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This year's skiing trip was to Val Thorens. We once again started off in the Waterloo Arms with some GFB. Danny had been kind enough to pick up Chris and me and drop us off at the Waterloo Arms. It was raining, but we were on holiday and at 2300m above sea level, rain comes down as "white stuff" (snow). A GFB or few, a late breakfast and an 18-pint carry out later we departed and headed for the Eurostar at Waterloo. Only half of GFB remained in the mini-pin after the journey up from Southampton! Before the GFB consumption started, we did our traditional train aisle baggage hike, but this time we headed for the rear of the train!
As last year, we all met up at Waterloo and boarded the Eurostar. Chris got some funny looks from the security staff as he walked through with no baggage (I'd been kind enough to wheel his luggage through on my trolley). We boarded the Eurostar soon after and headed for France. Unfortunately we were unable to educate the French with the benefits of British real ale as we'd drunk all the GFB before getting through the tunnel. Chris did an excellent job of entertaining Sasha onboard the Eurostar. We arrived safely at Gare du Nord and boarded the couchette, after popping out for a quick bite to eat.
Having boarded the train, Chris and I headed for the disco coach and continued to party until we eventually decided to go to bed at about 2am! Obviously, I wasn’t feeling very well and completely knackered when we arrived at Moutiers. A 45-minute coach journey later we were in our chalet in Val Thorens.
We sorted out lift passes, hired our skis and all made it onto the slopes by 11am. Even Sasha made it out onto the slopes for her first day ever on skis.
On the Sunday, Pete, Vic and I went skiing with Heather Rutherford, the Ski Club of Great Britain rep. We were also joined by Jo (another Ski Club rep.) and Wendy. We skied all the way down to Saint Martin (only 1400m above sea level) for a late, but lovely, lunch.
On Monday, Pete, Vic and I again went skiing with the Ski Club. Danny joined us for his free non-member day. This time we had a more leisurely day's skiing over in the Meribel / Mottaret valley. That evening, we headed over to the Frog and Roast Beef (the highest English-run pub in Europe) for an après ski drink.
In the Frog and Roast Beef, we discovered an absolutely superb live après ski band. The Frog instantly became our daily après ski venue, despite nicer (Belgian) beers elsewhere. We had some absolutely great moments in The Frog, including: Me dancing on stage having been heckling and Pete and Vic dancing on the table at the front.
Tuesday brought heavy downpours of very wet, slushy snow. Most of us only skied for a couple of hours, before retiring to lunch at the Auberge des Balcons (a restaurant in the same block as our chalet) for lunch and some early après ski. We liked the restaurant so much, that we booked a table for the following night when it was our Chalet Host Ronnie’s day off. On the Wednesday night, we had a lovely meal out and got through quite a few bottles of wine. I spent some time practising my (somewhat slurred) French on Karine and Myriam, two waitresses. We finally returned home, the hard core of us via the Red Fox pub for a night cap, and crashed out.
The next day (Thursday) I had a lie-in and joined Mike, Sasha, Anthony and Chris for lunch. I arrived to find Sasha throwing snowballs and beating Jamie into submission! At lunch Anthony put a little too much sun cream on and turned rather white! In the afternoon Chris, Anthony, Monika (a friend of Chris and Anthony from ski school) and I went skiing together. Unfortunately, the only photo of us out skiing features Monika after a little gravity incident.
Thursday night turned into a little bit of an alcoholic affair. After supper, we ended up down in the Auberge des Balcons until they closed. Chris, Anthony and I continued drinking in the Red fox where we met up with the group of doctors sharing the chalet next to ours. Chris was getting a little tired in the Red Fox and had crashed out on the sofa by the time that I had returned from the next-door Chalet at 3am. My apologies go to all those (especially Sam) who I apparently woke up by shouting "Monsieur Rosbeef" (I don’t remember this, so they could just be making it up!?).
On Friday night, our final evening in Val Thorens, we organised a birthday celebration for Myk, who had recently turned 50. We surprised him as he turned up for supper. Sasha celebrated with a fine display of ceiling walking, assisted by Chris. Ronnie had once again prepared a feast for us and had even baked Myk a birthday cake. Following supper, we ended up playing "Just a Minute" followed by a long game of charades. I managed to capture Pete, Vic, Danny and Myk in full charades action!
On our final morning Pete, Vic, Danny, Sam and I headed up the Cime de Caron cable car in order to ski down the freshly pisted black run. Before skiing down we took some photos of us standing at the observation point at the top (hey! I even feature in one!). Danny, being a structural engineer, was very impressed with the cantilever structure which was the top of the cable car. Pete kindly agreed to ski ahead with my camera in order to help me prove that I did actually do some skiing this holiday! Later on in the morning, Anthony joined Pete, Vic and me and we hammered down the Tete Ronde doing ETOs (Essential Turns Only) which caused some BSGs (Big Silly Grins)! Wahey - another photo with me in it!
Finally, the holiday was over. We headed back to the Chalet, returned our hired equipment and headed for home. On the train, we cracked into some beer and wine and took the mandatory photo of lots of people cramped in a couchette cabin! Pete found a sign saying how the window could be used as a bottle opener and was soon found proudly holding an open bottle of Pelforth. The Eurostar left Paris late and arrived in London even later. We then found out that they are once again doing works on the Waterloo to Southampton train line, so a 1¼ hour journey soon turned into two hours.
We had a great holiday, but it is also nice to be home.
All photos are 640x480 JPEG images (under 100K), unless otherwise indicated. If you'd like to download any full-size photos (1280x960) then these can be found here
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