I have long been fascinated by the signs found on the slopes and elsewhere and I have included some that we see all the time. I love both the directness and the fanciful nature of them, even if they have a serious reason to be there and the consequences of ignoring them can be the instant, on the spot, removal of your ski pass by the Piste Marshalls.
These will pursue you down the mountain in order to enforce a fine or pass removal and woe betide you if you are caught a second time as they can ban you from the mountain altogether!
We have just lost a six and a seven grouping of guests, and received in two pairs so we are down to four which is a very nice number to be catering for after 13’s and 12’s. For the first time we had a group in the other half of the Lodge and it was a shame because we hardly saw them except at mealtimes and there was no interaction with the other guests. We seem to have had a lot of Scots and I find that it works out at 16 out of a total of 38 or 42% with another 4 Stewarts due next week.
One of our current guests is a keen quilter and has brought her work along with her for those long flights times. It is exquisitely done and represents hundred of hours of patient sewing. She went to a meeting of like-minded quilters in nearby Edwards, but was a bit apprehensive as they are fervent believers and she was worried in case they tried to convert her to their 7th day Pentecostal Quilters beliefs. Luckily she is made of stern stuff and returned unturned. She doesn’t ski and her husband informed us, when we enquired if we could curry favour with a curry flavour, that HP sauce was a bit on the hot side for her. She was a teacher, now retired, and had taught the two adult guests from the week before, in Callander. How small a world is that?
This is perhaps to time to outline an example of ‘My Most Embarrassing Moments – number 34’. The other day it had snowed and the guests had gone out to their car to brush off the snow. Sue had also gone out of the front door at the same time, wearing her customary black trousers and black coat. I opened the front door with a broom in hand with the intention of sweeping the snow from the path between the two halves of the Lodge. I was presented with a person in black bending over tying a shoe-lace with their backside towards me. I was unable to resist the opportunity and brushed the presented bum vigorously with my broom. The guest (male) stood up and turned round with a certain amount of surprise as I gulped and apologized profusely saying I had mistaken one backside for another (Sue’s). He took it in good part and laughed – fortunately ( I could see an assault charge gently fading into the background), and showed his many years training of identifying aircraft whilst in the RAF as he observed drily, ‘I expect the silhouette was the same from this angle’.
After the RAF he worked on commercial airlines and related a tale of a colleague called Geoff Gay who was flying free of charge as an employee and boarded the plane looking for his seat. It was occupied but there was another seat free (probably this guy’s proper seat) and he sat down in it. A little known fact is that whereas employees can travel free, they have to be prepared to be bounced if a paying passenger needs their seat and this was the case here. The steward approached the good-looking person in Geoff’s designated seat and said ‘Are you Gay, because if so you will have to leave the plane?’. Geoff saw what was happening and as the guy blushed red and said ’Well actually I am gay but I don’t see why I should leave the plane’, he stood up and said ‘ I am Gay so I‘ll leave the plane’. At which point there was a Spartacus moment when another, completely unconnected person stood up at the back of the plane and shouted ‘Well, I’m gay as well but they can’t throw all of us off!’
The bird table is now a local avicultural landmark and is flush with sparrows and pigeons adding to the numbers. They seem to queue up in the tree nearby then swoop down one at a time to pick up their titbit then fly off to eat it. I wonder if French birds would wait then all swoop at the same time? One of the guests from a few weeks ago told a tale of rude French lift-queue etiquette in which having been trodden on he had extracted revenge by leaning over and releasing the back binding from the ski of the offender! Excellent.
The snow has been snowing off and on for the last week and there is a covering of about a foot of fresh dry snow up on the mountains. With the sun shining, the guests have been coming back with glowing reports and noses. We have had a couple of days of absolutely beautiful skiing with the bits in between the trees refreshed and topped up.
We have had good news from home with my niece and Sue’s niece both giving birth to fine babies with all concerned recovering well. They are the first of the new generation on both sides of the family so there is much cooing and gooing over the airwaves and on facebook, with newly promoted grannies and granddads making lots of fuss - and why not?
We are heading over to Breckenridge tomorrow on our day off, to meet up with a neighbour and ex-schoolmate of mine from Whitbourne. He is there with a party of four so we will be able to be guided around the hills, which is always nice, with a meal in the evening, possibly with the hosts of that Chalet. They visited us a few weeks ago and there is a possibility that we will take over from them if they fly home before the end of the season. It would be a nice change as the Chalet is an enormous thing built in the style of Adams Family meets Walt Disney, with massive beams everywhere and set in woods of large pine trees. The kitchen does have two dish washing machines and two cookers which would make a nice change as we struggle here to find cooking space without using the next-door ovens when catering for over ten people.
The Owner of the two Chalets is cutting the cost of a holiday by throwing in a six-day ski pass which makes quite a difference as they go for $410 when on special offer from the Ski Pass Office. It would be good if it works and tempts people out here because it really is a wonderful ski area and worthy of its reputation.
Sue’s shoulder has been brought of the attention of a specialist who thinks it likely that the ligament has become detached from the muscle. Repairable if operated on within three months of the tear ie before the end of March, and an MRI scan is needed to establish what the exact situation is. As a side line, Sue had to have an X-ray of her head to establish whether a weld flash from many years ago had left a splinter of metal in the eye. The danger is that when under the enormous magnet of the MRI, any metal will be pulled straight out with potentially horrendous consequences as you can imagine. We are now in contact with the Medical Insurers to confirm that they will cough up, and hopefully up front, with the $1500 needed for the MRI Scan and any subsequent operation that can be done at Vail which apparently has a world-wide reputation for orthopaedic procedures of this nature.
Who knows what they will decide, it might be that Sue has to fly back to UK and have it done on NHS leaving me to supply a diet of bread and beans to the guests for the duration. I’ll call it the historic, authentic pioneer diet and save the budget a fortune.
We’re told that we’ve bought a lovely board bag to hold Guy’s new snowboard. That’s nice and we didn’t even have the pain of going shopping for it.
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