Wednesday 7 January 2015

... And A Belated Happy New Year Too

Aaaargh - I promised I'd be better than last year at checking in regularly, and it's been 5 weeks since my last post - that's not a big improvement, is it?

So, yeah, Happy New Year and all that!  The time just keeps flying by and I'm not sure where it goes.

So what's new?

Well, resort is now well and truly open and we're on our 4th week of guests now.  I don't know if you've seen on the news though, but we're having the weirdest weather in decades and the snow is shiiiiiiiiiit.  It was super late to arrive, then we got a massive dump of it about 10 days ago .... and then it got warm again, rained a lot, and huge amounts of it has gone again.  I could literally cry.  It's rolling round to mid-January, which is approaching what should be the coldest point of the season, and it was so warm yesterday I was working with our balcony door open.  Not good.

There should be several feet of snow by now covering the roofs in resort and they're bare.  The village streets are bare.  The pistes into the village are either streaked with brown and closed or only open courtesy of snow cannons and snow "harvesting" from other areas, and they're cut up pretty badly.  Higher up is a bit better but still thin cover and super icy from the constant freeze-thaw.  All in the all the skiing's not great right now, which doesn't really tempt me out, as I fear for the base of my skis and already took a few nasty falls on it.

Which is really just as well, as I don't have time to ski any way. This time last year I was going out 3 or so times a week skiing, and out most nights, but this year seems to be more about the constant work and then falling into bed and passing out.  Mostly because I've been doing a lot more budgeting work with the chalets, so financially they're in a much better position for the season, and I know that in my other work everything's reconciled much tighter, so I won't have problems later on, but it takes up a lot of time.

Socially, I don't have the big group of resort friends that I was so lucky to have last year.  I have some nice people in my company, but given I live and work every day with one of them, I'm craving outside company and I don't have it.  Catch-22 - because I'm so tired and don't have the extra company, I don't get out to meet any one.  It's a bit of a vicious circle.

It has it's benefits though as I'm not spending much money .... which is a good job since our apres programme hasn't really taken off yet and I'm broke, and I haven't really had any major hangovers to contend with.

Weight wise, since I haven't really been skiing (just 5 times since the start of the season) and I'm sitting home working a lot, my weight hasn't really changed.  It's maybe down a couple of lbs, but nothing major, so I do need to get motivated on that as I know I feel better a bit lighter than I am right now.

So I guess it's all pros and cons at the moment:  cons - I'm feeling a bit lonely and left out, and demotivated from the lack of free time or snow to enjoy.  Oh yeah, and I managed to break my camera and smash my iPhone within the space of a week over Christmas.  Pros - the resort's in better shape for the rest of the season thanks to my work, and I'm healthier than last year as I'm getting more sleep, drinking less, eating a little more balanced and not so vulnerable to the tonsillitis, etc that lots of people are getting currently.  If I can just lose a few lbs and get a bit more skiing done, I'm sure I'll start to feel a bit more positive about it all.  And hey - it's still beats an office job!