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Quick link to Winter 2004/5 report: [1]
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29 Jan 2005
SNOW AND CHALET REPORTS
Tignes (report by guest reporter
'the Mirkin')
Another 2 weeks have gone by in a whirl
of sun, white outs, snow, friends arriving in the resort,
powder bashing, kicker building, cross dressing, a birthday
party, film watching, Little Britain quoting, wrist
fractures and musical beds.
Spanky, Wayne, Neil and Jess were inaugurated into the
ways of the flat pretty quickly and settled into mountain
life. Jess disappeared off to look after the children
of Val Claret then disappeared back to London, via Paris,
never to be seen again! Spanky was seen performing naked
press-ups in the Red Lion as well as spanking naked
bottoms with the shot holder!!!
Tignes suffered from a bout of gastro flu which rendered
the individual incapable of food or liquid consumption
for a day. Unfortunately 7 out of 10 of the flat suffered.
Pete H was the first victim who threw up all over the
sink in the bathroom and ruined a few toothbrushes in
the process.
Kirsty celebrated her birthday in Tignes style with
champagne and Tignes Cuisine delivering 14 yummy meals
to the flat. Obviously the flat had a very quiet night
and were all tucked up in bed by ten (see pics) Fortunately
the next day saw the beginning of the snow so everyone
had a lie-in.
Talking of snow we had 6 days solid and 180cm in the
village. This brought big smiles to everyone in the
flat. Rich and Wayne have been hard at work building
kickers to entertain all and sundry. Pete H has amazed
us all by producing an awesome Tartiflette and promising
to cook it for the flat sometime soon!
Damian's list of ailments has just got justifiably longer.
Having only just recovered from a strained Achilles
heel, sprained wrist and aching shoulders he went and
feel over in the powder and his left wrist found a rock
and is now fractured in two places.
Ray has now figured out where his bed is though has
been found sleeping on the bedroom floor and sofa on
a few occasions. He has also taken his life into his
own hands and has taught Kirsty how to snow board much
to the disgust of Pete who believe skiers should be
skiers and boarders should be boarders and never the
twain shall meet.
Pete and Rich have discovered the meaning of being laaaaddddiiieeeees.
Wearing half of Kirsty's wardrobe the boys ventured
in to Le Lac looking beautiful (see pics). They didn't
have to buy themselves a drink all night. Rich was heard
to say that a man had bought him a drink which surprised
him. Even more worrying is that both boys wanted to
put their skirts on again in the future! This night
in question found three of the housemates all sleeping
in different beds due to extreme disorientation brought
on by high consumption levels of alcohol. Miraculously
they all managed to get back to their own rooms by mid-morning.
Saturday sees the departure of Wayne and Neil and the
arrival of three new flat mates. What will the next
few weeks bring? Snow, sun, extreme partying, more viewing
of Little Britain, Pete H cooking us a Tartiflette?
Who knows - so watch this space.
Les Arcs (report by Alison)
Well, the novelty of all that powder getting
here hasn't worn off yet. The pistes are feeling really
good and we've had a good few bluebird days to keep
those big cheesy grins on people's faces. Some of the
lads from chalet Olivier have built a 1.5m kicker under
the lobster pots lift, which has kept the locals entertained
on their journey up the mountain, and tempted a few
off piste for a closer gander. While the boys up at
the Mont Blanc have also been busy with their kicker,
giving various members of the hotel staff something
to throw themselves off too.
The powder was so deep last week that the path that
led to the chalet completely disappeared, til we found
a total machine of an old French geezer in the morning,
steadily digging his way to the centre of the earth
… rustled a bit of a step squad together and went
to help finish the job. But he can still be found there
every day, with his twinkly eyes and a shovel bigger
than him … we like our neighbours.
There have been some good nights out since Ratty and
Horse's 25 strong crew arrived for the week last week,
and jimmy's bar is now fully back in our routine. Most
of the boys have been very impressed with the number
of Dutch girls in there willing to put on lesbian displays
of affection at the drop of a hat, and the shiva bar
(despite being pretty out of the way) keeps pulling
folk back due to its skill music and chilled atmosphere.
The Blanc staged a packed out beach party for Australia
day (along with repeat viewing of the rugby world cup
just to make the local Aussie community feel at home),
which resulted in a huge dance off and much confusion
as to the sex of some of the bikini clad piss heads.
