After receiving a 75 euro tip, it was time to clean the chalet top to bottom. As our next guests were late arriving, this gave us more time to clean and nap and snack which is always a bonus. 2 staff have left now of their own accord as they decided to make other plans and so the team had to step in until the newbies arrived. Luckily the got new people in within a matter of just a few days.
Ben and I did a photoshoot, he makes a great model don’t you think. These shots were taken for the Riders Film Festival but haven’t yet been used.
We finally made it to the third valley, Val Thorens. We have done many runs in Méribel and Courchevel but as Val Thorens can be difficult to get back from, we haven’t been brave enough. Now we are making more time as we are getting more used to our job roles and our snowboards, we ventured over and it was worth it. It is stunning.
We have had some interesting guests in the last couple of weeks which has been effecting our moods. We have had some picky people who have made lots of comments about how we do things. For example, their plates weren't warmed enough, glasses were not polished enough, bread wasn’t fresh enough. We work very hard and are very consistent week to week but it really does get to you when things like this are said night after night even when you try not to let it get to you. Sadly, we even had one guest come into the kitchen and throw his plate at us saying his food was cold. I can assure you it wasn't but the customer is always right after all. We have got through the last couple of weeks supporting each other and whacking huge smiles on our faces no matter what. We have managed to turn each week around and have ended up having happy guests leave the chalet and that’s the most important thing.
On a positive note, we keep getting orders on Where We Went Designs. Ben has mastered the process and doesn’t take long at all to create these personalised maps. We are very happy in the direction this business venture is heading. His work looks great.
After all the ups and downs, we thought it was about time to visit the spa. It was much needed and much appreciated. It was just 20 euros to use the sauna, steam room, relaxation room, jacuzzi and drink gallons of green tea. We went with some friends and we all had a lovely time as I am sure you can imagine.
On Sunday’s we definitely cannot go snowboarding. There is no time and certainly no energy on changeover days. We work around 12 hours every single Sunday. Normally on Friday’s which is shopping day, we don’t manage to get out either as Anna leaves for shopping between 9am/10am and doesn’t return until 1pm/2pm. By this time, Ben has cleaned the chalet, cleared up breakfast, made afternoon tea and made dessert. We then have to unpack all the shopping into our kitchen and food stores. As you can imagine, we lack energy and time on Friday’s too. However for the first time ever, we managed to get on the slopes on a Friday! It felt great and made us more determined to shop faster, however sadly this new tradition hasn’t continued. Hopefully it will soon.
We have now improved our snowboarding skills that much that we can finally board off piste right down to our chalet door. Sometimes it can be quite sketchy in either the ice or the deep snow but we always give it a go anyway. It’s just so much quicker and easier. Ben has also mastered 180 degree turn jumps. Anna isn’t really one for doing tricks but Ben is constantly messing around somewhere on the piste, or off it for that matter! Anna has mastered the jump, tuck and roll though. With some of the runs, it can be quite lumpy from the amount of skiers going down making the exact same patterns in the same spot. As a snowboarder you can fly over these lumps without knowing they are there. Anna twice now, has flew over a lump, rolled over, got straight back up and carried on boarding. If that’s not skill, I don’t know what is!
Most of the time, guests fly in from Gatwick, Manchester or Birmingham. We had some guests fly in from Edinburgh a week ago which didn’t make too much difference when they landed… but when they left, we had to wake up at 5am! This was not fun. We really hope this doesn’t happen regularly. Although we did get a 110 euro tip that week so I guess it made it slightly better.
We also had the sweetest guest that week. An older gentleman who cut some vegan recipes out of his magazine and gave them to us. He was adorable. He wanted to buy a teddy dog like the one we have in the chalet for his wife. In each chalet we have a little dog called Albert Action and guests take him out to bars or out skiing and take pictures with him and post them online. These then get shared on the company page if they are good. People seem to get quite competitive and end up doing all sorts with Albert. Our first guests even knitted him a hat. Our older gentleman guest was so confused that he couldn’t find a little hat for his dog in any of the shops, he was just so cute that Anna decided to give him Alberts hat. I am sure his wife will appreciate it more than our future guests! Some of our guests have also been leaving some sweet notes...
Last week, we had three guests that were none red meat eaters, we had a child which meant we had to make their tea separately and earlier, and we had a guest that was actually with another booking over the road. It was slightly confusing but we soon got the hang of it. We have been dreading having kids and food requirements in the same week but it actually wasn’t as bad as we thought it was going to be.
We have had SO MUCH SNOW. And I mean heaps of the stuff, it’s been great. It has snowed that much that our manager showed Ben how to use the special snow plow machine rather than us all having to get out with our shovels. It has made our lives a lot easier. Although our snow clearing pictures have been making it onto the company website as we have been doing such a great job. Pat on the back for team Morel!
