front of the Tignes lot: the baggiest clothes you can imagine and the brightest colours you can think of, each with a beer in hand. Meanwhile, the Val group stood opposite, each wearing a fur headband, skinny black trousers, fitted quilted waistcoats…all in black and white with some kind of gin mix in glasses. It was like West Side Story on the slopes, with Claire and I stuck in between the two groups. Yet, I felt proud of my Tignes lot... I don’t think I’d suit a fur headband!
However, yesterday at Folie, I ventured into the most coveted territory: the VIP area. Yes, being with the Val D’IsArrrr girls does mean that you get selected to hang out in the VIP section. Staring out over the epic view, sipping champagne and sitting on fur I did start to think that maybe a fur headband wouldn’t be so bad…. But then, I saw a group of florescent yellows, reds, greens, purples and blues all sitting out by ‘the shed’. And so, in true Tignes style, Aimee and I got up onto the VIP tables, waving frantically at our group and dancing. Our hearts may belong to Tignes, but we weren’t going to leave our VIP spot, especially when we were being asked ’How did you get in there!? Totes jell’. Only at Folie people…
Skiing back from Folie changes your skiing style. With a bit of drink in you, suddenly a ridiculously moguly and icy run doesn’t seem so bad! Just get those edges in and head to Loop Bar.
We’ve also been skiing in the Park quite a lot. My good friend Amy took me through it for the first time last week. At the top, we let all the ridiculously good riders go first and then pathetically skied behind them, checking out how high the jumps were and what the chances were of breaking bones. Getting the chair up again, we decided to go for jumps one, two and four, avoiding the mini mountain that was jump number three. Following Amy, we did a couple of jumps and then I saw her disappear over a drop and a faint cry of ‘Don’t do it Loulou!’, It was too late. We had both miscounted and my skis were going over the dreaded jump number three. I did not land gracefully and ended up skiing on my bum for the rest of the slope. That definitely got us over our fear and we were soon onto the boxes.
My other good friend Aimee (just to confuse you) has been converted from boarding to skiing. After only three days of skiing ,I decided to take her into the park. Honestly, I have never laughed so much on the slopes. Our landings are the most ungraceful things in the world: imagine a starfish stance crossed with some kind of startled gazelle. And then, there was the box. I should probably explain at this point that the boys do the park a lot, doing switch 540s, shifty 180s, mumbo jumbo malarkeys, which they’ve explained to me but I still don’t get. When us girls are in the park, the plan is to go through it when they can’t see us falling over, squealing and collapsing with laughter. Not when they’re going up on the chairlift and Aimee and I do the box one after the other. Aimee slid full speed off the box to a chorus of ‘Ooooooo’ from the chairlift, while I, ridiculously close behind her, had to dive sideways off the box so as not to fall on top of her. It then didn’t help that neither of us could get up because of laughing too much. Yes, the bruises have appeared!
I guess that falling off boxes is a part of being in the R. Lodge. Yet, I think that the ‘gnarliest’ thing I’ve done so far is eat a slice of baguette piled with French mustard. We’ve put up a ‘Progression Wall’ in the kitchen where we label three things that we’ve never done before and at the end of the week you have to tick one item off, or face eating four cloves of garlic. The boys have added back flips, tail 540 and all that 360, 180 mumbo jumbo, while I have to ride Face (the horrid Black run down into Val), switch riding, (ski backwards), and the hardest one of them all: only eat one slice of cake per day!!! No exaggeration, it has been extremely hard only having one slice of lemon drizzle a day, or carrot cake, peach cake and strawberry cake, particularly when the boys are on their third slice of cake saying ‘This is the best cake ever made!’
Woops, I’ve now made myself hungry, so I’m off to the little patisserie, (but not for cake!) Hope everyone’s well back home. Miss you!
‘Gnardocious’: An example of our ‘Word of the Day’ at R. Lodge.
Bisous X
14/1/12
Really busy here today, with the alarm going off at 3:30 this morning!
I'm off to my new apartment in Val Claret for the next week, but will try and write a better update soooooon.
For now, here's a video that the press have made about Rider's Lodge, focusing on the 'snow guru', or Ash to us here:
and for anyone that fancies a chuckle, this has had us in stitches here:
S*** Skiers Say:
Bisous xx
8/1/12
Just a quick update to show you how much snow we've had!
This is the view outside our dining room window. A couple of weeks ago you could just about see the decking, but now the snow looks like it's about to come through the window!!
The sun is trying to get through today, but visibility is still a little dodgy, so we're heading down the mountain to Le Brevieres!
In other news, new guests arrived yesterday and seem to be the most suited to this type of lodge!!
Really looking forward to this week!
We've also had a mad couple of days with emotions running high and then very very low, but touch wood, things seem to have settled a bit now...
As for this evening, our guests have this to look forward to:
Righteous! Only in the R. Lodge...
Will keep you updated.
Lots of love X
6/1/12: HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Happy New Year guys!
