Late night, at a crossroads in old Morzine...

... stood a chalet girl and a ski instructor. Is that a massive cliché? Probably.

More cleaning now. More blogging later.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

I'm tired. Deep cleaning is not fun. People are tired and emotions are running high. Interactions can be fraught and tense. Some situations are not easy, some people are not easy, I know I can be one of those people on occasion , but I'm generally quick to apologise when I do snap or make a harsh comment. I feel things keenly and sometimes it takes me a while to warm up again after things have gone awry. I feel the stress of are we going to get it all done? Am I going to get my paperwork filled in correctly and on time? Will my first guests be nice? Will I ruin Christmas dinner for them? Am I going to work well with someone? Will I ever make it on to an actual slope on my snowboard? I feel at times a bit overwhelmed. Those are the worst of times.

When the snow is falling, the sun is shining on the mountains and I'm with good people, it sometimes takes me a minute to grasp that I'm here for the next five months. When I'm surrounded by people from a fair few different walks of life coming together as a unit, enjoying free booze and food for seasonnaires then dancing the night away, I have to remind myself that this is, in fact, all mine for the next five months. Mine to enjoy. Times full of laughter, fun, friendship and great memories being made. There have been plenty of those times so far, thankfully. Those are the best of times.

Right now is tired times. I never thought that cleaning a bathroom could feasibly take 2-3 hours. But then again I don't usually do it with a toothpick, toothbrush, 2 different colour cloths and at least 3-4 different products. I tell you what, those guests had better pull the plug up and appreciate just how clean that plug hole is....

Wisdom of youth

A young man once said to me, there will be many more Swainos (sp?) and I hope that the young man turns out to be right! Now if you're not employed at my company or happen to have been in Val d'Isere, Morzine or Meribel in the last few weeks then you won't know what I'm talking about. That's fine, just accept the wisdom.

I am sitting here, on the comfy sofa, enjoying the underfloor heating in my new chalet. The chalet I'll be running from the 19th of December to the 29th (?) of April. I think it's fair to say I'm happy as a clam. (I must admit I'm never sure about that saying, has anyone ever actually ascertained whether a clam is genuinely happy?)..... I must be tired, my mind is going off on random tangents.

Saw my lovely http://warandpiste.com/ girls today on their book promo tour through the Alps. I can't tell you how great it was to see familiar, friendly faces. That's not to say I don't like the people I'm with, but there's just something about seeing friends that brings comfort. Especially when they're such lovely friends. Alex Thomas wrote the most wonderful acknowledgement to me in the book and it made me a bit emotional. So in the quiet, cosy warmth of Dotty's coffee shop in Morzine, a few of us shed a few tears. Thinking about it now makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside and has made my eyes leak a little bit again. Thanks for stopping in girls, it was 'rad' and 'sick' to see you! xxx

Short post tonight cos I want to get as much sleep as possible before the deep clean of the chalets starts tomorrow. Yet again, it's going to be a long day with hard, hard work. Followed by a long night with hard, hard drinking. Off to Cavern for free seasonnaire drinks and then L'Etale for free seasonnaire food. Rock on! We get a lie in on Wednesday morning, so that's awesome.

I'm off to my little room under the stairs, cos that's where chalet girls sleep (but this little room has an ensuite wet room and underfloor heating, so don't feel too sorry for me!).

Of wine tastings, mine sweeping and tartiflette...

Today was wine tasting. Today was also our day off. Last night was a big night out. Wine tasting topped up our alcohol levels and so the day went on.

Pub after wine tasting. People are strapped for cash already so early season mine sweeping is happening.

We're waiting for tartiflette to happen, but everyone is hammered and the cooking process is far from smooth. Every single member of staff seems to be crammed into our chalet and I'm pretty sure one of the tartiflette pans just went on the floor. Kitchen is a state, as is everyone else. Apparently I'm cooking breakfast tomorrow, my partner in that task seems a bit worse for wear. It's not going to be a good service.

I learned something today, from a group of people who know their shit: a steezy backside 1 is better than a shitty 7. Bonus points for you if you know what I'm talking about.

Sometimes, when you look around and assess the situation, you've either gotta get in deeper or get the hell outta dodge. Tonight I'm choosing to get the hell outta dodge, tartiflette or no tartiflette...