We have now been here 8 weeks. It has gone so fast. In the 56 days we have been here, we have only managed to get out just over 20 days. It is just so tiring and the weather is not always in your favour. Lately as we have both really improved our boarding and we are getting less injured, we have been going out a lot more and enjoying it a lot more too. Now that we are more into a solid routine, we have been reading more, getting out the yoga matt, watching some movies and listening to podcasts. It feels good having time for other things other than work or boarding.
Lesson learnt this week, always make sure your alarm is set. We turn them off on our days off and we made a mistake this week by forgetting to turn them back on. We woke up at 7.45 and we were meant to be serving breakfast at 8am! Luckily, Anna is quite a light sleeper and heard lots of doors and showers going, she checked her phone just to see the time and has never got out of bed so quick. We still managed to serve breakfast as is nothing had happened. Thankfully it was smoked salmon day.
Ben and I sometimes go boarding separately as one of us will want to stay in and do some freelance work, or ones more tired and needs a nap, or one wants to lay in bed and eat coco pops all day.. nothing wrong with that! So Ben has now been out 2 or 3 more times than Anna as when she injured her rib back in the day, she missed out on a few trips. The tables turned this week though as Anna went out without Ben. She went out with our good friend Luca. They had a really great time and discovered a new area of mountain which has some really nice runs which are very quiet. The following day, Ben went out with our neighbours, Simon and Amy, and Anna went tobogganing with our other neighbours, Amber and Ellie! We all met up for lunch in our hot new cafe spot. That’s right guys, we found a cafe that does gluten free, dairy free, vegan… I mean what more could you want?!
I don’t know if you know this already guys but it’s just such a small world. One of Ben’s friends sent him a message a few days ago saying that he had actually done chalet hosting a couple of years ago for the same company that we are with now. Ben’s cousin has also been in touch as she has just flown out as she has a job as a nanny. Sadly for her, she's already managed to get a pretty bad ski injury and will be leaving in about a weeks time.
Next week we will be using our day off and valentines day to travel to Lyon for the day. No guys, this is not a romantic trip, it is a 10 hour or more round trip so that Anna can give her finger prints and passport photo for the next stage in her Canada visa. It was that or fly back to the UK and travelling to Lyon is actually cheaper and probably a similar amount of time. At least we can both go and nap on the train all day!
After a 90 euro tip and a really smooth transfer day, we welcomed this weeks guests… a group of 12 absolutely mental Russian men. Within 5 minutes of letting them into the chalet, one was already in our room using our toilet. We have now had a secure lock fitted onto our door. These guys are really nice but boy they are crazy. I mean that in the sense of how do they even do it. How are they even alive. As soon as we managed to huddle them into the living room, they all crack open numerous bottles of scotch. Ben attempted to do the welcome speech and we had to eventually call in the manager for a bit of back up. These guys drank all afternoon, all night and stayed up until 5am watching the Super Bowl. We got absolutely no sleep that night and were too afraid to go upstairs and ask them to keep the noise down. During the first nights service, half of them were on the balcony smoking weed, some fell asleep on the sofa, some were asking how to get porn on the tv etc etc. Our managers have been amazing and very supportive and helpful and they guys have calmed down in recent days. They are bloody messy though. They are all in their 40s and 50s and have wife and kids. Imagine if we got a group of young 20 year olds, our chalet would be burned to the ground by now. They love huge fires, getting in the sauna naked and running out into the snow, eating whatever they can get their hands on and going in all the rooms which say ‘private staff only’. We have had to grit our teeth and bare it this week. So far it’s been smoother than we thought so fingers crossed we make it to Sunday!
One hilarious story we can tell about these guys is their fascination of the white carrot. (Russian accent) “What is this white carrot you serve us” Ben says “What the parsnip?” Russians say “How do you say? P-A-R-S-H-N-I-I-P-P”. We couldn’t believe they had never seen them before. They also have been fascinated by flapjacks and have been asking us lots about Brexit, but we won’t even get into that!
This week we also discovered that a member of staff has broken their collar bone, 2 of the new staff have done a runner. Literally in the middle of the night packed up all their stuff and left… no idea why and on a more positive note, Anna’s mum is coming to stay! After the Russians leave on Sunday, Anna’s mum will be arriving that afternoon to give us some much needed hugs. We are very excited.
Yesterday we had a snowboarding lesson and it was SO good. We are really confident and happy with our snowboarding skills as was our instructor. We can’t believe how good we have got by going out just 20 times. The lesson was going so well until our instructor accidentally plowed into the back of Ben, completely took him out and gave him a bit of whiplash. That’s right guys, Ben is injured again! What a story. Now the title of the blog makes sense right?
Until next time!
P.s.. How well does our manager know Anna?
This featured blog entry was written by BenAnnaTravels from the blog Chalet Hosting in the French Alps.
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