Ski holiday day 5 - rescued by a bus

Sam’s regular monitoring of all available sources of weather data had suggested that our fifth day in France might not be quite as nice as the first four and so it proved.

The day was decidedly windy, so it was glasses off and goggles on and time to pull the neck-warmer up around the chin.

We took a higher ski-lift than previously which led to a high ridge that I’d been on the first day with Jo. There was a good blue which led off the ridge down into a huge bowl. It was not too steep a run, but narrowish and with a pretty steep drop to the left. As is descended into the bowl, other runs joined it and a blue ran off to the left down past Arc 1950.

The high wind which had been kicking up spindrifts of snow as we sat on the sk- lift and had been ripping across the ridge, was now left high above and it was a great day. The new blue was steep in places, but nice and wide and not too busy so we could practise our parallel turns, which were coming easier and easier to me. I’m still snowploughing into the turn and left turns are better than right, but if I lose control, I can generally regain it quite quickly.

We skied down past 1950 and to the foot of a couple of chair-lifts where there were massive queues. Although we were nicely sheltered, it turns out that the wind higher up was stopping the leifts from operating, so it was skis off and Loic led us out onto the road where we waited for the courtesy bus to take us back down to Arc 1600.

By the time we got back, there was just time for a quick 20 minutes ski on one of the lower lifts that was still working and then it was lesson over.

I’d decided that my long hair really needed sorting out, so I headed down to Bourg, parked my gear in the car and headed for the hairdresser. I got there just after 1pm and, guess what, it was shut! French hairdressers open at 9am, shut at 12 noon, open again at 2pm and shut at 5pm. It’s not exactly an onerous working day! They do stay open all day Saturday, which is clearly haircut day, but get Monday off in compensation.

I was just getting grumpy about it (and considering my next move) when Sam texted me to say he and Lucy were heading down, so I walked back to the car to meet them at the bottom of the funicular. It turned out that someone (clearly a Parisian) had skied into Lucy at a chairlift, she’d hurt her knee and also broken a part on her ski binding.

The grumpy Scottish man at Polaire was needed, but this being France and this being lunchtime, he was also shut. Sam decided to give InterSport a chance and so we drove there (it’s just next to the Super U supermarket and we’d been there last year for a look around). Inter really came good, the ski workshop was open and the guy spent ages looking through his boxes of bits for a spare part and then sorted it out in no time. he didn’t even want paying, just a donation in the tips box.

With our gas sorted out, Sam was able to resume his cassoulet plans and it was very good, worth waiting for. Our evenings are spent doing crosswords, drinking and stoking the fire and by 9.30pm, I’m ready for bed. Lucy keeps reminding me that it’s only 8.30pm UK time.

Ski holiday day 4 - Loic in charge

After two days of afternoon ski school, it was a bit of a shock to have to be up at Arc 1600 for a 9am start.

We caught the 8.30am funicular and it was the third really warm sunny day. Getting the early train meant that it was a little more quiet, but really filled up at the middle station called Les Granges, where lots of families seem to be staying. The carriages fill up with French parents and little children all decked out in their ski gear.

When the funicular pulls into Arc 1600, the children sing “nous sont arriver, nous sont arriver”. The carriage slows down as the cable pulls it into the finish position and the children’s song slows to a crawl as well. Lucy loves to sing along.

Sam and Lucy (mainly Sam) had a couple of things they wanted to do on this holiday. One was to ski down from the Aguille Rouge - high point in the Les Arcs ski area and black run along the top/side of a ridge. They had looked to do it last year, but the wind had been too strong, so they managed it on Sunday when the weather was absolutely beautiful. Sam said it wasn’t too bad, it was really a red run, not a black, but they’d probably classed it as more difficult because of the exposure and to discourage too many people from trying it.

Their second objective was to have a day in the La Plagne resort, which sits alongside Les Arcs, but is separated by a long, narrow valley. They’d bought a one-day extension on their ski pass and to get across there, you take resort, which sits alongside Les Arcs, but is separated by a long, narrow valley. They’d bought a one-day extension on their ski pass and to get across there, you take the Vanoise Express cable-car. This is a massive contraption, a double-decker cable-car that shoots across the valley in super-quick time.

