Em and Gav Euro stylin': April 2006

March has been a great month for us, full of a wide variety of weather conditions, chalet guests and ski outfits!

The weather has been up and down with numerous heavy snowfalls mixed in with some very summer like temperatures (14 degrees on one day!). The first signs of spring inspired us to have our first barbie of the season. Given the BBQ was covered in a couple of metres of snow this proved to be a bit of a challenge but with 6 hungry people on the case we eventually managed to excavate the hot plate, pick away at the 2 inches of ice and 2 hours later we were sitting down to enjoy a selection of smoky barbecued goodies.

The warmer weather has also enabled us to ski in considerably less layers, with Em loving the novelty of stripping down to just a t-shirt on the slopes on one particularly warm day.

On the topic of clothing, March also gave us the opportunity to join the locals in their love for one piece ski outfits. Our local pub, the Flying Squirrel, held its annual “Chase the squirrel” charity race where teams compete to catch-up with a guy skiiing around in a squirrel outfit, drink beers or shots in a series of pubs on the mountain and generally look as stupid as possible... all while raising money for a charity which funds wheelchair skiiing opportunities. We entered a team with our work mates and had a fun day hooning around the mountain, three of us in extremely tasteless one-piece suits and the other three dressed as ghosts with gold chains! Gav's extremely tight (particularly around the buttocks) stars and stripes one-piece drew plenty of stares from the crowds while Em was more concerned that her fluro pink suit was blending in a little too well with the French locals in their equally retro numbers. We didn't win the race but had a lot of fun and the day raised over 900 euros!

Our guests over the last month have generally been great and we have had some fun nights out with a series of guests around our age. We've also had some interesting dietary requirements with one bumper week including 2 gluten free, 4 vegetarians and 1 dairy free food diet! We also had one interesting guest recently who openly claimed to be anorexic and then proceeded to finish most off her meals on top of her special request for a side salad with lashings of mayonnaise!

The days to the end of the season are now counting down rapidly and while we will be sad to leave here, we were pleased that this Saturday was our second last time of making 17 beds! Gav's parents and Em's sister and boyfriend will both be visiting us in the next two weeks which should help us finish the season on a high note.

After our final guests leave and we clean up the chalet, we will have a few days to chill out and enjoy the last snow of the season before heading to London where we have decided to give the whole working and living thing a shot for the moment.

More pics to come in the next few weeks as we finally replace our broken digital camera. Ev agree with your sentiment that insurance rocks!

Pics this time courtesy of Nick and Jules.