The family comes to town!

Well yet another week has flown by this time with visitors, but all had a good time. We had Mr’s family out to visit, mum, dad, brother, his wife and our gorgeous 10-month-old nephew.  We had clear blue skies and sunshine for them, which were lovely, but a distinct lack of snow! It was a busy week for us, up relatively early to ski/snowboard (well slide across icey patches!!) with my brother and sis in law, then cuddles and playtime with the little ‘un then après drinks with the parents before dinner then round to theirs or ours or back out again. Bloody knackered! Good job we did’nt have to fit work in as well we would never have managed it!!!

   But it was great to see some familiar faces, have a bit of female company and catch up with our nephew’s new tricks! High five was the order of the day!! So cute! It was also nice to have some company on the slopes too, even though it was with 3 snowboarders and me the only skier!! (There is always rivalry, us skiers blame the boarders for near misses and the like and ditto the boarders for us skiers, I was seriously outnumbered!!). And from a seasonaires point of view we got free wine at their chalet so that was good! Never pass up on an opportunity for free booze eh??

  I’m also racking up the non-ski days, any visitors will be starting to get paranoid, and it was half way through the week again, just like last time! I pulled my back the week before they arrived, nothing serious but very uncomfortable. And I did’nt do it skiing or walking (sliding!) around the ice covered village, I was doing the bloody washing!  One of the down sides to apartment living here is the lack of space so that generally means no washing machines, and judging by the fact that the launderettes charge €7.50 a load (wash only, same again to dry!) I would guess not many people have in house washing facilities. I might open a bloody laundry, become a millionaire! But anyhow I knew all this before we came so I bought a travel twin tub that goes in the bath, absolutely brilliant but weighs a ton so when I picked it up after doing a couple of loads there went my back. Then obviously as we had guest’s it started to get worse resulting in 2 days off the mountain but it did mean we had a chance to watch our nephew sledging which was just lovely, he absolutely loved it! Extreme baby!!! And we took the parents up to the top of the mountains in the cable cars so they enjoyed a day off of being in the village. So not all bad, and I no longer resemble a cripple!!

  I expect I sound like a right hypochondriac, what with the ever lasting cold, the chest infection, always feeling freezing cold and now this bad back!! I am hardly ever ill and never have any complaints, my body normally functions perfectly well on the physical front. You do have to wonder if I am cut out for this mountain living malarkey??  Maybe I should be swathed in fur, be living in a luxury chalet with it’s own masusse and spa, sitting slope side in a fabulous restaurant sipping coffee, just skiing when there’s fresh snow and mild temperatures! Oh and I would need that helicopter on stand by for some impromptu shopping trips, we’ not that far from Milan or Geneva after all.

Oh and I would probably need to win the lottery!!!!

On the top of the world at the glacier.

On the glacier with the boarders!! I'm the one doing a storm trooper impression!!