900 and 35

Apparently, this is my 900th post!  Who knew I had that kind of perseverance in me???

900 posts over 5 and a bit years - I might have a slowed down a bit with my posting schedule since those early days, and sometimes the topics wander all over the place, but for now this little corner of the internet is still ticking along.  Yay me!

Over the last 24 hours, I've been exchanging emails with my dad, and feel oddly cheered as a result.  I have also decided that, whatever happens and wherever I end up when I get home, this summer is the Summer Of Fun (TM, of course).  I then read this lovely article on J for Jen, and decided that maybe a list of 35 things to before I turn 35 this November might be fun.  Moi?  An original thought?  I think not.

35 fun things to do in 6 months is perfectly doable.  Hell, I might even do some of them before I come home from the ski season.  As with Jen's list, this isn't about earnest pursuits; more fun stuff to make sure I have an awesome year and finish it happier.

So what sort of things would I like to do for my extended Summer Of Fun?

1. Parapent - I keep seeing them floating over the valley, and I meant to do it last year and ran out of time.  This year is the year.  Done - and it was sodding amazing!!
2. Visit 3 new countries - this is a pretty big goal, so it will count for 3 points, I think - one trip is already sort of being planned for November, when I'd like to go to Vietnam for 3 weeks to explore.  Two more shouldn't be such a big ask, as there's bits of Europe I've yet to explore.
3. See point 2.  Spent the week surfing in Morocco and it was gorgeous.
4. See point 2 again!
5. Go to a festival - possibly Somersault.  I missed out on this last year, due to weekend commitments with my work, so this year I'm off to have festively fun.
6. A trip to the theatre - because I haven't been for ages.
7. Watch the outdoor cinema at Somerset House.  Because.
8. Surf at least 3 times.  I love surfing, even though I suck major balls at it, so I should make sure I use my board, wherever I end up living. First trip - the week in Morocco ... some improvement witnessed!
9. Visit all my friends with children.  I have friends with kids now - some I just won't have seen for 6 months whilst I've been away over the winter, some will have been born whilst I'm away, and some, to my eternal shame, I've not met yet despite them being born whilst I was away LAST winter.  The shame.  And the guilt.  I have a lot of catching up to do with friends and their mini-me's.  Seen two, which I think means there's 4 to go - and possible 2 more if people get them pushed out anytime soon!
10. Go to a gig - I like them, I don't go to enough of them.
11. BBQ.  Because it's summer and they're fun.  Nuff said. Been to at least 1 now.
12. Picnic.  See the reasons for 11!  Picnic'd at Wimbledon and Kew Gardens amongst others.
13. See live comedy - laughing is GOOD for you. 
14. Have an old fashioned day at the beach - sand castles, swimming, sand in your food, the fun-fair (if there is one) - in short, the works.
15. City break - I love a bit of culture and I haven't done this for aaaaaaaages.  Doesn't matter whether it's UK or Europe - it'd just be nice to see somewhere new.
16. Get my ears pierced again - I have 4 delicate little piercings already, but would like something more, although I haven't quite decided what yet.
17. Eat at a Michelin star restaurant.  Never done it, feel it's lacking in my life.
18. Visit a museum - maybe the V & A, as I've never been and have always wanted to.
19. Throw a dinner party, so I can be an adult and all sophist-amacated and all.
20. Get a massage or three.
21. Finally get the tattoo I've been umming and ahhing about for 4 years.  I've wanted one for ages
22. Spend the day at a castle or country house - more culture!
23. Go horse riding again, just because I love it and haven't been for aaaaages.
24. Read the first volume of Game of Thrones.  I love the tv show and feel like I should see how I get on with the books.
25. Take a photography lesson for my SLR (it's been 2 years since I got it ... whoops!)
26. Do a proper tasting menu at a restaurant. I'm very guilty often of thinking that I know exactly what I like food-wise, and I feel it would be nice to be challenged a bit on that.
27. Learn to ice a cake properly - my cakes are tasty but ... rustic looking
28. Clear out my wardrobe again - it might not literally be the most fun thing to do but it's soooo flipping cathartic! Brutally chucked 2 bin bags out, 3 to the charity shop and still shedding bits.
29. Finally get my finances in order.  Can't.  Bloody.  Wait.  Mostly there - I'm debt-free and now thinking about how to save for a mortgage and get all grown up!
30. Buy myself a nice, new proper grown-up, statement handbag.  I love accessories, and used to be a bag fiend.  Over time, I divested myself of a lot of knackered, unused or just under-appreciated bags, so that my current collection are all good leather and work-horses.  However, they're all started to look a bit tired in their own right, and I feel like a sassy, sorted, adult woman should have a good, stylish, workhorse bag.
31. Go to Disneyland.  I've never been and would love to go.  I could probably only manage a weekend in Disneyland Paris for now, but that would be a start!
32. Get dim sum in China Town. 
33. Find a dog I can spend some time with - canine company is the best
34. Rooftop cocktails on a summer's evening
35. Try and find a healthy balance to work, rest, good food and some exercise I enjoy. I'm finishing on a serious note, but I know I feel so much better when I'm balanced - healthy food and a bit of decadence, fun, rest and some activity to offset work and the serious bits of life.

