My Fifty Second Week as a Budding Author

Just to quickly recap the last 52 weeks, I’ve chucked in a good job, ridden my bike a lot around the country, vaguely tried to write a book about it and also hammered out a weekly blog entry to keep myself and my Mum entertained. There’s been a bit of freelance writing and IT hackery as well to break up the monotony and attempt to keep the wolf from the door. Frankly, the life of a full time cycle dosser is quite exhausting and thus what better way to end the year than how I’ve spent most of it, on holiday. So grab a cup of coffee and a few matchsticks for the eyes as we set out on an extended blog describing our wonderful trip.

In the days when I had a proper job our family had an annual ritual of pouring half of our accumulated wealth into the French economy, or skiing as it is more usually known. This has been going on for five years or so ever since our fist trip to Morzine with friends. I had reservations before we went, due to my obsessive nature, and it all came true as I was immediately hooked. Helen watched in a resigned manner as I purchased the latest skiing gear, threw myself down runs that I was incapable of skiing and started booking multiple holidays per year.

Anyone who has ever gone skiing will feel her pain. The sport has no concept of “cheap”, everything from lift passes to ski goggles not only attracts a premium but has an “upgrade path”. It is possible to find ski holidays that cost more than my house and the vast majority that we have been on have cost at least a bike per family member, and we’re not talking Halfords specials either.

However, this year we made an exception to the annual ritual and decided to go camping instead. A single regular wage just can’t afford a skiing holiday per year, in fact two household incomes can barely stretch to it either. But as Christmas approached the news in Europe became more and more dire. Our lack of ski holiday booking coincided directly with the collapse of the Eurozone. Not only were we missing out on the elation of falling hard into the snow, we were denying the Greeks their Christmas presents as well.

Helen and I put heads together, rubbed our temples and then began to brainstorm “budget skiing holiday”. Given that we were looking to go after Christmas day this seemed nigh on impossible. Flights were expensive, accommodation was at a premium and most places were booked anyway. I mooted hitchhiking and a four man tent as an option, Helen asked why would I want to hitchhike on my own carrying a four man tent. Then in harmony our eyes turned to the driveway and we caught sight of our motorhome standing forlornly on the driveway. It had not been used in weeks. We could drive!

The seeds of a plan were sown. As usual we’d overstocked on Christmas food, we’d load this into the van and live on it for a week. Winter ferry prices were pretty cheap and a campsite in Bourg Saint Maurice could host us all for £18 a night including electricity. All we’d have to do is drive to the Alps the day after Boxing Day, hire a few skis and hit the slopes..what could possibly go wrong?

Well for a start we could have decided to have the entire family around for Boxing Day. This requires a frenzy of cooking and house cleaning made all the more difficult by the two bottles of sparkly, red wine, whisky and Baileys consumed on Christmas Day. The frenzy occupied a time period where we should be packing the van, consequently our guests were a bit confused as to where Helen kept disappearing to and why was she carrying duvets.

As soon as our guests had departed the house reverted to military rule. Helen and I barked orders at the children and each other whilst furiously running round in circles chanting the mantra of “What have we forgotten? What have we forgotten?”. At around about 11pm it seemed that there was nothing too forget as every single skiing or sleeping related item was now in the motorhome. We then commenced the time honoured ritual, the evening before departure, of going through all the relevant documentation required.

Passports, EHICs, Travel Insurance, ferry booking, campsite booking, Euros and toilet roll were all checked off the list. Then we came to European breakdown cover for the van. Bollocks, it had expired. Fortunately it was in Helen’s name so I could apportion all blame to her whilst secretly kicking myself for filing the renewal letter in the same cupboard as the special offer vouchers we never use. In an attack of blind optimism I phoned the office number, a recorded message informed me that I should “Sod off as it’s Christmas”.

There was not a lot else I could do apart from ponder what happens when your motorhome fails in a foreign land and you’re not in possession of many Euros? We all went to bed ready for an early start and long drive the next day. I managed about 3 hours sleep and awoke grumpy as hell the next day. We drove to Dover in silence.

The ferry crossing was uneventful as was the drive to Troyes. At 1am French time we decided that enough was enough and pulled into a service station for some kip. France is much acer than the UK in this respect. Our service stations are plastered with notices informing us that any stay longer than 2 hours is chargeable. In France, just pull in and settle down, no questions asked, in fact many towns have “Aires” specifically reserved for motorhomes to encourage tourism. We have height barriers instead. However, France was not quite so ace tonight as the first stop was full, with a pack of lorries having taken all available kip stops, as was the next.

