16January1998

Valmorel: 16 January 98
My dear folks

The Introduction:
(This is a long letter, as much a diary of a special holiday as a communication. I apologise to non skiers for more skiing descriptions than they will want to read. But I console myself that you are all familiar with the delete key & will not suffer unnecessarily.)

Here we are in our little French resort on an “Inghams” ski holiday. I moled away at the Beeb all last week, working 7 night shifts in a row to help the roster organiser fill a hole. It wasn’t a bad week & towards the end of it I was getting a lot of sleep. We’d ordered a taxi for 1315 on Friday, which gave me time after my return from work to find & pack the little odds & ends one generally ends up going without - & then regretting. The taxi arrived promptly & loaded our bags, 5 of them. I’d wanted to take a 6th but Jones put her foot down. The ski bag held both pairs of skis & poles; the boot bags were stuffed with socks & underclothes as well as the ski boots & we each had bulky backpacks. I agonised about bringing the computer as it’s so heavy. Finally, with Jones’s encouragement, I compromised by leaving the computer bag behind & squeezing the computer itself into Jones’s rucksack. That’s a fair compromise. Jonesy staggered a little when she was loaded but then so did I.

Friday:
This is the first time we’ve travelled to a ski resort by train & we were eager to persuade ourselves of the benefits. The taxi driver tried to take us to Kings Cross instead of Charing Cross, which was a little alarming. But we made it in good time, loaded our gear in the guard’s van, found ourselves seats & set off to Dover. I dozed intermittently between eating the scrumptious rolls that Jones had prepared & drinking malt whisky. At Dover, we clumped with all our gear into a waiting shuttle bus that took us a mile to the docks. There, in a large hall we joined the tail-end of a pilgrimage of skiers, all sweating inside their winter gear & weighed down by luggage. Clearly, the first thing we’d need on arrival was a shower.

The crowd edged forward past reception desks, where ski-reps checked them in, before heading in a tightening scrum for the door that gave egress to the line of coaches waiting outside. Just before the doors, caught up in the melee, were officials checking passports. Trying to find your passport when you’re buried under bags & wedged into a scrum is no easy matter. I began to entertain doubts about the venture. It took us easily an hour before we scrambled hot & breathless on to a coach & another 30 minutes before we were offloaded, together with some 600 other skiers, in the maw of a waiting ferry.

The voyage compensated us for any little sufferings. We secured a nook in a quiet lounge & enjoyed a picnic supper over a bottle of claret from the Duty Free. 90 mins later we clambered back on to the coach at Calais & drove to the station. There we retrieved our gear & staggered down the platform to our carriage at the far end of a long train. In the carriage was a tiny storage compartment where another knot of bodies was fighting to cram in luggage & skis. Having finally stored our own, we collapsed into our compartment. The seats had already been turned into three bunks on either side. We made brief conversation over drinks with our companions for the night, another couple & two guys, before they headed for the lounge car & we headed for bed. I was very tired & so, I suspect, was Jones.

I woke in the early hours as the train roared through the night. After much lying around, I stumbled past the litter of beer cans strewn along the aisles to the buffet car where coffee was served at 0630. I took some back to Jones. As our companions remained fast asleep we returned to the buffet car where some miserable- looking guys were swallowing disprins. A big moon lit up the clouds. The train wound its way beside a long glittering lake as dawn broke, passing through little towns with scant sign of life. The French do not appear to be early risers. Albertville arrived at 0845 & Moutiers, our destination, soon after. There was the reverse scrum to unload our goods. An Inghams rep directed us to a van that we had to ourselves. We were, it appeared, the only people going to Valmorel. It was much better than packing into a coach! Life was looking up.

Valmorel lies 15 kms up the usual steep, winding mountain road. It’s a lovely ski village, all chalets, spread out along a kilometre of road beneath a vast, tree-clad massif. The trees are all ghostly white, the conifers drooping under loads of snow, others sculpted in ice. Cars had all but disappeared under snowy mantles, with just their wipers & wing mirrors visible, as if in a mute plea for rescue. Our driver wondered where were we staying. We didn’t know. An Inghams rep was supposed to meet us. The driver made various enquiries without success. He got on his mobile phone. Eventually, “Jayne” appeared, apologetically. She’d sent our “welcome pack”, to Moutiers, she said, where it had clearly evaded us.