I met Loic as suggested. Of course, Jo hadn’t mentioned our arrangement to him, but he seemed quite pleased to have someone else in his group. The standard wasn’t massively different, but Loic didn’t seem to have the same obsession with left-foot side-slipping which was a blessed relief.

There were six French in our group and two English people, myself and a chap called Dave, who was the polar opposite of Meg. He was there with his wife, who was a much better skier than he was and he was having lessons in a lower group, hoping to improve enough to ski with her. He was a nice chap, but he was no Meg. He was having only one lesson per day and he was a careful, steady bloke who didn’t want to break anything. Among the French was a woman with her teenage son and daughter. It was quite touching that the son, who was the better skier, was always looking after his mum. He’d hang around at the back with her to make sure she was OK and help her up if she fell.

View of Bourg-Saint-Maurice from Arc 1600. Villaret, where we are staying is more or less in the centre
of the photograph. Mont Blanc is in the centre of the ridge. It looks like part of the ridge but is actually
20 miles or so behind the other mountains (and much higher of course).

Loic’s lesson was more laid-back than Jo. He had a good sense of humour and after half an hour skiing, he decided we all needed to visit a cafe at the side of the piste. When I ordered a vin chaud, he joined me in a flash. It was a lovely clear day with great views across the Mont Blanc massif. We skied down into Arc 1800, the sister resort to 1600 (but 200 metres higher, as the name suggests). Neither resort has much to commend it. In the 1960s, when the ski boom was starting, Les Arcs was a small collection of farms. The land was bought up, runs constructed, lifts installed and several large, multi-storey hotels were plonked on the side of the mountain. The architecture is high-rise flats and there’s precious little character or anything to do except ski, eat and drink (which is fair enough because that’s exactly why people go there).

So Arc 1800 was built a few years after 1600 and is pretty much a carbon copy. I learnt a few new blue runs and it was a really good day’s skiing. The icing on the cake was that I hadn’t fallen over once and I was also starting to get the hang of the parallel turn, so that steeper slopes could be traversed in more safety.

Some of the blues were quite busy in places, but you just had to keep an eye out for folk. On the ski lift up from Arc 1800 I was sat next to a Frenchman and his young daughter (five or six years old). It was a beautiful day and the little girl was singing away to herself. I remarked that the scenery was so beautiful that it made you want to sing, at which point she shut up like a clam, but dad was very keen to have a chat. Where was I from? Was there snow in England? I said there wasn’t and we didn’t have mountains like this. What about Scotland? he said. I said that my bed this week was higher than the highest mountain in England and that Scotland had got nothing on the Alps - he was very lucky. he lived in Grenoble, which is very close by and he loved the mountains. He advised me to come a week later next year to avoid the French holidays (he hated the Parisians). We parted old friends.

Thanks to Laura at work and Michel Thomas, I have learned a few useful French phrases and Laura has also taught me a few things about French manners, which definitely makes a difference. Always says hello and goodbye when using a shop, for example. Certain manners are important to the French; they think nothing of pushing in front of you at the ski lift, but it’s really bad form to enter a shop and not give a hearty greeting to the assistant.

I’ve been je voudrais this, that and the other; I’ve nailed meme chose pour moi si vous plait and pas pour moi comes in handy when waiters are keen to fill your glass with water. Indeed my French is so good that I’m now often mistaken for a native and have to explain to an astonished Frenchman that je suis anglais and je parle pas francais tres bon.

I guess I was riding for a fall and after my ski lesson I stopped off in the main square for a drink and a noon snack. I wanted my usual lemon tea, honey and almond crepe and a Ricard. I’m not sure what went wrong; I think I caught the waitress on a fag break and her mind wasn’t really on the job, but I ended up with tea, an espresso coffee and a crepe. I decided two out of three wasn’t too bad!

