- Untitled
- The season begins
- Jan 2010
- Feb 2010
- March 2010
- April 2010
- May 2010
- Ski Pictures 2010
- June 2010
- July 2010
- August 2010
- September 2010
- October 2010
- Late October
- November
- December 2010
- January 2011
- February
- The European Youth Olympic Festival
- March 2011
- The season ends
- May and June 2011
- End of June
- July
- August in Yorkshire
- September 2011
- 28 October 2011
- November/December 2011
- Season 2012
- February 2012
- March and April
- June
- 'Summer' 2012
On the move
‘When did you realise that you were on the wrong platform?’
‘When I saw the train to Three Bridges going the other way.’
I have just arrived in Flaine with Honor and Issy and am trying to talk Sam across London so that he can spend the night with my long-suffering sister in Redhill, before leaving to Salzburg from Gatwick. This latest development is a bit of a setback, as I have obviously been talking him through being on the wrong platform for the past half hour. Now I have to unravel the entire pick- up arrangements, though I am not sure why he can’t just call his aunt himself.
It’s about this time that I wonder if either he or Tim has told his coach when he is arriving in Salzburg. I know I haven’t, and am not surprised to find out that they haven’t either.
He’s finally on a train to East Croydon, I’m still wandering round the flat, phone on ear, when I notice one of his catsuits. I am surprised that he hasn’t taken it with him; or his shorts for that matter? I am not too concerned as he has two catsuits, that’s until I find the other one. And all three of his jackets! Yes three (British Team, Youth Olympics and Club Team (Evolution). I happen to know that he and Tim paid 140 Euros excess baggage when they flew from Flaine to the UK ten days earlier. The reason that I know is that Easyjet lost the bag for a change and I spent three days chasing it and I am still trying to get a refund. So what was in the bag? I’ll apply my mind to it after I have been to the post office to buy a cat suit and jacket sized box, or two.
Ski prep
Now I’ve managed to leave a ski bench in Les Houches. The girls are trying to prep their skis at the train station in Villars. ‘That’s where the ski lockers are’ our kind but rather scary chalet owner told us firmly when we asked if there was anywhere in his pristine apartment to ‘prep’ skis. I hate ski prep at the best of times When Sam and Honi skied with the French club they left their skis in the ‘cave’ (pronounced like the knife not to rhyme with wave) every night and before each race the lovely Stephane positioned the skis on his professional bench, sharpened the edges, at just the right angle, applied the appropriate wax for the snow conditions with a hot iron, then, when it had dried, used a scraper to remove the excess so the skis were smooth and ready to go and all the wax shavings landed on the concrete floor of the ‘cave’.
This season, the whole filing, ironing and scraping process, which appears to have become a daily, not a just a pre race, occurrence has taken place in our kitchen, usually while I am cooking supper so I can help tread the iron filings into the carpet and add to the burn rate by getting tangled up in the iron at regular intervals. Tim, in his wisdom, and exasperation, recently bought a large piece of protective matting which mitigates the damage but the knack of lifting the map and disposing of the contents without half of them being deposited on the very floor it has just covered has yet to be perfected. Moreover, possession of the mat has somehow given the kids the impression that it is now okay to prep skis in any location where they can set up the portable bench, which is an essential part of our travel kit, and find a power supply.
But I have drawn the line at ski prep inside rented apartments, even with new mat. In Les Houches we were on the second floor anyway, so I insisted that the bench got no further than the storage lockers just inside the entrance (which of course meant that we forgot to pack it and I have to go back and get it) but all filing and waxing was done on the ground floor, outside I hope but I wasn’t watching. Somehow though the skis appeared in the flat prior to scraping, which has to take place after a time interval, so as it was getting late I relented and let them spread the mat on the onto the balcony floor, resolving to sweep up overflow wax shreds in the morning.
Which I was fully prepared to do, thinking I could probably brush them over the edge, and all that the people in the apartment below would see was a dusting of a snow like substance. But when at seven am someone’s nerves (or the previous day’s steak hache) got the better of them, and my nutritious breakfast of mango cubes and fried egg was deposited on top of the wax shavings, sweeping was no longer an option. Not much went over anyway, and the bits that did were thoroughly doused in disinfectant.
Back to Villars. We had to park some distance from the train station locker room and lug four pairs of skis up the steps, in the rain, but the good news is that it has a bench. That is the stage where they realise that they have left the iron in the apartment so I go back to the car, sacrificing my precious parking space, and drive back to the apartment. When I get there I discover that the iron actually is in the car in a bag under a seat. Back at the locker rooms I I park in a VIP space and rather bad temperedly present the iron only to find that the said bench has no power supply. After much searching ee unplug a water machine only to find that the plug won’t fit. I proudly produce a multi-way adapter from my handbag only to find it is every way but Swiss way.
There is a large poster advertising ‘fartage’ (the French name for waxing which at one time provided much hilarity) at 20 Swiss francs a pair, on the door of a side room. I am about to give in when the girls have the bright idea of asking if they might borrow an iron. The lovely fartage man lets them use his professional iron and bench and the whole job is done before I am back from the shop where I buy him a bottle of wine which is quite expensive but a lot less than four sets of ‘fartage’.
We are all set, minus the scraping, which they promise to do outside in the morning. But in the event they don’t have to as it rains all night and the race is cancelled.