I was standing at the bottom of the Prodains lift, waiting for the bus back into Morzine after a morning of riding over to Avoriaz, eating far too much at Changabangs and deciding to head home for a pre dinner service snooze. Standing in the bus queue with me were the usual assortment of people you would expect to find in a ski resort, tourists, natives (for want of a better word, I'm not being judgemental about the French or anything) and seasonnaires. The seasonnaires can be split into subspecies, some of which would be those that work and those that bum around. I imagine that the species of seasonnaire standing in front of me in the queue was of the bum variety and I make this assumption based on the bull doo-doo he was spouting. It was the kind of stuff that makes me cringe when I hear it, the kind of 'break free from the chains of society' nonsense that some people use to justify their chosen way of life. "Yeah, I didn't want to be a part of the system you know, I didn't want to be fed into the suburban slave classes who are like, totally enslaved you know, like, incarceration by aspiration, you know what I mean...", this and more priceless pearls of wisdom were being bestowed on a pretty girl he was talking to. I don't know how she felt about it or him, but I was thinking "Geez, this guy is full of shit!". If you don't want to conform to the 9-5, get a job, get married, suburban, raise a family lifestyle then fair enough. There are many people that don't want to conform to that, but don't feel the need to talk bullshit to justify their life choices. Different strokes for different folks. Sorry, rant over, it just annoys me when people think they're so damn unique for breaking free and so on, like they're the first person to ever have done so, or think they're the first generation to ever have done so. I'm all for travelling, expanding horizons, not settling for a hum drum existence but you don't have to be a cock about it. Bla, bla, bla, I'll get off my soap box now but I bet in the summer he goes to Thailand to "find himself".
Time, it seems to be literally vanishing! The first guests came and went and so did Christmas. I did get a lovely beanie hat, fleece lined with a giant bobble on it from them, for a Christmas gift, very sweet!! We have our second lot of guests now and it takes a moment for your brain to adjust to new people in the chalet. It's going to be a weird thing for the next 18 weeks, to have a totally new set of people every week. I didn't imagine it would be this odd, but just as you get used to one lot they disappear and others appear. They appear far too quickly too! I'm talking of course of the nightmare that is transfer day. Get them up, fed and watered, make sure their bags are packed, walk them to the bus for 9AM. Hugs and kisses and heartfelt goodbyes and waving until the bus is out of sight then frantic cleaning/cooking/tidying/organising/bed making/jacuzzi draining etc.etc.etc. This goes on until 2PM when the dreaded phone call comes "the bus is in Taninge, time to come to the office". This is when you look at yourself in the mirror and think you've seen better looking piles of dog sick but you have no time to do anything about it, slap on your clean uniform and race to the bus to greet the new lot, with a HUGE smile on your face which hides the utter panic that is occurring inside because you've just remembered that really important thing you forgot to do before leaving the chalet. Get them to the chalet in one piece, stop them wandering off into town (like herding cats at times) then the week starts again as they sit down to a big pile of freshly baked brownies and listen to your welcome speech. Repeat 18 more times and the season is over. Time, it's being robbed from me, I swear.
New Years Eve tomorrow. Time for reflection, thinking about the year past and the year to come, family and friends present and absent, new friends and old friends... when to book that ticket to Thailand to find myself.... Ha! See what I did there? Anyway, it is New Years Eve and no doubt I shall be reflecting, what a crazy time I've had lately. A relationship over, the end of an era with Blanca dog, moving home, moving life, moving boxes and yet more moving, a new qualification, a new direction, a new country, a new snowboard. 2011, I had big hopes for you as a year and you've certainly been an eventful year!! That much is definitely true. So where will you be when the clock strikes and 2012 is ushered in? Who will you be with? What hopes will you have for the new year? I will most likely be at a seasonnaire house party, in the staff accommodation affectionately known as Basra. A dear old friend of mine is coming to Morzine, we've been friends since we were 10-11, so I'll have the old and the new, which is great! We'll be eating left overs from all the chalet dinners we'll have cooked and be supping on opened wines our guests didn't drink throughout the week, we'll be super stoked to be in the marvellous mountains and we'll be thoroughly hammered by the time the clock strikes midnight. My only hope for the year (apart from peace on Earth, which I wish for all the time but it never seems to happen) is that it keeps snowing and that I get to ride some awesome powder, other than that, I'll leave 2012 to do what it will with me, no big list of resolutions, let's just see what happens. If I don't get to say it to you personally at the moment the new year comes in, have a fantastic New Years and may 2012 be good to you and yours!
