When Daddy Came To Stay...

Since the little people left us we've had more glorious sunshine than you could ever hope for up a mountain in March. Well, more than you could hope for up a mountain in North Wales perhaps but not, it would seem, in the French Alps! The locals are fully prepared with strappy tops and light walking trousers, the skis are left behind and lift passes are purely a 'bus ticket' to the restaurants or their surrounding deck chairs.

Phil and the staff at Les Cimes took advantage of the beautiful weather last week and the fact that our chalet owner is a high mountain guide and took a trip up Mont Blanc. Sadly for me they were doing a rather tricky route, made even more difficult by the fact that there had been no new snow for several weeks and by all accounts it was pretty difficult, hard-packed and icy.

From what I can work out, their morning consisted of a very early start, a couple of big lifts up the mountain, a trecherous trek across a ridge in harnesses and whilst roped together, followed by a lot of slipping, swearing and sliding. Once down at the bottom, some sensible peopple decided to have a long lunch but Phil, Martin and Alex - the chalet owner/guide - went up onto the glacier a couple of times just to make sure they were completely and utterly worn out!

I spent the day with our lovely guests and guided them from Rochebrune to Cote 2000 with lunch at La Radaz (a special day off treat for me) and back again. We had a great day and the snow was excellent. Since then the snow has stayed good but is getting very soft in the afternoons - something I don't mind as I prefer soft snow to ice any day! However, as I write, the snow is falling, the temperature has dropped and we are back in our little snow globe. Daddy, who arrived on Wednesday to 18 degrees of sunshine and not a cloud in the sky, is rather excited!

We had a lovely family at the weekend who were here to celebrate a 60th birthday. I enjoyed their company very much and hada great time decorating the chalet and making a yummy birthday cake!

We currently have just 4 guests who leave tomorrow when 4 more arrive for a very short break and then at the moment we have no more bookings (book now - the snow's good!) and our flights are booked for the 8th April back to sunny England! We do, however, have friends coming for a week and we can't wait to see them, ski with them on the new snow and show them the beautiful town of Megeve.

When Little People Came To Stay...

We've had a fabulous few days with our brother-in-law Sean and our nephew and niece, Maurice and Beatrix. At 4 and 3 these two have only shuffled around the snow on plastic skis at the Chill Factor and could only be described as super excited - fully wound up by Grandad! On arrival (after some very helpful baggage handler strikes in Geneva on one of their busiest days) the exclamations at the amount of snow, the chalet, the hot tub, their beds were worth every bit of windng up!

We took a trip to the ski shop to get skis and boots for them and of course Beatrix had pink skis with a unicorn on them and boots to match whilst Maurice had red boots and monster skis! After a little play around on them and the discovery that Maurice was much more suited to an adult-sized snowboard, it was back to the chalet for a hot tub, dinner and bed (including me!).

 I particulalry enjoy the early morning visits and even after 16 hours of constant action the day before they both appeared into our room at 0615 with an excited 'Hi Guys'!! After a breakfast of chocolate porridge, chocolate croissant and chocolate anything else you can wangle out of Auntie Kate I left the men to it and went shopping. Charlie and I were in and out of Metro before 10 o'clock and must have set a new record! Charlie certainly doesn't think we'll break it this season! I unpacked, had a cup of tea and some rather nice carrot cake that I'd made last week and then wandered along to Rochebrune to meet them for lunch.

After a sandwich, hot dog or bread and ketchup (Beattie), I sent the men off who were itching to get up the mountain and Maurice, Beatrix and I bundled into the telecabine and went to the top of the mountain. Maurice now knows the names of all the mountains around us, even if a lot of them had the same name as I didn't have my postcard with me! We decided to ride back down the telecabine, dump the skis and get the bus to La Livraz to go sledging. After a couple of hours the blokes rang, admitting defeat on their boards and we took the bus into town to meet them. They actually managed to catch the same bus as us! We enjoyed hot chocolate and chose a cake for pudding and a horse for our sleigh ride before heading back up for tea, bath and bed.