Ski holiday day 3 - thrown out of ski school

Day 3, Monday: another absolutely glorious day with bright blue sky and lovely warm sunshine. How long will this last - well until Wednesday according to WeatherPro, when we are forecast wind and rain at low altitude and snow higher up.

I wasn’t due at ski school until 2pm, but I went down to the funicular with Sam and Lucy in the morning and, while they went up to Arc 1600, I walked across the footbridge into Bourg.

I’d taken my ski helmet off yesterday and I had a really bad case of helmet hair - I looked like a mi-ki dog - so this morning I decided to get a French haircut. There was some speculation as to what I would look like after being coiffured (and I was a bit grumpy about spending €20 on a haircut - that’s London prices) but it would be an adventure.

Well, it would have been, but Lundi is Bourg’s day off - very little was open and the hairdressers were not. I had a little wander around, read The Times on my Kindle in a cafe and I was wondering what to do by 11.30am. I walked back to the car and ate my lunch - a Savoyarde Sam special sandwich (ham, cheese and mustard) plus a piece of flapjack. I’d made a tray before we left thinking that it would work well for packed lunches and it was quite useful. I sat in the car going through Total French (disc 1) by Michel Thomas (which is a very good course) but the dozy woman student gets so annoying that I want to punch her.

I could now engage my fellow ski school students (most of whom are French) with such banter as “what opinion do you have regarding the economic and political situation in France at the present time?” I might try that on Jo if he starts banging on about my big skis again. By the way, I asked Sam if he thought I should hire some shorter skis and he very definitely thought that I shouldn’t.

I was at ski school bright and early at 2pm. Colin had been promoted to a better group and Tom had fallen over and hurt his leg. There was no more skiing for him - hopefully Mrs Colin’s evil plan was not coming to fruition. Meg was also on the up. She’d been skiing in the morning again and was now heading into a higher group - watch out Mr Meg, she’s catching you up.

I asked Jo about going in a lower group and he said I was too good for the lower group and that I should stay with him. He headed up the small ski lift and then up the longer one to above Arc 1800. I’d survived some left-foot side-slipping and a steepish slope when Jo pulled me over and said I was too slow and would hold up the others. He advised me to go to the ski school and trade in my group lessons for some personal tuition which would be better for me. I said I didn’t want to pay for personal tuition and was there a group in the morning that would be better suited to my skill level? He was quite surprised (as if English people didn’t function in the morning) but said that if I wanted to I could do that and I should rock up at 9am and ask for Loic.

With that helpful advice Jo was off, advising me to stick to this slope and I’d find my way down. I was at the top of quite a steep section of blue, but it was nice and wide, so I traversed back and to, going at my own pace and came back down into Arc 1600 in about 30 minutes. I was a bit grumpy about being left halfway up a mountain and told to find my own way back, but that’s the French for you! I consoled myself with a lemon tea, honey and almond crepe and a glass of Ricard. Actually, eating and drinking in the sun was a much nicer way to spend an afternoon that falling over a dozen times.



Sam and Lucy were not too late and we popped into the supermarket for fresh supplies - logs for the fire, beer, cheese and a few extras such as a bottle of limoncello!

The logs were about €4 a bag, but they were good hard wood, nicely dry and seasoned and they burned really hot in the stove. If you light that, it gets the whole chalet warmed through. I also bought some Beaufort cheese - with the summer (ete) cheese you’re supposed to be able to taste the grass and it did have a lovely earthy taste. Sam made a tartiflette for dinner because the gas bottle had run out on the hob and we hadn’t been able to find Luc (the ski instructor cum handyman, who looks after the place). The oven runs on electric, so we could use that and leave the half-finished cassoulet on the hob.

Spring in the garden

We have a cold spell in March - it's been one of the coldest days for more than 30 years - but the spring flowers are making the most of any sunshine.

Margaret has taken pictures of some of the flowers using her iPod Touch.

Hellebore - we have a few of these, most
self-seeded. This is a lovely colour
and we also have pink and pure white.