It took another 30 minutes drive to find a suitable spot which was dead noisy but we were so shattered that within minutes we were all snoring away. The next day we awoke to fog and an interesting 150 mile drive to our campsite. As we entered the mountains the fog dissipated to reveal sun drenched ski slopes screaming at us to kit up and come and have a play. Unfortunately the campsite had closed for tiffin forcing us to retire to a coffee shop and practise our French on the owners.If I moved there my staple diet would become Croque Monsiour, Chocolate Chaud and du Pain, I haven’t got a clue how to order anything else.

The campsite opened at 3pm and we were there on the dot. There was a tense moment when we were informed that we’d booked for three nights, Helen had definitely clicked the button marked “4”. We hung on every mouse click until she smiled and said “No problem”.

Everywhere was decked in snow including our campsite. I’d told Helen that we’d have no problem dossing in Bourg Saint Maurice as it’s low and hardly ever gets the snow. I probably should have added that I’ve only been in late March as she stared quizzically at the snow drifts and half buried caravans. The drive to the pitch was not straightforward, as the ground had at least an inch of hardpack snow cover. I nearly donned the snow chains but we skidded our way into the mass of vans, hooked up to the electric point, plugged in the heater and blew the campsite fuse.

More tense words with the proprietor who fiddled about in the electric box for a bit before plugging us back in again. The heater fired up and we cooked tea whilst gazing dreamily at the mountains covered in snow. We’d made it, tomorrow we’d ski.

And ski we did. We were up early and tramped a mile from our campsite through some woods to the Bourg-Saint-Maurice funicular. Skis were hired from Polair Star very conveniently located at the bottom of the Les Arcs funicular and even more conveniently run by an eccentric British couple thus negating the requirement for my piss poor French.

Sadly the sun had gone on vacation to Wiltshire, only to be replaced by wind and cloud. Our first few runs of the day were fine until we headed down towards Villaroger and dense fog. We’d committed ourselves by skiing down past a lift and visibility went from perfect to “what the hell is that thing on the front of my face”. This was our first experience of skiing by braille, many tense minutes later we’d groped our way to the bottom of the run. “Higher, higher” became the mantra, skiing meets “Play your cards right”, Brucie would have been proud.

It became clear that the weather was moving round the mountain and we needed to place ourselves where the fog wasn’t. We had an entertaining day dashing from lift to lift in search of the visibility. At one point Jake and I travelled as high as we could go, the Aiguille Rouge, or Red Eagle pinnacle. The fog had followed us up and we gingerly picked our way down the steep higher slopes. Then we heard cheers and saw other skiers and were smacked by sunlight as the wind blew fog away. A father/son chase down the mountain ensued. Jake won easily. I’d been waiting for the moment when youth, courage and talent would eclipse experience and this was it. I was the same old raggedy type skier, he looked “right” and descended fast.

We rejoined the girls and skied some more fading sun prompted a look at the watch. Hmmm, we were a long way from the funicular, had two sets of mountains to cross and 40 minutes to do it in. I shuffled everyone onto a lift, probably the slowest in the resort and reassured Holly we’d be OK whilst furiously calculating lift times and average rates of descent. It was going to be tight. a quick pep talk at the top of the next lift, “No falling, no off piste, no snow plough, no stopping” we had to ski hard to make the final lift. But the family did me proud, we made it with five minutes to spare. Holly asked me what we would have done if the lift had shut, I think the response “Cry” did not fill her full of confidence in her father.

We slept bloody well that evening which is a good thing as the night was filled with horrors that were best ignored till daybreak. I awoke first to a strange tip tip tapping sound on the top of the van. I opened the door and all I could see was white, white on the ground, white falling from the sky and white skin as I’d forgotten to get dressed. It hadn’t just snowed in the night it had monsooned. The van was surrounded by a few feet of the cold white stuff and it was still coming down. Some cars had disappeared altogether. The kids were in raptures, what better way to spend a Christmas break than messing about in man sized drifts. All I could think was “how on earth am I going to get out?”.

Fortunately I’d packed a spade and did my best to dig a path from the van to the shower block. We then attempted to walk to through the woods to the ski hire shop where our skis resided. It was futile as the snow was waist deep. We reverted to the roads which only had an inch of cover due to the snow ploughs and traffic. Another area where the French clearly trump us, no matter how hard it snows they are ready. Straight out in their cars to buy fags and baguettes and ensure that snow has no chance to settle.

Ascending the funicular we discussed whether we’d be able to ski. None of us had ever seen so much snow on the slopes, let alone an extra few feet overnight. We needn’t have fretted as this snow fell as powder, beautifully light and easily parted by skis. It was the best day’s skiing I’ve ever had.

Normally I’ll trend towards the harder red and black runs to test myself whilst giving the French another abject display of something they are much better than us at. Today there was no need. All of the runs were deep in snow, all of them were lumpy and challenging..and fun! We stuck to the same few lifts which appeared to occupy a break in the snow cloud formation. Visibility was good and the conditions were amazing so the kids and I went in search of trees, bumps and jumps (well the kids did the jumps I looked on in a supervisory manner). We skied in waist deep powder, took lines I’d never consider on a normal day and laughed ourselves stupid as we fell and were buried.