She took us to the reception lounge of our chalet where the 2 receptionists were nearly as frosty as the trees outside. They do not give one the impression that they are grateful to have guests. Our apartment would not be ready till 1500 at the earliest, we were informed. Meanwhile, they wanted immediate payment of the local tourist tax of £3.50 per person per week & a deposit of £100. We could leave our bags in the storage area & ourselves in the lounge until the apartment was ready. I was not pleased. Apart from anything else my body was telling me that it was the middle of the night & my head was telling me that I’d been silly, after two weeks on the wagon, to have that last whisky.

Jayne assured us unhelpfully that the brochure warned guests of the access time for the apartments. So it did, in small print. She walked us down into village centre – an attractive pedestrian area - to organise our ski passes. (These are now barcoded & read by small meters at the approach to the ski lifts – high tech stuff). Overhead a cable car runs people between the village & their chalets. We walked back up through the Saturday sunshine to the lounge where I went to sleep while Jones went for a walk. Then we took our skis to be waxed & edged; & when we came back our apartment was ready!

We are in Apartment 31 on the second floor of a large chalet right at the foot of the slopes. If one ignores the cardboard finish & cheap fittings, it isn’t a bad little apartment, not for 2 people anyhow. It wouldn’t be much fun with 4. It’s an odd arrangement. You are given your own linen at reception to make the beds. There are pillow cases but no pillows, other than large rectangular bolsters. There’s a tiny but welcome bath but towels are not provided. (We later discovered that these could be hired separately.) The loo is not exactly spacious either; lean forward & you bang your head on the wall. There’s very little cupboard space. The kitchen doesn’t run to a kettle or sensible cups although it does have a fridge & dish-washer. The furniture is solid pine & fine. The balcony overlooks the ski school assembly area where kids spend the afternoon tobogganing down the slope. All in all, it’s okay.

Apart from anything else, it’s far away from the BBC which is not in my best books. Since the end of November dozens of journos including myself have been waiting for the outcome of the boards to which management devoted a full week of expensive time. By the end of December there was not a word of explanation although there were a lot of rumours. In the 2nd week of January the bosses called a staff meeting at which they announced that the dept had far exceeded its budget & was cutting back severely on programming & jobs. This also meant that the results of all the boards were cancelled. There would be no promotions. Indeed, quite the opposite. A lot of people who, like me, had been acting up, would return to their previous grades. Another dept would take over most of our overnight programming. Everybody was horrified. The place has the air of a graveyard & I’m pleased to be far away.

Sunday:
There’s a detailed weather forecast available in the ticket office & it said the day would start fine but would soon cloud over & get very windy. And so it was. We fetched our skis from the ski shop at 0900 sharp & were first in line for the adjacent lift. Up we went between the trees. The piste was hard to read without the sun but so wide were the slopes & so immaculately groomed that I was able to indulge my fantasies of being quite a stylish skier. We drifted over to a chair that was headed into the sun-lit mountains above us where again we swooped down virgin pistes. We’d thought we’d start the week slowly but in the event we merely went from one lift to another, trying every slope that looked within our ability. It was glorious. For a fairer start than that, one can’t ask.
Then Jones & I got separated & took all of an hour to find each other. It’s a bit unnerving, especially when you don’t know the ski area - & it’s huge. You can go for miles from valley to valley. We found each other again near our chalet & consoled ourselves with a cup of coffee. By this time the cloud was hazing out the sun & we could see the wind whipping clouds of spume off the mountain tops. The ascents became windier & it began to snow. We tried a few more runs but it was impossible to read the slopes & I was reduced to survival descents, my style fled with the winds as I lurched over invisible moguls & ploughed through deep snow. So we called it a day, leaving the slopes to hardier souls. Instead, we took ourselves down through the snow storm to the village centre.

All the way down, motorists were digging out cars. Buses were loading skiers & setting out down the steep descent. Tyres slithered as drivers tried to free their vehicles. I was doing a good deal of slithering myself as my Nike sports shoes proved themselves totally unsuitable for the conditions. I cursed myself for not having brought more sensible footwear. Having inspected all the sports shops, I tried to persuade Jones that I should invest in an inexpensive pair of snow boots displayed outside one of them. She reluctantly went along as she regretted the expense & found them monstrously ugly – black with thick white edging. I offered to let her try them but she said she would rather break a leg. They looked, she said, like a mobile pedestrian crossing. This was a bit cruel, I thought, although they’re certainly distinctive. Jones was also sceptical about whether they’d be much more stable but her doubts vanished as I pulled her securely back up the hill. What a relief!

