Beautiful Megeve

Today is one of the most beautiful days I have ever seen. Yesterday the fog was down low, the skiing difficult as visibility was down to 2 metres in places, the snow was occasionally falling and it was cold. We welcomed 2 guests and enjoyed a dinner of 'clean out the freezer' which turned into scallops on pea puree, honey and balsamic glazed duck breasts with mixed vegetables and strawberry and mango Eton Mess!

This morning I enjoyed a sunrise with the mountains turning from black to deepest blue and slowly gaining definition against a dawn sky. The sun then starts its path down the mountain, highlighting just the tips first before steadily making its way down the sides to wake the village. The sky is now bright blue with the odd wispy cloud and a few vapour trails from the local little planes. We've also seen the early morning balloons making their way through the valley and what views they must be seeing!

Phil had to take the car to the airport this morning to help with a mammoth transfer. I am stuck in waiting for 5 guests to arrive but have been outside to defrost the van and take the guests we already have to the slopes. They are a lovely older couple from Australia and one has never skiied before! I've had to lend them our ski trousers and gloves as they had no stuff and then take them to the ski shop, book a lesson, get lift passes, equip them with maps... I've also cleaned the chalet, made dessert, done afternoon tea and now I'm watching the Australian Open and Andy Murray trying to make his way against Federer.

We have a rather complicated few days with people arriving and leaving at various times and then on Wednesday we get 8 men with a 9th arriving on Friday! I think after that we're back to corporate but I'm not sure - they like to keep us on our toes!!

This week we've got the horses in town for some polo matches which I can't wait to see. Last week was the dog sled racing but I was rather disappointed to find that in actual fact most of the dogs looked like random strays and there were very few husky dogs around. We also didn't get to see any proper racing as they did a 'Megeve challenge' in the evening before moving on over night.

Our guests last week had a lot of fun on the fabulous snow and one pair even decided to try and ski back to the chalet on their first day out! They were in the right area from what we could make out on the telephone, but walked the wrong way (away from the chalet) before coming back, finding the horse field and eventually the chalet! not happy that he'd provided his wife with a suitable story of adventure for the week, the next day, our gentleman in question, took his wife off-piste through some trees, one of which she became rather entangled with by all accounts! So on sunday we skiied with the pair of them and had a fabulous time on piste whizzing around Jailet.

We're having a staff ski afternoon on Friday followed by Adam cooking some ribs I think was mentioned. I'm looking forward to it and we should have some amazing snow and new powder as the forecast says it's 'dumping' on Thursday night!