What a crazy week and a half it has been! With no choice, I was torn away from my beloved Lodge and put into a 12 person chalet, running it with one other host. This meant that I had to cook the dreaded Christmas dinner, ah!! All went smoothly until last Tuesday when I got a phone call....my chalet host and friend had managed to board head-first off a 13-foot wall and onto the concrete pavement below. She now has two broken elbows and the doctor said that without a doubt her helmet saved her life. Sadly though, her season is fini! If you’re reading this Lorna, we love you and miss you!!!!
And so followed a manic week of cooking and working with different people, trying to get food out to thirty guests (as there is also a chalet next door). I swear that the stress of last week has aged me, along with the constant blasts of icy wind in my face! Yet, the week was smoothed out by the awesome friends that are Tracy and Bing visiting from Courchevel and taking me out for one of the best skis so far. They also very kindly gave me food… Wednesdays are full of chalet girls wandering around the supermarkets like zombies, complaining that they’re starving but wanting to save their 5 euros for après! I was also joined by Mumma and Pappa on Tuesday and Wednesday, who also very kindly fed us starving chalet girls and took us skiing. Well, Daddy Crippla was left in the bar! It was lovely to see them and I miss them all already!
New Year’s Eve was on Transfer Day, but we managed to serve the last guests and sprint out of the chalet at 11:30, onto the piste and in time to see the fireworks. I now realise how stupid I was bringing a ‘dressy’ top for New Year’s, when working with four boys meant that I was given exactly twelve minutes to get ready and ordered to wear my salopettes. Oui, I am now back in the Lodge for the majority of the week!! Although I am still working some morning shifts at the 12-person chalet, I am back to spending my evenings in the Lodge kitchen, watching the boys play ‘crumb eye’, ‘cake ear’, eat whole limes, stick beans behind their ears, and try to assess whether they can jump off the roof into the fresh powder without breaking anything.
Unfortunately, skiing is by far off the menu today, (for the girls anyway), with incredibly strong winds and deep, deep powder. We got told by the police today that we are now 'forbidden' to walk along the road and have to get buses everywhere. Walking to the bar last night involved falling over numerous times, (even though I was sober), and having to climb into the Lodge over a mini mountain of snow. Walking to the 12-person chalet this morning meant that Aimee and I decided to walk along the narrow road, only to have the snow plough come right behind us! Frantically waving for him to see us, we were torn between diving into the massive snow drifts or running like penguins along the slippery road in order to avoid ‘death by snow plough‘. Who knew that two girls could ou trun a snow plough at 6am!?
Hope everyone’s well back home and had a flipping amazing New Year’s Eve.
Bisous X
19/ 12/ 11
Alors,
Saturday arrived along with 20 new guests. Since then, we have been
finding our routine of being ready for work at 7, serve breakfast,
make the afternoon cake, clean rooms, go skiing, come back for a
quick cup of tea, be ready for 5, serve dinner, clean the kitchen, go
out.
The skiing has been tricky though, with two hours out on the mountain yesterday turning into a mission to ski out of the cloud and snow that pounced on us mid-chairlift. Without being able to actually see the snow that we were skiing on, we managed to find some new runs back down to the main chairlift... except that the final 'new' run that we were thrilled to have discovered turned out to be the same run we'd be skiing on for the last two weeks!!
Oh, how white-outs make it even harder for us to read a piste map!!
Although
the snow keeps building and clouds get lower, I have realised what a
must skiing is when there's always half a cake left over every
evening and it's too painful to chuck in the bin. There's also the
cake mixture that has to be licked out of the bowl every morning... I
genuinely tried to fight it, but all the returning seasonaires have
said that the notorious 'chalet bum' is inevitable and unavoidable.
There is a bar crawl tonight though, which will indeed be a crawl through knee-high snow from one village to the other, so I guess that means that I can have some cake later? One of the last bars is even up a slope, which last week resulted in tears of laughter as many reps, chalet hosts and nannies all tried to make it up the mini mountain. Many different techniques were used, such as side stepping or just boldly running and leaping, but most of us ended up sliding back down to the bottom in a dominos-style effect!
It's a fantastic time out here at the moment and the snow is setting us up for a fabulous season, with more due later this week. But, it's nearly 5, so it's on with the uniform and into the kitchen. I've added a couple of photos....
Hope everyone's well back home!!
Bisous xxx
First blog entry: 14/12/11
After two weeks of trying to make pancakes with cake mixture, putting uncrushed seeds into a starter and having my manager bring down my boot bag because 'something' was vibrating, (it was my toothbrush!), we are finally ready for guests to arrive on Saturday (if the snow behaves). The snow here is crazy.
Picture to the right is the view of the lake and next village from my season accomm/ chalet.
After three years of skiing in the 'Deep South' in late March/ April, I had gotten used to bits and bobs of snow. Now, us seasonaires have fallen over countless times on the icy roads, fallen head first into powder and stepped into what we thought was shallow snow, only to be engulfed by the thing up to our waists.
We had a brilliant first day on the slopes on Wednesday, and now into our second day off, I fear that I may well have been 'apres-ed' after dancing to a band in one of the best bars. While I'm in another bar waiting for my 15 euro lasagne I will add some piccies for you all to see...
This is Kimbo, who loves running through snow drifts and fresh powder for snowballs.
P.s. He is half wolf.
Au Revoir for now...
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