Dutch iris have been blooming for three weeks.
In this pot they are mixed with white crocus.

A lovely, colourful group of species crocus.

Ski holiday day 2 - I am cream-crackered!

Day 2 (Sunday) and the weather is absolutely amazing. It’s bright, strong sunshine and very warm in the sun, as high as 15 deg C, according to the forecast and I can believe it.

After a decent night’s sleep, we were all ready to get cracking. I had a ski lesson planned for the afternoon, but needed to go up to Arc 1600 to book my lessons for the week. We drove down to the funicular for a fairly early start and it was like the Victoria Line. That’s Paris holiday week for you!

Your ski pass is a little like an Oyster card, as you approach the funicular gates, they open to let you through and it’s the same for the chair lifts. Last year, I’d skied in the morning before my lesson and managed to hurt my leg quite badly, so this year I decided I’d play it safe and have no skiing until my lesson which was arranged 2-5pm for the next six days.

That done, I popped back down to Bourg-Saint-Maurice to collect my skis and then had a wander around town for a couple of hours, doing some window shopping and getting my bearings. Bourg isn’t a large town, but it is a proper town rather than a ski resort, so there are a decent range of shops and bars which cater for French residents rather than tourists. Lots of people who are skiing stay in the town, of course, but it’s a nice mix.

St Maurice was a Roman soldier, commander of the Christian Theban legion before Christianity was the official religion of the empire. They were ordered from Egypt to Gaul to help the emperor Maximian to defeat and uprising and were to clear what is now the Little St Bernard pass, which is a route from Italy to France. The Legion was ordered to take some reprisals against Christians in the area, but refused and Maximian ordered the legion to be decimated (every 10th soldier was killed). They still refused to carry out the order, so Maximian ordered another decimation and when they still refused, he had the whole legion, including Maurice, executed - a total of 6,500 men. You don't mess with the Romans.

After a light lunch, it was time for ski school, back up the funicular, this time wearing heavy ski boots and lugging my newly refurbished skis. A small group of us was gathered in the ‘improvers’ section and they were mainly French. There was one English girl called Meg, who was there with her husband. He was a good skier and she was having lessons twice a day so she could improve and keep up with him. She seemed just a little too competitive for my liking (perhaps Mr Meg quite liked a little Meg-free time, but his time was clearly going to be limited).

Also in the group was Colin and Tom from Suffolk. Colin was about 55 and Tom (his dad) was 83. Apparently Tom had been an accomplished skier in his day, but he hadn’t skied for 13 years - since he was 70 - and he looked as if he should be holding a walking frame, not a pair of ski poles. Age had given him a permanently bent back, so that he was always in a racing crouch.

Colin told me that he had arranged to come skiing with his son, but his son had to drop out due to work commitments, so his wife (who had been worried about him coming on his own) had persuaded Tom to come in place of his grandson. I wondered if this was Mrs Colin's evil plan to cash in on her inheritance, but I have to say, I admired Tom's pluck and he’d come into the learner group to see how he got along after not skiing for 13 years. 

Our instructor Jo took one look at Tom and got on his radio. It’s very rare the French let health and safety get in the way of a good time, but Jo could spot a lame duck and he arranged for Tom to go in the beginners’ group. That was a bit of a shame because it’s quite hard work for beginners at Arc 1600 - there’s no lift and only a small nursery slope, so they have to toil up and down this little space in front of the ski lift (side-stepping up and snow-ploughing down).

We headed up the small chairlift and down a bit of green and blue so Jo could see how we got on. He asked me how long my skis were and, of course, I had no idea.

“Size isn’t everything, Jo,” I told him, but he didn’t understand smutty English humour and told me my skis were too long, I should have no more than 150cm skis, otherwise it would be hard for me to learn. That’s just what I needed to boost my confidence.

It was a good afternoon, we did lots of blues and some steep sections where we could practise Jo’s favourite activity - side-slipping. My legs, especially my left leg, were taking a pounding and as I got tired I fell over more and more. I must have fallen half a dozen times and I was absolutely exhausted by the time we were finished.

