Typical Seasonaire Things

Sorry for not posting for a while, it has been rather manic. This week we have three Indian families, totaling 18 people, 12 children, 13 vegetarians, some who however eat chicken. It's a total nightmare. They asked me this evening to contact my manager and get the company to buy some hairdryers for the chalet. I mean really?! This is not a hotel! Bloomin' ridiculous. I did actually want to cry earlier their requests were just that frustrating, especially whilst i was trying to set up for dinner and they kept interrupting.

Anyway enough of my rant! I have decided to write about a few typical seasonaire things. I know it's a bit of a non specific topic, but here we go.

- The first couple of weeks, for our chalet at least, it was very common to finish service and then go to the pub and drink demi peche or grand peche. This drink is beer with peach syrup. I personally never ever drink beer under normal circumstances, however, a half pint of Amstel with peche is possibly the most refreshing drink after a hard afternoon boarding or stressful dinner service. And at 2euros for a demi its a right bargain for us seasonaires!

- Burn out. This happens after the first couple of weeks of jamming in boarding, skiing, work, late nights, drink and early mornings. You do not realise how much of a trance you are in until you look back and see that you actually resembled a zombie. At one point this season i was actually turning a lovely shade of grey due to burning the candle at both ends.

- Ski/Board related purchases. These tend to happen towards the middle/end of the season, when tips and wages have been saved in order to purchase such items. For example, i have recently purchased a Roxy Ollie Pop snowboard with gold bindings for a very reasonable rate. A friend had a lesson with an ESF instructor, and it happened that his sister competes fro France and is given boards all the time and i managed to wangle a board that is RRP at £400 without bindings for 250 euros with bindings. Nataleon one of our chefs has recently acquired a new pair of skis, and Tina a chalet host has treated herself to some ski boots. The purchase of ski related items is just a natural part of being a seasonaire. Jack one of our chefs splashed out on a pair of park gloves for 150 euros or something about that price.

- Pulling holiday makers. This is a slightly more shameful topic that i shall briefly touch upon. It happens. We all get drunk and chat to many random people and as the vast majority of people in the pubs and club are holidaymakers its an easy thing to happen. Also there is that feeling of anonymity that makes it feel more exciting, you're likely to never meet this person again. For example, i met a rather lovely Irish investment banker from London who must have been about 6ft8 because my head did not even reach his shoulders, it was mental. It is fantastic who you can meet on a night out here and the temptation to take advantage of it just happens.

-Horrible hands. The less pleasant side of working in the snowy mountains. Whether you're chef or chalet host or ski host, we all have pretty minging hands. This is due to chemicals, dry air, tons of washing up and (for chefs mostly) accidental slip ups with the knives.

Well i hope that this was informative! It's time for me to get some sleep, we have early breakfasts all week. I am sure you can imagine the joy i experienced when the guests asked for this! Goodnight folks :)

can't have it all

The first week's guests have now left, so i feel it is now safe to write about them without the risk of one of them looking over my shoulder. We had a lovely family, 4 students, a couple and a divorcee with his two kids. Most of the week was fine. I ran around after them like i should, cleaning rooms etc. First full day i ended up cleaning sick out of one of the student's bins! Not what i expected. Then later in the week another student fell over running from the hot tub to the snow outside and back. His injury.... His second toe nail had been almost completely ripped off. Guess who had to play nurse! His girlfriend kinda left him to it. So with my handy plasters and Savlon, (we do not have a first aid kit!)  i patched him up. I didn't pull his toe nail off but i watched him pull it off in the spa shower. It did make me feel really rather nauseous, as it looked like there was so much blood in the shower tray but obviously the water from the shower had diluted it. Needless to say the 3 student guys were impressed with my dealing with the situation and not being squeamish like they all were. Must have come from my mother. :)

The other set of our guests that stood out was the divorcee and his 2 kids. They were the only Northern people out of the guests and in my opinion he had a big chip on his shoulder. I didn't realise the whole Northern Southern difference were still so prominent. They thought of us as posh! But Graham (changed his name for privacy reasons) was not a very nice man. He would sit on skype just before dinner and get his kids to talk to their mums (half brother and sister), this is fair enough, but the girl was 14 and the boy 12, and this happened every night! I mean for goodness sake it is only one week! Another thing is he treated the ski host as a ski instructor which is not on when his kids had only had about 7 hrs practise in a snowdome! It meant that everyone in the ski hosting session had to wait for them. But then on the last evening when we were all settling up the honesty bar, he gave Rachel (ski host) 10 euros to settle a 7 euro debt, and said "I'll take a snickers in the morning, and you can keep the change"..... That was our tip.... bearing in mind we each received 20euros from the couple and 10euros each from the other family and an eighth of a bottle of vodka from the students!

Our next load of guests.... a group of 17 who are a family and are out for Christmas. They're all lovely and very helpful when it comes to clearing up! It helps to save so much time.

Ciao for now