After another rather Nutella-fuelled breakfast, we were ready for action. This time I had the children in the morning so we did some hoovering - it's amazing how far croissants can get spread! We then made a cake for the ski shop guys, vanilla and chocolate chip, and then had a lovely walk over to the ski shop to deliver our fabulous cake and pick up the skis. We took the bus up to La Livraz and did some sledging before the men joined us and we had huge burgers for lunch!

We had a very successful afternoon and discovered that the walking tracks are just the right incline for Beatrix and Maurice to practice their skiing on and on the uphill sections a ski-pole between the legs, with an Auntie or Uncle at the other end to pull, is a much faster and easier way to get along. Beatrix picked it up very quickly and today she wouldn't even get pulled up some hills, she prefers to shuffle! She also has the hang of 'pizza slice' stopping. Maurice, however, is definitely his father's son, and has an inability to concentrate, listen or control his feet! Maybe when he's 28... He actually did pretty well and his inability to turn left just meant that he stopped by turning right every few yards!

After their fabulous efforts, the promised horse sleigh ride was done and we chose a rote through the Rochebrune area as it's somewhere we haven't really seen. It was really good, quiet and just at the right time for some beautiful evening light on the mountains.

We've had a fabulous few days with them and they've both gone back thinking they're experts at skiing! I'm looking forward to sleeping past 6am tomorrow and after a few more sleeps, Daddy will be here!! We also only have 3 and a half more weeks left of the season. It's all gone so quickly and I hope there's more snow before we leave as currently it's rapidly melting in these glorious warm and sunny days!

Two 4 Year Old Boys and a Whole Lot of Snow!

This week we've had a noisy, superhero-filled, snowy week. Let me set the scene for you...

They arrived on Saturday lunchtime just as I was finishing the upstairs rooms and it wasn't long before I had two little visitors asking 'Who are you?'. The boys are twins, but thankfully very easy to tell apart, and they arrived with their mother and father and their lovely nanny, Melba. It wasn't long before the boys were demanding Nutella on a spoon, even though one has Type 1 diabetes, and the pot was opened and the tantrums started when the word 'no' was muttered. Let's just say that the idea of discipline was a long way away from Megeve this week!

Most evenings I cooked the boys a healthy meal, and I soon learnt that it should contain no carbohydrate as this would mean the blood sugars would go soaring but it wasn't from the mother who had no interest in letting me know what she would like them to eat, just complaining about what was on their plate when it arrived! My popcorn chicken made with chicken breast, egg white and cornflakes went down well (after some protests from one) with the boys but the mother was not impressed! I still cant work out where I went wrong with that one! The adult meals where healthy, vegetarian and within the guidelines they had given me such as quinoa stuffed butternut squash, vegetable lasagna and we even sneaked in a raclette.

When the boys were playing nicely it was great. We've had slipper-clad ice man, mega-wotsit as well as dogs, babies and various other creatures that make interesting and loud noises and are usually naked! We're now proud owners of an igloo, several beautiful sculptures, we've had the snow planted with logs so we get trees in the summer and sledges too, although I'm not sure what they were hoping to get from those! The walls have new colourful drawings all over them and not even my trusty Cif will shift them. Various keys keep turning up in odd places which is unfortunate for the gentlemen who have to use the middle loo - we've resorted to whistling when on the loo!

It's not been a difficult week but I've been doing a lot of guessing and Phil's been doing a lot of running around! He's even managed to ski with the boys and they were rather excited to show him the magic carpet! I did feel sorry for him when I had to leave him mid-week to make a quick trip home but he was prepared with veggie lasagna, panna cotta, sausages for the kids and a day off as well! He managed fine and didn't look any the worse for wear when I got back! He also got an amazing ski in on Saturday morning. It had snowed overnight and he was the first person up Mont Joly, a big off-piste area, making tracks in the snow.

Today we changed guests and swapped a relatively easy 5 people for 8 adults. We then have a full change on Wednesday for another 8 adults and then next Sunday my brother-in-law and nephew and niece arrive. So it's all go here and whilst the French holidays are starting to slow down, our chalet bookings certainly aren't!

PS I cannot believe that this blog has had over 1000 views since I started it! Happy reading, whoever you are and please feel free to leave a comment...