Car Problems

Some of the boys were in town for a week of skiing. I have been keeping house (badly) and cooking meals (simply), minding kids. Thrilled to have an excuse not to ski with the boys, cos they will insist in all sorts of off-piste, skiing-through-the-trees a la Sonny Bono shenanigans
So I gladly throw myself into the mothering role...a la Cher...only bigger.

We have 2 cars....mine a sensible people carrier type thing with snow tyres...will drive up vertical slopes through an avalanche...ugly, totally uncool but extremely effective.


Hubby has a boy-toy (will only drive on dry motorways...very pretty but not at all effective) which he tried to sell, to discover that the market for those types of cars has collapsed. So we had to bring it with us....it would cost too much to put snow tyres on (€1000)....so we haven't....it would cost too much to reregister and get french insurance...so were are leaving it 3rd party on the irish policy.


Well today being a clear day with perfect roads, the boys took my car up the mountain (more room for stuff) and left me with the fancy car. I tootle with picnic and kids up to little ski station with bunny slopes for kiddos...it suddenly starts to snow heavily, I realise the fancy car will not cope with the conditions. So, I do a u turn and make for home, pronto. It's snowing heavily and I get stuck fast about 500m from the house in a very tight, steep, little village road. I have no control either forward (up-hill) or reverse (down-hill) ...I have about 4 inches on either side of the car to the village houses.



I call a friend for advice and her swedish hubby comes with his 4 wheel drive and tows me, with great difficulty as far as he can...picture expensive but worthless fancy car slipping and sliding around at the end of his rope. sort of like a water-skiier in a canal.....veering millimetres from stone walls, totally out of control. Friend's hubby is from the artic circle...therefore a great snow/ice driver...and he says he has never driven a car which is worse in snow...says we have no choice but to abandon it at the side of the road. Beside the bins! He gives me kids and dog a lift home.


Meanwhile...the big boys have gone up 3 ski-lifts into the next valley....they fail to notice that the only lift to bring then back is closed due to weather....and try to get a train and a bus home.

So now 2 abandoned cars.

I rang 3 taxi companies all of which refused to bring me up retrieve to my sensible car. I pray the snow-plough won't scrape the side off the fancy car.(remember only 3rd party insurance).


The thing that bothers me most is that the boys had invited us out for pizza tonight with kids and now I have to cook....as we have no car to get to restaurant.

Epilogue
Well the boys miss the train and hence the bus, but do succeed in getting a taxi (€45) back up to my car and retrieving it.
We have transport to restaurant.
En route home there has been a thaw and we manage to retrieve fancy car too.
All's well that ends well. I'm not driving that fancy car for the remainder of the winter.

At Last A Snowman!

Since we've moved to the Alps the kids have talked nearly everyday about making a snowman.

We've had snow on the ground for the last two months.
Problem is, it's "proper snow" ie very dry.
It's like trying to make a sandcastle from dry sand.

Well the last few days we've had good old irish slushy snow et viola.....finally...the much longed for SNOWMAN.

The next day being school free (Wednesday) the kids added a glamorous Mrs snow and two kiddy-snowmen....they didn't consider the difficulty getting them all in the one photo...so you'll have to do with mammy and daddy snowman.

Skagoraphobia

The fear of skiing in crowds.

I’ve just invented this phobia. I have been working on it over the last few weeks. But it became fully mature today. I am paranoid about people crashing into me.

Piste-etiquette dictates that the person downhill has the right of way.
Hubby tells me to ignore the people behind/above me (the ones I can’t see, can’t control, who have gravity on their side) and focus on the ones in front ( who I have fully supervised and who can’t hurt me because they are below me)

I am the skiing equivalent of a Sunday driver and my nemesis as the are snow-boarders.
The Alpine equivalent of our Donegal boy-racers. They are generally boys/young men, represent a shrinking 20% of the piste population. They have both feet locked into one board, they love speed, they make a lot of noise, they can’t hear you, as they have earphones and they often have limited control of their vehicle.

Yesterday, I heard the tell-tail swoosh of a speeding boarder bearing down, I freeze and brake hard…he is coming at me at terrifying speed face to face. Do I cover my face, head, do I roll up in a protective ball…no…I close my eyes! Behind which I see vivid images of pelvic fracture, pins, months in a hospital bed, spitting out the remains of my teeth. He slides over my skis…my hubby shouts an expletive. He is gone in a cloud of snow. I am shaking.

Today I hear a rapid swoosh from behind and freeze.
Then I realise it’s just the backs of my own skis.
Skagoraphobia.

Ski Sick

I cannot move. I am totally paralysed. Immigration and intergration are totally totally over-rated. Stay with your people in your homes I say...DO NOT MIX!

I filled out a form that I half understood, about volunteering, to help with the kids' ski classes (part of the regular curriculum here) As a skier I respond to gravity...but that's about it. So I pictured myself stationed in the kids play-area. Where they have a sort of conveyor belt, bringing the kids up a slight incline and you sort of give them a shove back down. You bring the occasional one for a pee-pee. Pull the fallers upright. Easy Peasy! Well within my comfort zone.