**In the nick of time, as 3 nannies start giving the first aid trainer a lap dance**

Mutzig, really?

Okey dokey, karaoke. I hate it when people say that, but I typed it and I can't be bothered to delete it. Everything is a lot of effort today.

It's snowing. So much! Went to Les Gets the other day for training and it was green, dumped massively over the last few days and now it's actually difficult to get there because of all the snow!! Totally amazing. We've got a day off on Friday and we're thinking of taking a little hike and maybe building a kicker to session. YAY!

KJ and I had our cooking night yesterday. We made thai fishcakes, tarragon chicken, red berry pudding. The evening went fine. We got some good feedback and some pointers. We did think we'd screwed it up for a while, putting our 12 chicken breasts in the oven a bit too late but it was fine, over-salting our fishcakes but they turned out great too. We made a few minor errors like forgetting to clear the bread after the main course and some other little things like that. Overall though we were happy in the end and our trainers were happy with us.

So we went out to celebrate. Thank God I only took a bit of money out with me otherwise I'd be in a much worse state today. One bar for a pint, one bar for toffee vodka, one bar for Mutzig... oh yes. Lots of chat and checking out staff from other chalet companies. Seems like the streets are crawling with new seasonnaires. Good night out but suffering today due to very late bed time, 3 hours sleep is not enough to function properly.

Public speaking

It turns out I'm quite good at it. Though to be fair, I probably could've told you that. The thing is I have zero confidence in myself and when I persistently get chosen to give presentations, to stand up in front of crowds and talk, to get up in front of a class and teach, I somehow always pull it off but question why people keep asking me!? I wonder how it is that you can be good at something and have zero confidence in your own ability? I had to do my version of the "welcome speech" to the chalet guests tonight and apparently I passed with flying colours. Not only was it to my chalet mates, it was to our trainers and two special guests - one a legendary chalet host within the company and the other, the financial director of the company, yikes! Actual feedback from the night "I've never heard a more smooth flowing, natural sounding and friendly first welcome speech ever. Well done, you have set the bar high for your fellow trainees".

I rock. Fact.

I'm also drunk. Fact.

And that's probably why I'm a cocky twat at the moment! Let's see how my first cooking session goes on Tuesday... *she says preparing to fall flat on her face, give people food poisoning and eat humble pie*

One drink, yeah? Just ONE drink...

Isn't this how all good evenings start? OK, maybe not ALL good evenings but some certainly start that way. I just wanted one beer, sadly we're not allowed any booze in the chalets during training (apparently the debauched lot of trainees from last year ruined it for everyone!), so I had to go out last night. Think of it as part of training. If I think of it like that then I don't feel so bad about my thumping head, dry mouth and extreme tiredness. It's all part of the experience eh?! Thankfully today is the start of cooking demos, so all I have to do for most of the day is sit and watch people cooking. The only thing I have to do well at today is the welcome speech, it's my turn to do this tonight and there's some managers coming along, so I better get it right!

We had to do some presentations yesterday, my group had to do 'The Season of the Chalet Host'. We compiled a list of statistics based on an 8 person chalet and a 20 week season, and read them out. Might not sound thrilling but it was.
One season, one host.
160 guests, 160 perfect guest questionnaires ;)
140 cakes baked, 1920 meals cooked.
50 glasses broken, 600 toilets cleaned, 300 Jägerbombs consumed, 16 hissy fits pitched.
3 chalet fires, 2 ski injuries, 30 skiing days lost due to severe hangover :(
1200 eggs cracked (20 on the floor).
720 bottles of chalet wine consumed by guests (unknown quantity consumed by staff).
1400 toilet rolls fluffed, 60 new friends made... chalet hosting, best decision ever.


That last line, best decision ever, that remains to be seen but I'm positive at the moment! We were going to include a line about how many new people you sleep with or "countries conquered", but we thought we'd best keep it clean for management. ;)

Training days.

Food hygiene this morning. Company structure this afternoon. Food hygiene was good. I mean as good as it can get, learning about E-coli 0157 and clostridium perfringens, and washing your hands constantly. Had some lunch and amazingly enough we're watching cooking programmes now, cos it's not like we have enough cooking in our lives already!

Right, I've got to take advantage of this down time to get an article on green snowboarding issues written.

À bientôt.