Not so much a holiday, more a change of life … at least,
temporarily.
As we are both part-time homeworkers, Robin and I decided to
shift our base from west London to Morzine, France at the heart of the Portes
du Soleil for the ski season.
Our home until April 2015 is a cosy, well-planned apartment
on the top floor of a traditional chalet, just a few minutes walk from the town
centre, with a great view over the rooftops to the ski runs down from Pleney.
We arrived here on Saturday 13th December after
an overnight stop in Troyes, where the old town centre retains many
half-timbered houses dating from the 16th century, including our
hotel, the delightful Hotel St Jean. The
old town is exceedingly pretty as we discovered on a quick tour of the nearby
streets before a typically French bisto meal – delicious – and, the following
morning, an even quicker visit to the historic Cathedral, which took almost 500
years to build beset by tornadoes, hurricanes, lightning strikes along the
way.
Our plan for the next four months or so is to continue the
work we would have done at home in England – and we have an excellent broadband
connection to facilitate this – but devote much of our free time to
skiing. I’m aiming to improve my
technique to a level that will allow me to ski with free-flowing ease into my
dotage!
However, our ski plans were immediately put on hold by an
almost total lack of snow. Even in
high-up Avoriaz – where the season officially started on the day we arrived - only
a handful of lifts are operating.
Luckily we are not bothered as there will be plenty of opportunities to
ski when the winter truly arrives here, and Robin, in particular, has been
inundated with work to finish by Christmas.
Not being quite so busy on the work front, I have been
exploring the town’s largely deserted streets – the season officially starts in
Morzine this coming Saturday – finding out all there is to know about ski
rental vs ski purchase; lift passes; pilates classes, masseurs and physios
(best to be prepared!); swimming pool opening times; recycling points; where to
buy the best bread, cheese, meats, fish and other foodstuffs, and generally getting the lay of the land. As our apartment is 300m up a steep hill, and
there are several other hills in town, I’m also telling myself that I’m
strengthening my thigh muscles for skiing.
The other thing I’m getting accustomed to is the quaint
French tradition of lunch-time closing! Virtually every shop in town shuts for
at least an hour or two, with some pulling down the shutters as early as 12
noon. It will be interesting to see if
that continues when the season gets underway.
Having spent the first four days looking out over grassy
slopes, this afternoon the clouds rolled in and snow is falling and settling. At the
risk of sounding like an English train operator, I think it’s the wrong type of
snow. Apparently we need “gros flocons”
to give the depth of snow cover required by the pisteurs to flatten down to
skiable pistes. And the temperature is
due to rise overnight, but in the meantime … it’s starting to look a lot like
Christmas out there!
Follow our experience in Morzine on my new blog at winterinmorzine.blogspot.com