We were even more tired that evening, but the skies weren’t and they did it again. Another morning, another metre of snow! Discussion turned to our impending departure and what we would do if we couldn’t get out. But the weather had an answer, and as we skied the temperatures rose and snow turned to rain.

Returning to the van that evening it was clear that the snow was receding. I practised affixing the snow chains ready for departure and dug all round the van to clear our way out. This was New Year’s Eve, we were in bed by ten after a single glass of plonk and a game of cards. I reflected upon the three days and our simple routine:-

• get up, shout at the kids for thirty minutes, check they aren’t dead, forcibly eject them from bunks
• brew coffee, tea and bad farts from last night’s thrown together meal
• open van door, shovel snow out of van, dig path to shower block
• send eldest child to reception to pick up baguettes and croissants
• breakfast and make sandwiches, accuse each other of farting
• fight each other in confined space to don skiing gear, retrieve goggles, find helmets, hide chocolate and argue who carried the cameras
• break trail through the snow to ski hire shop
• moan for ten minutes as feet are forced into boots and new bruises are found
• ski, morning shift, furtive farting, occasional crossed ski
• take refuge in mountain restaurant make a coffee and hot chocolate last an hour
• furtively eat sandwiches outside restaurant (have you seen the food prices!!!)
• ski, afternoon shift, close shaves and miscommunication about which way we’re going
• return to ski hire shop, moan for ten minutes attempting to remove boots
• break trail back to van
• lukewarm shower listening to Belgium men discuss yodelling whilst pooing
• cook dinner from packets of stuff and leftover Xmas cheese
• agree dinner was best we have ever eaten
• send kids out to do washing up on premise that we cooked dinner (ie. opened a few packets)
• retire to bed and snore

Three days skiing in these conditions was plenty for us. At the end of the last day we were shattered yet fulfilled. This eased departure day, but the inch of ice around the campsite didn’t. I have no idea how the van made it to the entrance because even with snow chains the steering wheel had little effect. I passed a group of campers walking their dogs, they thought I was waving, the gesture was more along the lines of “For f**ks sake get out of the way I have no control whatsoever over this vehicle”.

Fortunately the ice ended with the campsite and the roads out of the mountains perfectly clear. Helen and I did 150 mile shifts between us. The kids plugged themselves into stuff like iPods and Nintendo DS consoles totally unaware of the tedium surrounding them. I lucked out with two calm weather shifts. Helen pulled the short straw navigating a monsoon on shift one and horizontal rain slabs shift two. But the driving was easy. I can’t put my finger on “why” but French traffic seems to flow better on their motorways. Maybe it’s because they are all smoking and have Grandma in the back berating them to slow down.

Eleven hours and six hundred miles later we rocked up at the ferry port in Dunkirk. It was 10pm and we had the option of getting a midnight ferry. Tiredness overruled. Helen and I were all driven out and attempted to convince the kids to bed down for one more night. They did not respond. So we pulled out their headphones and asked again.

A huge collective sigh of relief was exhaled the next day as the van rolled off the ramps and into Dover. We’d gambled with the European breakdown insurance and won. Never again though. Halfway through the drive back I’d noticed white smoke coming from the exhaust. It took a long while and a lot of bowel control until I realised it was spray from the road hitting the pipe and vaporising.

I drove the last shift home and occupied myself with some virtual accounting. The trip had cost us approximately £375 per head door to door. This included everything, ski hire, lift passes, food, petrol, tolls, accommodation and the machine on the ferry where you use a crane to try and grab a furry toy. For non-skiers this will seem a lot, for those who have paid to go before I hope you’ll agree that we pulled it off and really did do it on the cheap.

It was a fitting end to the year and over three thousand words will prove a fitting end to fifty two weeks of continuous waffle with only two breaks. I set out to spend the year writing a book. Like all good estimates it needs some tolerance and 25% seems a good figure to me. It will be done in April trust me on that, my only excuse is that I’ve not done it before so cut me some slack in my planning.

However, completion requires focus on the task in hand. This means using the hours spent writing the blog to write the book instead and fifty two weeks is probably fifty one too many. So I’ll sign off with a “thanks” for the comments, sarcasm, encouragement and eyeballs that you’ve given me each week. I’m not stopping this for good, you don’t get off that lightly, it’s the “weekly” that falls by the wayside. Here’s wishing you a Happy New Year and may all of your dreams come true in 2012. Well most of them anyway.I had a weird one about a having a job last week, makes me shudder reliving it again.

Dave

3rd January 2012

WEEK 55>>>>>>>>>>>>>