10/11.2

Day Two of the 2010/2011 ski season! This time we headed out with Craig, our friend and neighbour who is a BASI 4 ski instructor who's passed all the crazy French tests to be able to teach here. For example, one of the tests involves you being critiqued on your technique by a team of extremely exacting instructors by video. In another test you have to beat (or come very close to) a high-ranked FIS champion skier down a slalom course. In a nutshell, he's an amazingly good skier! We also skied with his Dad, Arnott, and two other friends: Beverley and Alison who are respectively massage therapists and run their own transfer company.

It was an incredibly advanced group of skiers. Everything happened twice as fast as normal. We skied entire pistes without stopping once. It was amazingly good fun. I learnt a lot too, just by skiing behind Craig and watching his carving technique and the way he bounced down the moguls. Hopefully his wife Dani, who is also a ski instructor and former #1 British ski champion, will be able to join us next time. It's quite cool being way out of my depth!

10/11.1

Saturday was Day One of the 2010-2011 ski-season! Natalie and I went out and bought our season passes: EUR 1224 (ouch, plus insurance at EUR 112). We get the Saison Indigene pass which is quite a bit cheaper because we live in one of the communes connected with the Portes du Soleil (St Jean d'Aulps). Considering one week's skiing is EUR 232, 600 for the whole season isn't bad at all.

Then we headed up to Les Prodains (the only lower-level lift that was running) and took the chair lift up over the Arete des Intrets. It took us 30 minutes to find parking because everyone in France, remembering the last two weeks of constant snow-fall and perfect clear blue skies on Saturday, had the same idea to go skiing at Avoriaz. All three carparks at Les Prodains were full.

Natalie on the famous Bleu de Lac blue piste with Avoriaz in the background.

We nevertheless managed to find freshish powder that had been quite well tracked out but still fun on the Arete. We had a quick burn down to Lindarets. I was slightly disappointed with the quality of the piste bashing. It always seems to get so badly churned up in Avoriaz for some reason, turning normal blue runs into mogul fields. Other resorts seem to manage to keep their pistes perfectly smooth all day so i don't know why Avoriaz often has gnarled up pistes.

Me in the powder on the Arete des Intrets which was unpisted but which is normally a black run.

Anyway, after taking out a second mortgage on a chocolat chaud and a coke in Avoriaz (EUR 6), we headed home down the deserted pistes of Le Crot. All in all it was a brilliant first day.

Runa

I'm not the only one that likes snow...

Lunch

What did you do during your lunch break?

That's the Roc d'Enfer in the background. Plenty of snow at Grand Terche.

20cm

We've had 20cm of snow overnight at 984m and it's still snowing. It's -1C outside and the snow is light and fluffy. If anyone has a Portes du Soleil ski trip planned for late November, you'll probably get the best powder of your life. Pity the resort doesn't open for 3 weeks!

Last night I skied my back garden. This is the start of the famous Le Penotet ski run - just through the gate. I got attacked by a thorn bush on the way down but it was every bit as fantastic as I thought it would be! The lift service back to the top wasn't very good though, but at least the pass was cheap. This photo is at 1000m - can you imagine what it's like at 2400m? Tomorrow I plan to find out!

Chez Nous

I've always* wanted to have my house on a ski map and now it is! For those brave souls contemplating coming out to visit us, this is where we are on the Portes-du-Soleil piste map.

The above map I am showing without anyone's permission, so I hope that's ok. If not, you know now where to send the summons.

This weekend Natalie and I walked up from the red dot to the west up the Col de l'Ecuelle. From the Col we finally satisfied ourselves that our chalet is definitely "Ski-In". Ski-In/Ski-Out is a popular marketing phrase which indicates to skiers that their chosen chalet/hotel is on or very near to a piste. That you can literally ski from the door to the lift and ski back to your door from a higher lift. Clearly many operators use this definition very loosely. For example, there are almost no true ski-in/ski-out chalets in Morzine, yet there seem to be many chalets offering this!

Our chalet/farm (haven't quite decided what to call it yet) is most certainly "Ski-In". In fact, it's Ski-In/Skin-out. Using Alpine Touring gear you can hike on skins (and you almost could today there was so much snow) up to the top of the Col de l'Ecuelle and then ski down into Abondance (another Portes du Soleil resort). Once you've enjoyed the delights of the Abondance valley and ski domaine you can take lifts all the way back to the top of the Col and then ski back to our place! This is probably only possible from December to February but I cannot wait to give it a try!

*always being from about 2005.

0.000000445

We now own 0.000000445% of France! At our current rate of accrual, it will only take us another 7,640,449,438 years to buy the rest of it. This is where the evil Scientist would cackle insanely as the screen faded to black. Our move went amazingly well. We had a brief moment of panic when it seemed that the sellers didn't have all their paperwork in order (and indeed, they did not) but the document they did not have (attestation d'assurance) wasn't critically important and they have promised to send it to us forthwith!

There was another panic attack when it appeared that the Notaires had got the price wrong, but after a furiously fast exchange of French numbers apparently we'd paid enough. So, with our French empire steadily growing, if anyone would fancy a French Alpine holiday... you're more than welcome!

All in all, I have to say that the process of buying a house in France is really good and much better than the UK. Once the seller has verbally accepted the offer, everyone agrees the minutiae up front and no one is allowed to back out - even if they die! The only downside of buying in France is the obscene amount of money given to the French government (9%) as part of the transaction. Whoever you are, please do enjoy my hard-earned cash - i don't begrudge giving it to you at all.

Oh, and despite all the mean things people have said about Orange France, and the mean things I was saying about them this morning when they were deserving all the mean things people usually say about them, they have come through and delivered our broadband only one day late. Hello Internet!