jeudi

It’s Thursday evening and I’m back at the breakfast table, The Necks vibrating the keyboard at my fingers. We’ve just popped down the road in the puking snow to Lidl to get some groceries. In Bulk. We’ve cracked open one of the 3 bottles of wine we brought back – a cheery Bourgogne Pinot Noir. The white is already in the fridge and the other red (a tasty 1L for a Euro) is reserved for the vin chaud.

Things have been starting to kick off here in the Bourg. We’ve had our first few shifts of paid work – working for a chalet cleaning and maintenance company. Po has been making friends with lots of Frenchies, we’ve both had a bit of a bug, and I’ve been working myself in to fits of nervous anxiety waiting for some mailorder avo gear to arrive (I think sent by La Poste’s Extra Slow Shithouse Carrier Donkey).

The cleaning work has involved getting stuck in to 7 apartments up at Arc 1800 for the pre-season clean. Even with 4 people going at it it still takes about half a day to finish one apartment. Unfortunately I’ve missed 2 days this week due to a bug which may have slowed the process a wee bit, but we’re all back up there tomorrow for a full day and we should see them pretty much all finished.

This coming Saturday I have my first shift with a bus company. The shifts will involve ferrying people between a resort in the valley (Val d’Isere, Tignes, Les Arcs, 3 Vallees etc) and an airport (either Geneva, Grenoble or Chambery). It should be fun as its driving a long wheel base VW T5 Transporter …sick… and it’ll only be on Saturdays – Transfer Day. Anyway, when the season kicks in for good (in a week) we’ll both only be working 1 or 2 days a week. Enough to keep the funds topped. Still getting in 5 or 6 days skiing.

Skip forward a few days…

Its now Wednesday. The shift on Saturday was sweet. An early start at 4:45am; a hoon in 3-van-convoy up the valley to Tignes, just us and the snow clearers working the road; drop-off at Geneve; return.

Sunday, skiing at Val d’Isere with Chris and Myrah.


Bluebird day, not a breath of wind, cold (-15° when we stopped at 4:30pm) and unseasonally good snow had us in smiles all day. The vin chaud at lunch and skis-off might have helped a bit too.

mardi

Well today i had planned to sit outside on the steps of montee des Ecoles, looking down past our apartment, over the cobbled street of Grande Rue and up on to the snowy slopes of Arc 1600. But the rain has put an end to that idea. No worry, it should be snowing up top - freezing level is probably around the 1500m mark again today.

We're now sorted and settled here in our small 'studio' apartment in Bourg-Saint-Maurice. The place, about 25sqm, came furnished and pretty cheap. It fills what was once a gap between a building of 4 apartments and a dance hall. It’s amazingly soundproof. The kitchen occupies about a quarter of the space and is well equiped with stovetop, bar fridge, sink, crepe-maker, lettuce spinner and coffee drip-o-lator (now retired in favour of a wonderful stovepot, thanks Soph!). Im sitting at, I guess, a breakfast bar, and I can count 18 wine corks lined up against the wall to my left.

The bathroom takes up about another quarter and has the things you'd usually expect to find in a bathroom. The shower, oh the shower, is Amazing. Our experience with showers in France to date has been quite shit actually, so the unbelievable shower that we have here is quite the highlight of the setup.

The rest of the space serves as the bed/lounge/dining/store room. There is a couch, cafe table and chairs, low store-box-thingy, a window and the door. One wall is completely cupboards and bookshelves – very handy. The couch unfolds in to the bed, and theres enough room left over to accommodate the skis, the bikes and me on the floor when Sophie came to stay.

The apartment is on montée des Ecoles, just off the awesome and pedestrian-only Grande Rue. We inevitably stroll the Grande Rue every day. Firstly, turning right and up hill to our favourite boulangerie for a fresh baggie each morning, the woman there having to wipe here fingers of fresh framboise to handle our baguette, pas bien cuit. About twice a week we’re in our favourite café opposite the boulangerie. Inside with petit café or vin chaud, theres either the cat to stroke or the furry dog pausing at your side for a bit of a cuddle.

Left down Grande Rue theres the usual French assortment of shops – café, pharmacy, optometrist, pharmacy, bar, pharmacy, newsagent, pharmacy,… The bottom end of the Rue ends at the cheese co-op and the Mediatheque. We’ve only been to the co-op once so far, but intend to make it a regular. Its daunting asking for a slice of cheese from a wheel about the size and weight of a car tyre. We’re inside the mediatheque though each of the four days a week its open. Po is speeding her way through their amazing collection of BD’s, while we’re both delving into the CD library for solid gold like: Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, Peter Tosh and Toumani Diabate's Symmetric Orchestra.

Its now 2-days-less-than-a-month to go until the official opening of the ski season at Les Arcs. Thanks to the Bourse Aux Skis here at BSM the other week (good, but funnily not as good as the Cooma ski sale), we’ve now enough gear to see us through the 5 month season. Plus I am now the proud owner of a fluro yellow one-piece. Made in Paris apparantly. Actually I reckon I’d fit right in on the streets of Paris with this tight yellow number, such is the state of fashion there. Oh yeah it’s a snug fit. Not quite as snug as the Gibbon in his one-piece, but I’ll be thinking twice about getting in a tuck down the KL.

Also, if anyone would like to post themselves over for a bit, our address is as follows:

M. Jarrad Needham
21 montée des Ecoles
73700 Bourg-Saint-Maurice
FRANCE
ph: +33 6 71 85 52 87

yumyums

back in seez

The task now is to find accommodation for the winter. After leaving the WWOOF place, and while riding back to Seez, we took the chance to check out some ski resorts. Firstly Serre Chevalier, then La Grave / Deux Alpes, Alpe d’Huez, Les Sybelles, Longchamp / Valmorel, Les Trois Vallees and finally Les Arcs / La Plagne. A lot of skiing to be had thereJ

The weather is now hitting the subzeros, meaning we timed the ride here to perfection, and that the mountains are looking very wintery (4-6 inches yesterday)…

Plus thanks to everyone for 30th birthday wishes, I had a great day getting stuck into the champagne, the wine, the bacon, the bangers & mash, the pressies etc etc etc (Po really is the raddest!!…)

wworking

While in Annecy we tried to score some vendage work (grape picking), but had to settle for lining up some WWOOFing work instead. The WWOOF hosts were close(ish)-by in Briancon and were into things like home-grown veggies, home schooling their 3 kids and installing the most complicated solar water heater / inslab hydronic heating / rain water collection and filtration system ive ever seen.



The ride there was amazing over the cols de Telegraph and Galibier, and while working we had the chance to ride another incredible col, the d’Izoard. Workwise, we started in the veggie garden, pulling carrots, cabbages and turnips, then we got on to the big task that kept us going until the end – burying about 400m of water pipe. Ooh and playing with the 2 goats, cheeky and neigey.