Monday:
We woke early & I gave Jones coffee & toast in bed, a rare treat for her. Through the window I could see the lights of snowcats setting out up the slopes. The valley echoed to explosions as avalanches were triggered up in the mountains. The avalanche risk was rated very high. The local authorities set off minor ones to avoid major ones (although a party of French schoolchildren & their teachers were to die in an avalanche before the end of the week.) Dawn brought with it the sight of the snow bucketing down.

After breakfast, with the snow still falling, we set out for the village, this time to buy Jones suitable footwear. Her leather boots simply didn’t shape. We returned to our shop of yesterday, to the surprise of the proprietors. After a little trying-on, & with a little persuasion from me, Jones made an excellent purchase. Thus equipped, we set out on a walk around the village. It’s much larger than it looks at first glance, with chalets tucked around every bend. I’d just explained to Jones what a pleasure it was to have a large pair of secure soles under me when I fell flat on my back on the ice – as it happened, right at the feet of a young French woman. She asked if I was okay but – maybe sensing a foreigner - didn’t stop to hear the answer. My leg pained & my dignity was in tatters.

I limped back up the road where big machines were scooping up snow & dumping it over a parapet. There were lots of people about, some walking dogs, some pulling babes in toboggans. The dogs love the snow & go wild chasing snowballs. We checked the weather forecast (more snow) & came home in the cable car. Through the murk we could see skiers going up on the lifts although visibility was wretched. By midday we felt impelled to try the slopes ourselves. So we togged up & took another cable car to the top where we found a white-out. We couldn’t see a thing – other than a few other skiers in the gloom. Even so, the glare off the snow was so strong that my glasses turned dark brown. In spite of the conditions we managed the descent, slowly & with lots of stops, & went back for more.

Then the cloud cleared on the upper slopes, offering spectacular views of the misty valley below. Jones said that she was “all over the place” but she looked okay to me. Every so often the sun would appear briefly & we’d sail down the slopes till it went away again. The skis slid effortlessly on the soft new snow. Then we lost each other again. I couldn’t believe it. I went back up a chair-lift, looking out for her on the piste & failing to notice the end of the ride, & damn near fell off the chair. When I did find her, we called it a day & went for a long walk around the resort. We like it a lot. Jones says she thinks it’s the nicest she’s ever stayed at & I have no problem with that.
This evening Jones spotted a second cupboard in the apartment. It’s behind a door that has stood open ever since our arrival. It contained the missing pillows & a great deal more space to hang things.

Tuesday:
Dawn came complete with a blizzard. Through the window we watched the most perfect table cloth of snow build up on our patio. The place seemed strangely subdued. Even the dog walkers were late & didn’t stay out long. It was noticeably colder. After breakfast, we walked down to the village to check the weather forecast at the tourist office. Intermittent snowfalls all day was the outlook, starting to clear on Wednesday. We thought we’d better go skiing regardless. The lifts were running & there were plenty of people on them.

It wasn’t bad; at least there was no mist although the light was flat. The sun came out briefly before vanishing for the day. Jones said she was having a hard time of it. She’s generally neat & efficient. At one point she skied up beside me with her face & outfit covered in snow. She’d fallen, she informed me miserably, flat on her nose. I took several minutes to brush away the snow & restore her spirits. By the end of afternoon, we were coming to regard skiing in a snow storm as normal. The pistes were wonderfully soft in powder snow even if the moguls were invisible. We watched with amusement from the chair-lift as one skier tried to dig herself out of a snowbank. Then Jones tumbled in the deep snow & I nearly followed her. At least she made a feather bed landing. We skied on, taking the last lift of the day.

