Yeah, so it’s half way through the season on Saturday and I now sort of feel that I’ve got enough perspective on life out here to start blogging. I know it seems strange because a blog should really be a week by week account of the things that happen to you as they happen but life out here is just so different from travelling life that I’ve found it almost impossible to collect together enough things of interest to make it worth your while reading.

A day to day account would probably read something along the lines of cook, clean, chat, ski, sleep, eat cake, cook, talk talk talk, drink, sleep. All this interspersed with endless discussions of the snow conditions, which runs are best/iciest/bumpiest/steepest and why, what’s the best way to clean a toilet/oven/stone floor/fire place and whose guests are dullest/oddest/most likely to be caught wandering the chalet in tighty-whities. See… aren’t you glad that I’ve not been filling cyber space with this inane shit?

This all makes it sound like life out here is rubbish. It’s not at all; it’s just so very hard to understand why monotony is so very enjoyable.

So, two months on, here’s what it was like…

IN THE BEGINNING…

The beginning was pretty rubbish actually. Nothing was open, we weren’t allowed to ski, cleaning was constant and 12 hour work days were common. None of the public transport networks were open and even if they were we had no idea where we were going anyway. Life consisted of being driven between different chalets (none of which were mine) and having to clean them despite the fact that they looked totally spotless to me (urgh!!).

On the upside I was surrounded by a bunch of people who had all been hired due to their ability to be friendly and smiley no matter what and to talk to anyone. I’ve never seen anything like the first night when I looked around to see everyone chatting ten to the dozen having known each other for about 6 hours. Of course we do have to take into account that this is a job which includes pretty much unlimited (and more importantly, unmonitored) wine ;-), which I think helped.

Once all the chalets were opened up and the guests started coming we had to contend with Christmas and New Year, which when you don’t really know anyone that well is a little weird. The third meal I had to cook was a full Christmas roast, in a kitchen which I don’t even have to spread my arms in to touch the walls. I also started to realise the problems associated with working for a small company when half the staff came down with bronchitis and there was absolutely no cover available and everyone had to keep on working through fevers and coughing fits.

Christmas was also not helped by the fact that the mother of the family I had seemed to get all competitive with me on Christmas day. I’ve heard this is not uncommon in a chalet where women can suddenly seem to take offence at the fact that you’ve the audacity to look after their family instead of them. What a bitch I am?

I tried writing this all at the time but it all seemed so depressing and negative and the only reason that I can write it now is because it all seems so long ago and things are so different now that it doesn’t seem to matter. Also there were some really nice bits. Fancy dressing skiing on Christmas day (after a bottle of champagne… weeee!), sharing a room with three other girls has actually been a real giggle and meant that we’ve got an awful lot closer than most other people, pulling yourself up every now and again and realising that you can see Mont Blanc from your window surrounded by snow capped, pine speckled peaks, chatting for a living, free wine and discovering how nice afternoon naps can be a Thursday (… Friday/Monday/Wednesday…) …. Oh, and skiing…. That’s a laugh too ;-)

But more on that later.

To sum up now… up until now I’ve not wanted to come home at all, quite the opposite in fact. There is a bit of me that thinks I may have found Mecca (and no, not the bingo hall). But half way is really big mental point, so literally today, writing this, I’ve started missing home, family and friends. It makes you think that maybe applying a time restrictions to time away is a bad idea…