It was good to be done and I said to Jo at the end of the lesson that I might be better in a lower group. There were a couple of other fallers in his section, but I think the overall standard was a little high for me, so that I was struggling to keep up.

It had been a perfect day for skiing with brilliant warm sun, clear views across the alps with Mont Blanc standing high in the north. It was good to enjoy a beer in the last of the evening sun and nice to see the collie dog who last year I’d christened Meribel. She came for a fuss, but there was no sign of her partner from 2012, Maurice. She stayed until we got tired of stroking her, she’s skin and bone and has big mats of fur behind her ears, but her teeth are brilliant white. This was the only time that we saw Meribel, perhaps there had been complaints about them running loose, or perhaps they were busy on the farm?

Ski holiday day 1 - what a way to start your holiday

The two young men in the bar/coffee lounge of the 11.20 ferry from Dover to Calais were clearly quite drunk and intent on getting very, very drunk.

By the time we’d made our way up there from the car deck, they had each secured a bottle of wine and a pint of lager. I suspect a pint may have been necked already.

They sounded like Geordies but it was hard to tell; there was a lot of “effing” and they clearly were not happy drunks. The beer kept coming and the volume and the swearing/aggression rose in sync. I thought there might be an altercation, there was a long, angry call on a mobile to a woman and then a debate about what a slag she was, followed by another round of drinks. I thought they might be soldiers because they looked fairly fit and had short hair, but who knows.

On the way down to the car deck in Calais, Sam remarked that he hoped they weren’t driving - good grief, that would be scary!

Driving overnight had seemed like a good idea. Last year, we set off early in the morning from London and reached Villaret sur la Rosiere at about 6.30pm. The traffic from Albertville, through Moutiers and into Bourg had been absolutely awful - a 30-mile stop/start crawl that put us way behind schedule and meant we didn’t reach our accommodation until after dark. It was tricky finding the place and we couldn’t get any shopping done or get our ski passes.

This year, we thought we’d arrive not long after breakfast and the early part of the journey went well. Sam took the first shift and I tried to snooze, but couldn’t relax (I was worried that Sam might fall asleep) and when it was my turn to drive, I was shattered and Sam couldn’t relax for fear that I might fall asleep. I did a fairly short turn at the wheel and then Sam took over again, with me doing the last leg.

We were doing great until we hit major traffic between Lyon and Chambery. There seemed no reason for the delay, we were on a dual-carriageway and the traffic was not unduly heavy, then we just hit the end of a tailback and that’s how it was all the way to Albertville.

We found out later that it was Paris holiday week (as well as other parts of France). I was fearing that we might have another long crawl up through Moutiers to Bourg, but almost as quickly as the traffic had jammed, it freed itself and we were on the move again. We’d lost a couple of hours, but as least the run into Bourg was smooth and this time we knew where we were going.

The car performed quite well. There was enough room, although not loads spare and the ski rack on the roof worked well. It did spoil the fuel economy somewhat though, we managed around 35mpg.

So we got to our destination a little later than planned, but still had all afternoon to allow us to go to the supermarket, get our ski passes and take my skis into the repair shop by the funicular. I’d bought secondhand skis and was expecting a similar lecture to the one Sam got last year. It was a bit of a disappointment. He told me they were not very good, the edges were gone and they were in a bit of a state, but he did set them up, filled them, waxed them and sharpened the edges for €35. I was ready for skiing tomorrow.

Gravel desperately ill

Gravel in the sea at new year

Our plans for a holiday in the French Alps with Sam and Lucy were somewhat disrupted by dint of Gravel being unwell.

He and Holly were booked into kennels for the week, but in the days before we were due to leave it was clear that Gravel was not right. He had no energy and was very lethargic - not at all like a springer spaniel.

I’d noticed some swelling of his belly and also a distrinct lump. The vet had suggested it might be Cushing’s disease, a condition caused by a hormone imbalance where the symptoms included distended belly. This would be confirmed by a blood test.

