One Giant Jump for a Chalet Girl...

Happy New Year!! We celebrated in style here at Chalet Megeve. The guests kicked their night off down in the town and enjoyed a few beers whilst they watched the ESF and ESI ski instructors parade past with big fire torches. One back in the chalet we enjoyed garlic butter escargots as a deliciously French canape before moving on to a starter of pan-fried scallops on pea puree with very crsipy bacon. Next on the agenda was honey and balsamic glazed duck with roast beetroot, asparagus and celeriac mash and to top it all we had a delicious orange vodka and cranberry semifreddo. Of course some smelly cheese followed to just make sure we were completely full to the brim!! I have to say that only one brave soul attempted the snails (as well as me) and we enjoyed a good dozen or so!

The French enjoy a good party and have developed various contraptions to aid the process. Whilst in Metro I picked up a 'party box'. Hats, streamers, noisy things and pea-shooters with cherry-sized 'peas'! I think I'll be finding the 'peas' for the next 3 months!! After dinner the men retired to the hot tub for an hour or so and made good use of my kitchen window conveniently placed so as to be able to top up wine glasses without them having to leave the warmth of the hot tub and also without me having to leave the warmth of my kitchen! We now also have various sized and shape snow angels in our garden! A good few games of 'Who am I?' and lots of fireworks from chalets all around and we were well on our way to midnight and a glass of champagne.

This morning we had a slow start in the chalet but scrambled eggs andd smoked salmon soon sorted everyone out and by lunch time I was enjoying a sandwich with a view up the mountain on a deck chair! Some clever people we saw had used their skis and poles to make bench seats but I think if I returned my poles to Fred, the ski shop man, in a less than straight condition, all the cake in the world wouldn't put it right! (He's probably feeling a little neglected this week as the guests like cake and eat most of it every day. I'll have to make him a special one next week...)

Today we skiied around Mont d'Arbois and St Nicolas. Some runs are really empty and have good snow on them whilst others are very busy with no snow, lots of rocks and patches of ice. We stuck to the empty red runs and had a fab couple of hours in the sunshine. I am definitely faster than Phil over the moguls and I even managed a huge jump today. Well, I thought it was big and it certainly felt like I was flying for a least 20 seconds before I landed (on two skis) but Phil says it was barely an inch off the ground! When it was time to head home I decided I'd show Phil how to ski back to our chalet. He attempted it on Monday having finished guiding the guests but left the piste too early, went up a track, crossed the river and ended up not at our chalet. So today I led the way and we made it first time! I'm not sure I looked quite so competent whilst skiing through the hard off piste snow of the farmer's field but I got us there! 

Tonight we're having a Thai Green Curry for tea which I can't wait for, so I'd best be off back to my kitchen! 

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