It was after our usual walk down to the village, baths & supper that the day’s real drama unfolded. Jones looked for her wristwatch, a gold one that Mum gave her. She couldn’t find it beside the bath where she remembered taking it off. We scoured the bathroom, we looked under the beds, we searched all her pockets, we emptied the rubbish! All in vain.
The watch had vanished. Maybe she hadn’t taken it off in the bathroom after all but had lost it during a tumble. I reflected philosophically that what was gone was gone. Next moment Jones gave a great hoot. The watch was on her wrist, not her left wrist where she always wore it but on her right wrist where she never wore it, as she insisted several times.

Wednesday:
The weather forecast promised us a sunny day but the snow was still drifting gently down when we woke. The temperature was -6C, quite chilly. A long chair took us right to the top of the nearest mountain where there were alluring patches of sun. Jones wanted to take a red run down. I preferred to follow trails that followed the mountain around to a small resort 2 kms away. We did the trails first. They were glorious – smooth & wide, & the sun finally came out to warm us. You could forget about your skiing & just breathe in the beauty of the mountain side as you drifted effortlessly along. Small birds darted about in the trees. The trails dipped around the final bend into the ski hamlet of Doucy Combelouviere. It boasted half a dozen shops & about twice that number of chalets. We found the café-bar & warmed up over mulled wine & a sandwich. We could see right down to Moutiers where we’d got off the train. A bunch of ski school instructors came swaggering in for lunch – good looking fellows if I say so myself. We’d clearly picked the right place to eat.

The return journey required 40 cold mins of chair rides & button tows in the shade. We landed up at the top of red run that we pondered over. Okay, I said to Jones, let’s do it. It was a mistake. The run was a bugger, steep, with wicked moguls. And to make matters worse, we ran into mist that simply blanketed out the slope. Jones fell first; I came down three times in the space of the next few minutes. Nothing painful, just a bit disheartening & very mushy – with snow stuffed up my jumper & down my pants. Still, as Jones pointed out, it was the first really challenging skiing we’d done. It made our usual runs look easy. We sailed nonchalantly down the latter in the mist after lunch where we’d crept down two days earlier. The mist certainly didn’t bother the tots being groomed on the baby slopes. Some of the little figures could hardly walk but they still snow-ploughed down on their miniature skis. We watched them from the chair lift. Jones has a favourite tree which she greets from the chair each time we pass it. I’ve taken to saying hello myself. It can’t do any harm.
In the evening we went for our usual walk. After raiding the supermarket, we dropped in on the tourist office where the “girls” promised us sun tomorrow, & then the news agent. The Herald Tribune is our main contact with the outer world as we can’t pick up any English radio stations. We shared the paper over drinks at a little bar on the foot of the slopes. This resort has 2 big plusses which are worthy of mention. It’s not chic; people come here to ski, not to be seen. And it’s not noisy. The night life is limited & it’s down in the village. That’s the way we like it, far away from us. We like to sleep at night.

Thursday:

“Out with the first lift & back with the last,” said Jones as we got back to the apartment this evening, & that’s just about the size of it. It was as near a perfect skiing day as I can recall. I woke at dawn instead of my usual 0500 & I woke to a cloudless sky. For once I made breakfast, the usual porridge with molasses & ultra low fat fromage frais. It’s quick & easy & considerably tastier than you might think. We set out just after 0900. Our aim was to reach the distant hamlet of St Francois Longchamp for lunch. That means crossing 3 mountain ridges & 3 valleys. It’s at least 6 miles – before you count the zigzags.

We left the crowds behind in the first valley. Crossing the 2nd ridge reveals a vast bowl of ski runs with few skiers in sight. It took us 2 hours to reach the resort of Longchamp, much smaller than Valmorel, but less pretty. I made a rush for the loos which were signposted in large letters. Maybe, the good people of Longchamp know that bursting bladders are the order of the day. For once, there were separate toilets for men & women but, to my amusement, there was nothing on the doors to indicate which were which. It was only when you entered one or other door that you were confronted with either sighing men leaning over the pissoirs (as in my case) or whatever the ladies were doing next door.

Thirty minutes more took us to the hamlet of St Francois, a straggle of buildings on the road side. It’s so small that we weren’t even sure whether we’d arrived. We sought guidance from a helpful lift operator sitting beside an otherwise deserted drag-lift who recommended a restaurant. It was a good recommendation. Jones & I sat inside at a table warmed by the sun pouring through the window, & dined on soup & omelette. We approve of the chilled (red) gamay wine & loved the local liqueur (Mont Corbier), a herby tummy settler. Our friendly lift operator warned us not to tarry on the way home as the key lifts connecting the valleys closed early. We took his advice & were home in time to get in another 3 runs down our favourite slope. Afterwards Jones said she was gonnered. So was I.

