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The Grouch - Jan 06
LAST WINTER, we were ten in number and had handed our many grandchildren back to their parents and booked into Val d’Isere in the high French Vanoise valleys. No more for us the frozen slush of Glenshee, the rocks in the Corrie Cas or the terrors of the Haggis Trap in Glencoe. It was the biggest and best snow fields in the world that beckoned us and our motto was, “ life is not a dress rehearsal.”
We were all old hands, very old hands, and had all the t-shirts and the piste maps to prove it. We had done the self-catering trips but now we were ready for a slightly up-market catered chalet. The brochure looked great with pictures of a roaring wood fire and a smiling chalet host
The welcome, however, after a five hours transfer trip from Geneva, was cheerless and Amanda from Essex seemed a trifle sullen. She had a well brought up accent and was right out of cookery college. The “Chalet “ wasn’t what we expected either. It wasn’t wooden, or on a snowy mountainside. It was a concrete apartment on a main road.
We all had vast experience of awkward children but, Amanda was something else. She was the archetypal,’petulant chalet girl’. Humour her we tried, for chalet staff have a hard time trying to cater on tight budgets and dealing with rowdy guests. We didn’t complain about the food. It came in ample amounts. Uninspiring certainly, but hot, the kitchen being in the dining room which, in fact, was also the sitting room.
The entire communal area didn’t look anything like the brochure depicted. The log fire had gone out permanently, and the easy chairs had gone, the carpets, books and pictures too. There were lots of other chairs, hard dining room chairs and a cold, tiled floor.
Still, we golden oldies were there to ski and not to moan. That was, until Amanda, our PCG, revealed her true colours. That first day was a classic Alpine day when we cruised the Solaise, grabbed some powder below the Aiguille Pers, worked across to Bellevarde and skied the Olympic downhill.
Lunching on the move, we skied around Toviere, got breathless on Grande Motte, skirted Tignes, looked at Percee’s Needle and cruised home by the Meadow run down to La Daille. If you have skied Val d’lsere you will know what I’m talking about.
At the end of the perfect day the younger set headed for town and Happy Hour, but for our age group, it had to be gallons of hot tea and the home baked cake waiting for us back at the chalet. Boots off, we shuffled into the kitchen at 5.25, to find the tea-pot cold and the tea bags locked away. “You ‘re too late! Tea is from 4,30 till 5,15. only, I have to clear the decks ready to start cooking your evening meal at 6.30,” said Amanda. Tactfully, we promised to clear the decks and wash up, but no. She who must be obeyed was adamant and would not hand over the keys to the tea caddy. It was only the sheer weight of years on our side that made her relent. In fact, it was our combined 608 years to her 22, that forced the issue, just as we were contemplating violence. And so the week continued with a sort of armed truce between us.
As we now scan the new brochures with their pretty pictures, before choosing a ski village for our 2006 trip, we wonder whatever happened to Amanda. Did our letter of rebuke to her employers end her Alpine career as a “hospitality person”, or could she still be out there, hovering to greet her new guests?
BE WARNED, Amanda the Petulant Chalet Girl may be waiting just for you!
by Alex Peak
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