So today I show up for the meeting about it. I happen to be in my ski gear and have my skis as hubby and I were throwing ourselves down various pistes all morning.

We are going to be tested! We are required to indicate our level of competence. There being no section for pee-patrol, I chose "D" which was described (at least what I could make out) as able to go down any red (intermediate difficulty) run, blah blah blah in french . Yep, that'll do.

Up 3 ski lifts we climb, to the summit of the Alps. Two testers, one in front and one behind the laggard (no prizes for guessing who that was!) Our first slope was the hardest I have ever been down. But no friends or family to prevail on to "eff this, lets go for a coffee!" So nowhere to go but down.

For any skiers reading it was a black mogul run with 15 of my fellow parents within 2 feet of me. Thankfully I didn't kill anyone and I got all the way down to the bottom on skis (getting down a black run is easy, doing it on skis is the challenge) and did an impressive somersault on the easy part. The only faller thus far.

On an on it went. We had to ski down and line up about 8 feet apart and then the top skier slaloms (weaves) between the others. My mantra was "whoever I kill, please may it not be on of the neighbours."

Then out of the blue I was saved from further humilation by an english teenager. He approached our tester and explained in english that his father had fallen and couldn't get up.
The tester called out for an english speaker....at last an area I excel! So I spent the next hour by mobile phone trying to get the piste ambulance to the english dad, who was off-piste on his own (sort of off road, so no landmarks) with a broken leg. The first aid guys had difficulty locating him and we left before he was actually found...but I did reassure him by telephone, in an inappropriately delighted tone...that all would be well...if he just kept me here a little bit longer.

We were running way late, no time for further testing, but instead had to belt down the rest of the mountain. Given that I had no idea where I was, my only option was to keep up with all these born-on-skis-people. The laggard-minder got fed up eventually and over took me...baastard!

They waited for me every so often. I wasn't that slow. But once I skied over one mums skis and the other time I nearly took the tester out. Accurate braking is an area I'm working on.

I'm wrecked and if I do pass muster for pee-patrol in the jardin des enfants...I imagine they'll insist I don't wear skis.

Update 13/1/03

Well I made it! Got the "job". Unfortunately all the positions on pee-patrol were filled by mammys claiming to have busted knees and some such guff. So because I seem so robust, I was assigned to actually go on the slopes, on skis, with the kids!!!!!!!!!!

I was a nervous wreck this morning. Studying the piste map, programming all the emergency numbers into my phone. Well 5yo sonny boy and I set off with the rest in two coaches (120 odd people) for the unfamiliar ski station. Course no-one speaks bloody english. That's the main problem with foreigners!

I was assigned a parent partner and a group of 6 good novices 7 yos.
All went pretty well except for the time 4 of the 6 fell off the button lift.
Not bad for the first day...5 to go..argghhhh!
Feel the fear and do it anyway!

Cash Sick

Goodness gracious me…who suggested that doing the ironing or our finances who give me a sense of accomplishment to pull me out of the blues!

I’ve been putting figures into excel (an accounts package) for 2 days now. I dread pressing the ADD button. In fact, I might not. You can know too much about these things.

I don’t know who has been using our cards, but they are having a helluva time.
There’s small countries spending less than us.

Ann, you thought it was an accident that we left the country without paying up and that you were never able to cash that restaurant voucher we gave you. I promise I’ll cook you something nice (and still in date) when you visit. If you’re reading can we talk payment programme for those Christmas gifts you bought on our behalf!

Before we did this mental thing of travelling-in-the-one-spot for a year…people asked me what we’d live on. I joked that its amazing how much moola you can make these days, with a webcam and a bit of imagination.

So how much is a web-cam???

I'm going to try the ironing option tomorrow, see if it has a more positive effect

Full day's skiing planned for me and hubby tomorrow, kids in school from 8 30 to 4 30. Yipee. I'll work on the webcam idea once I get home! Slappers and Salopettes.....hmmm

Edited To Add:

Well I finally got the courage to press ADD......and it indicates that our spending has dropped 25% compared to living in Dublin. That's over our first 4 months. Which are always extremely expensive when moving to a new country. So I'm quite optimistic that we can pull it down further, now that all the ski expenses, house furnishing, snow tyres, headlight changes, retaxing, heating oil etc is dealt with.

So I'll be putting slappers and salopettes on hold for the moment.

Ann, cheques in the post!

Homesick

Feeling dreary and lethargic since we got back.
Hubby trying to get me motivated, which puts him the firing zone.
Then I realised I'm homesick. Once I copped on, I'm rising above it.

Not so much that I've attacked the mountain of ironing, or done our finances yet...but I will, I will.

I posted the slideshow below to offer a comparison of the Irish countryside with the Alps. A different type of beauty in Ireland, less rugged and more colourful...but still very very beautiful...on a sunny day...there's the rub really.

Irish Beauty