We decided that Margaret should stay at home but I would go skiing.

Gravel had his blood tests on the Monday I was away and we then had to wait a few days before confirmation and starting treatment. The test for Cushing’s came back negative, which was a surprise as the vet had made a strong suggestion that was the problem and we were expecting the blood test to confirm it. She then suggested it could be a thyroid problem and suggested tests to look for hyperthyroidism. Two tests were done and showed that Gravel may have a slight imbalance - sub-clinical hyperthyroidism. She started him on some medicine on the Friday that I was away and Margaret said he seemed a little better.

We got home about 6pm on the Saturday and Gravel was very excited to see us. However, it was clear to me that he wasn’t right and when I felt his belly, the lump that I’d detected in the week before we went away, was clearly much bigger. It was quite a chilling discovery.

Sam examined him and thought the lump was about the size of a grapefruit - a considerable mass. We clearly had to get him back to the vet and see what could be done. Frankly, I feared the worse. This was a massive lump, growing aggressively and would require a major operation to remove it.

Margaret took him to the vet on Monday armed with extensive notes from Sam and the vet was alarmed by the size of the lump and that she’d not spotted it earlier. She clearly hadn’t examined him properly, she’d taken a look at him, listened to the symptoms and jumped to the wrong conclusion - Cushings.

The problem was now beyond the skills or technology of Whittlesey and so they asked Margaret to take him to their practice in Broadway, Peterborough where an ultra-sound scan showed a massive tumour surrounding the spleen. An X-ray suggested that it hadn’t spread to other organs and the vet thought it could be removed (along with the spleen) with a positive outcome for Gravs. We gave the go-ahead on the basis that if he opened him up and found that it was hopeless, he should simply not let him wake up. He’d operate immediately because he was concerned that the tumour might rupture.

So we had an anxious wait on Monday until the vet called to say that the operation had gone OK and Gravel was still with us. We’d see how he got through the night and the following day, so more anxious waiting. Gravel got through Tuesday OK and was making good progress, so they said he could come home Wednesday evening.

It was good to see him. He looked incredibly thin compared to how he was, with his belly gone and a really defined waist. The vet told us that the tumour has weighed 3.4kg, which is the size of a baby, so it was hardly surprising that Gravel looked so slim. I asked how it could possibly be that big and the vet said that it had been growing backwards into his belly, causing that to swell outwards, but also up into his rib-cage where it couldn’t be felt.

Gravel came home, trotted into the garden and did a one-minute wee. He then went down to the bottom of the lawn and did a huge dump! The good news is that he’s definitely not lost his appetite, he seems to be a little better each day and last night, he even humped my leg when I came home - his favourite greeting (and not one that I encourage). His scar is massive - from the middle of his chest, straight down to past his sheath.

He’s back at the vet this morning for a check-up so we’re hoping all is OK (it certainly appears so). The next issue will be whether the tumour was malignant or benign. If benign, then there’s every chance he’ll survive another four years or so (he’s nine this year) and can have a full, happy and active life.

Treatment, including the misdiagnosed hyperthyroidism, came to £2,500. Luckily, we have pet insurance to cover that, but my premiums (currently £27 per month) are bound to increase substantially.

UPDATE: Gravel went back to the vet today (Friday) for a check-up following the operation and we got the results of the lab tests on the tumour. Sadly, it was malignant and so the long-term outlook isn’t great. They’re doing some more tests to see what type of cancer they’re dealing with and that may give us an insight into life expectancy.

It’s a disappointment after all he’s been through this week, but there was every likelihood of losing him on Monday, so I guess every day is a bonus. I hope he can have a happy summer, he really is a lovely natured dog. Of course, none of us know when the trapdoor will open underneath our feet/paws and dogs probably have the right attitude - live one day at a time and enjoy it as much as you can. That’s what we’ll be doing with Gravel.

Gravel and Holly having a good sniff in the garden. This was his first day back home