Friday:

This has been as perfect a day of skiing as either Jones or I can remember. It began with a dazzling yellow sun rising in a deep blue sky & lighting the mountain far above us. The lower slopes nearest the resort get very little sunshine which is great for spring skiing later in the year. But when the temps are -7C down below & -13C on top, skiers head for the sunshine like fleas for a dog. There are rows of deckchairs outside one of the mountain restaurants where the sun worshippers simply collapse in mute adoration. Jones has to stop at the top of each lift & shake life back into her frozen hands.

We skied over the top & down via a long panoramic trail to Longchamp where we took tea in the sun. Then we headed back over the top for lunch at home. We pleased ourselves no end by coming home down a red run without mishap & we later tackled another long, steep red, absolutely ridden with moguls. We threw style to the winds & concentrated on survival. At least the sun was out & we could see where we going. We both made it down without falling, no small achievement. Jones & I are roughly equal in ability. It’s just about the only sport that we can share & it gives us both great enjoyment – most of the time. We both have good & bad days – skiing like a piggy is how Jones describes herself when she’s struggling.


At lunchtime, the youngest of the ski-school groups – I guess aged 3 & 4 – were having their end-of-week test in the area beside our apartment, cheered on by proud parents. The instructor had planted three flags several yards apart on a fairly steep bank & each youngster had to slalom down between them. Few made it without a topple or a tumble but their were helping hands to haul them up & aid them on their way. The greatest cheer came for a tiny tot who made it safely to the bottom but missed the middle flag in the process. He knew he’d got it wrong because he immediately burst into tears in his mother’s arms & it took all of five minutes to console him. We stayed out until the last lift. Jones groaned as we ended our last run & muttered something about an old body. She lacks my facility to take a reviving post prandial nap.

Saturday:
The day dawned cold & clear. We packed most of our goodies. We had to vacate the apartment by 1000 & leave our possessions in the baggage room while we took ourselves off for a day’s skiing. Jones likes to leave such apartments as we found them & we went to some trouble to do so. I told the receptionist (a much warmer person than the ice maiden we’d first met) that there was no need to clean the apartment; she could simply let the next guests in – & it was true.

Then off we went, up into the bowl where the sun was glinting off the pistes. Our aim was to lunch at the hamlet of Combelouviere. Meanwhile, we simply swooped down whatever slopes took our fancy. The snow was just fabulous. Shortly before lunchtime we found ourselves at the top of the red run that had demolished us earlier in the week. It was time to regain our pride, I told Jones, who agreed just a little hesitantly. Down we went, all the way on our skis this time. In the bright sunshine it was far easier. Nevertheless, it gave us a great sense of accomplishment.

Thence to lunch, along the dreamy trails that wind along the ridge to the hamlet. We sat outside in the sunshine with the world spread out at our feet. I ordered the local rose wine & Jones ordered the regional speciality, roblochan, a dish topped with melted cheese. Around us, the locals were tucking into fondues & other specialities. We had long rides & easy slopes to negotiate back home. We finished the week trying a long course covered in powder snow, with mixed success. With the mist creeping up the valley again, we sadly rode our favourite chair up for the last time, bade goodbye to our tree & gently skied down.

A bus was meant to pick us up from reception 90 mins later. In the event, it was a Mercedes 2 hours later, just as we were getting worried. Back down to Moutiers we went, inching past the tour buses wending their way up the mountain. The driver dropped us at the station. The snow train rolled up an hour later. We found ourselves back in our same compartment with the same companions & fell to the inevitable comparing of holidays as the train rattled through the night.

Calais arrived at 0700 on Sunday. The coaches were waiting to transfer us to a ferry for a choppy Channel crossing. After a frustrating wait for shuttle bus from the docks to Dover station, we caught a train to London. At Charing Cross we opted to take the underground rather than a taxi & we staggered back the final kilometre from Warwick Avenue to find Mavis & mountains of mail awaiting us & our flat in good order. It was a wonderful holiday; we’re sorry it’s over, but life must now continue.

Blessings
T