Most of us have done our basic avalanche training in
the last couple of days as well, and the courses were
bob-on. It's must have been a strange sight for unsuspecting
skiers to see a well organised team frantically probing
around and digging a rucksack out of the side of a shallow
blue run, but it's all good practice. Thanks again to
Tom from New Generation fro the lessons and free slide
show in the Blanc … much appreciated.
Chamonix (report by Julene)
These have been an eventful few weeks.
Actually, in spite of Mother Nature’s best efforts
to thwart our fun, we haven’t had a week yet that
hasn’t been eventful – we are very good at
making our own entertainment! There have been great
escapes in the form of roadtrips to Austria, Italy and
the Portes du Soleil, but more importantly one hapless
Chamonix housemate is rumoured to have felt the long
arm of the gendarmes after a particularly rowdy night
in Chambre Neuf (no doubt fuelled by 2-for-1 Long Island
Ice Teas). This really is simply a law of averages thing
because housemates have been up to all kinds of stuff
that might reasonably be of interest to les hommes en
bleu. He was last seen chatting up some Swedish girlies
but ended up, apparently, being escorted home by three
law enforcement officers in the early hours after committing
some mystery misdemeanour possibly involving the attempted
relocation of a tree. It was a good job it was dark
when they arrived, as they may otherwise have spotted
the stray piece of street furniture that seems to have
appeared in the garden.
Enough of that, because now we have snow! Actually,
as our elderly French neighbour grumbled this morning
(he must surely wonder who on earth we are) whilst digging
out his post box, we have ‘trop’. After weeks
and weeks of waiting we are, once again, well, waiting
– for the wind and the avalanche rating to drop,
and the lifts to open. Never mind, because it is going
to be cracking when the sun finally shows it face again
and we get up there.
Hello this week to Suzi, Clare, Stuart and Barny who
join us in Argentiere. Who knows what effect they will
have on the complex Argentiere dynamic that results
in there never being enough saucepans!? By request,
Tash and Caroline get a special mention this week on
account of their skill at pool. Apparently they trounced
(or maybe hustled) the boy housemates and are now willing
to take on all-comers!
Meribel (report by Rachel)
I think we should open this update with
a closer look at Phil. The Phil who came out in December
was nice and polite, and a skier. But since then something
has happened to him - and it all started with a drinking
game (that one where you have to drink alcoholic drinks
with one hand and non-alcoholic drinks with the other).
Well, Phil's not great at this game - which has meant
he's had to down many many drinks (particularly as he's
even been known to down the penalty drink with the wrong
hand as well). And as the rules of the game have been
enforced 24 hours a day, some days have even started
for Phil with the downing of a beer after using the
wrong hand to drink his coffee at breakfast - poor Phil!
But now the general opinion in the apartment is that
Phil has become a bad influence on everyone else! And
the biggest change of all was when Phil took a day off
skiing and came wandering back from the shops with a
snowboard tucked under his arm ... yes, that's right,
Phil has been converted to the dark side - hurrah!!
So that just leaves Russ on skis now - one down, one
to go!
And so on to other news from the last couple of weeks
- after putting some serious time into riding switch,
Mat and Steve have finally managed to tear themselves
away from the altiport run. Congratulations guys - we
know how much you love it, but this is the 3 Valleys
after all - so there is quite a large area to explore.
We were about to suggest you trade your 3 Valleys passes
in for altiport only ones! And not only did they leave
the altiport - they went totally crazy, risking serious
frostbite on the cote brun chair-of-icey-death, and
left the Meribel valley all together for a bit of exploration
in Val T with me and Rob. The main discovery on this
adventure was that we're not very good at reading piste
maps - but at least we now know where all the really
flat runs are in order to avoid them in future.
Hmmmm, what else? Oh yes - it snowed! And it snowed
and it snowed and it snowed!!! It's been amazing - everyone's
been out riding powder and loving it - even those who
accidentally ended up on black mogul fields on their
first day (so sorry Mat, it was very cleverly, but only
superficially,
disguised by all the powder)!!
And Stack of the Week is this time awarded to Rob. Unfortunately
he wasn't actually out on the mountain at the time but
he still took a very nasty tumble ... in Dick's ...
after a night of gini racers and his first experiments
with tequila. Rob - remember to put your hands down
first, your nose won't do a great job of breaking your
fall!
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