I've secured a place to live in Les Houches for the foreseeable future living in an old farmhouse with my mate Andy. It's really mint - old wooden chalet style high up on the mountain away from everyone and everywhere with a high-speed internet connection and surrounded by snow. Just ideal and I'm really looking forward to living there.
I've bought some transport. Another mate, Leighton, who used to work as a chef at Le Delice (the restaurant co-owned by one of my old school friends) is leaving the mountains to work on the barges and is selling his old Renault Express van for a few hundred euros. Snapped it up - needs the headlights changing over to continental ones but a swift search on eBay has yielded some positive results.
I've managed to do some really good stints of work knuckling down and working like a demon for days on the trot. This is really good news as it means I know that I can ignore the mountains when there's important stuff to do. It's a personal thing I know, but it feels good to know that distractions can be ignored and when there's work to do, there's no shirking away from it.
I rode for the Chamonix team in the Boss des Bosses mogul competition (bosses in french means bumps, not bosses!). It's a competition held each year between a load of resorts (Courchevel, Zermatt, Chamonix, Val d'Isere, Meribel, Verbier) and there's mostly skiers but also a couple of boarders in the teams. I got draughted in at the last minute and didn't do too badly. Chamonix came second to Zermatt in the final, and my record stood at a mildly respectable won one, lost two. I was pleased to contribute and did a few nice tricks off the kicker at the end.
The Boss des Bosses course.
So all in all it's been pretty nifty. Work's going well, going to get a dream place on the mountain which will by my own space (albeit sharing with a mate!), got transport and starting to officially feel like a resident of Chamonix.
Giant moguls on the Boss des Bosses course.
