Un jour blanc

All went according to plan on the first morning of our ski holiday. James' plan that is; he is very efficient at getting us organised in the morning. We all got ready while James went to the patisserie to buy our pains au chocolat for breakfast; we left the apartment at 9, went to the ski hire shop and were on the  slopes by 10. We started off by skiing down to Bellecôte then skied around the area above Arpettes to get our bearings and get used to being back on the pistes. We met Jamie and Aisling for lunch, then Cat and I went to our ski lesson pour deux. I was a bit concerned that we would be allocated a wizened, cigarette smoking old ski instructor, however we were given cute twenty-five year old Jéremie. who was just lovely. He was brought up in Chambery and works as a ski instructor in the winter and as a carpenter in the summer. We explained to him that over the next four afternoons we would like to brush up on technique while enjoying exploring the resort, and he totally understood. So he guided us around and he gave us advice on what to work on, it was great fun. Cat was absolutely brilliant and Jéremie couldn't believe that she has only had four ski lessons on an artificial slope and has only skied on snow once, for two hours in Oslo. She is already skiing nearly parallel and will soon be way ahead of me, however for this holiday it's really nice to have lessons together and we had such a good laugh. Today the weather was cloudy with light snow and in some places quite misty, so it was hard to see the pistes clearly and it was reassuring to have a guide who knew the layout of the resort like the back of his hand. Jéremie told us that this is called "un jour blanc". At one point he warned us that there was a steep drop to our right which we couldn't see at all in the flat light - as we skied along we saw a man fall off it! (He was fine.) Meanwhile the rest of the gang were skiing around together at a lively pace and they skied up to us on one of our runs and we introduced them to our instructor. 

The two and a half hours flew by and we just had time for showers back at the apartment before meeting Jamie and Aisling for drinks at La Têtine, where there was a good country and western duo playing. We all swapped ski stories and listened to the excellent music and I felt very relaxed and happy.