I haven't really felt much one way or the other about my birthdays for the last couple of years.  Once I got past 30, I just had a busy couple of years and wasn't too worried about the numbers rather than the self-improvement I achieved.  35 for some reason feels a bit bigger though - I'm suddenly half way to 40, so this feels like a good time to re-affirm that there's more to life than being far too sensibly adult all the time.

At the moment, I feel like I'm leaning towards the idea of London for the summer, although I haven't yet spoken to my friend about that, and there's still quite a while before I'm due to head back to England, so let's not get ahead of ourselves and say I've made a concrete decision, as we all know how quixotic and changeable I am about decisions.

In the meantime, perhaps I'll order my guidebook for Vietnam and give myself something to get excited about!

Crazy Brain

So life continues on, out here in the French Alps, and whilst I now have a kind of rhythm to my day to day life, I find myself curiously distracted by thoughts of what happens in a few months when it's time to go back to the UK again.  I'm finding it quite hard to let myself just live in the moment, right now.

The snow finally came in larger quantities, and the days are mostly blue skies and sunshine, but I'm struck with a sort of ennui, and it doesn't all quite have the shine it did last season.  How quickly we become jaded of new experiences, eh?  Or it could be the mid-season blues.

On the positive side, for the last two weeks I had friends out here from home, and seeing them has been wonderful.  A slice of home bought to the mountains, leaving me feeling quite grounded and refreshed.  And suddenly aware of how much my skiing has improved when I'm perplexingly quicker now than these girls who used to run rings around me on skis!

The conversations have turned this way and that, with these oldest and closest of friends, dwelling often on how much our friends' lives have moved forwards in the traditional direction of settling down and families, whilst ours have not / have gone in different directions.  It's refreshing to be able to talk to people my own age who have similar experiences, when you're surrounded by youngsters all day out here!

Then there's been the conversations about what will I do when I get home?  The answer being I have no idea, and the whole issue is already making me feel quite stressed, even though it's several months before I finish here.  There's currently about 3 options sat on the table, and I genuinely don't know which one to pursue.  It's hard to believe I'm worrying about this, when I live in the midst of the mountains, and should really just be making the most of my play time each day, but it seems like my brain has no off switch right now.  Although skiing in the woods on deep fluffy powder does help switch my brain off for a while ...

The main two questions seem to be these:  a) what do I want to do for work after the season and b) where do I want to live?

Regarding question a)  do I switch to contracting with a view to earning some money quick and being able to go travelling next year (6 months in South America being the current goal), and the potential for a change of scene regularly and no company politics, or do I apply for a job I've seen which I've had my eye on for ages, and could be an amazing opportunity, but probably means travelling's off the cards and I could / would think about settling a bit.

Question b) where do I live when I get back?  The permanent job's based near Portsmouth, which I can't say is a place I've ever particularly wanted to move to, hence my hesitation to do anything about it so far.  However, some research reveals that it's obviously on the coast, and there are lots of pretty villages and outdoor things to do near by, but the only major city nearby is Portsmouth which I wouldn't want to live in.  I could go back to Bristol, where in theory I might be able to contract for my old employer, and I would sort of just slide back into life as it's been for the last 4 years (which have been good years, I should point out!) but something's still making me hesitate about that.  Or option 3,  I could throw a complete curveball and move to London.  This option's come up as my friend, Jo, who visited Val Thorens two weeks ago and would be my potential South America partner-in-crime, asked if I'd considered moving down there for the money and renting her spare room off her.

I did London before, a decade ago now (Jesus KER-IST, where did the time go????) and it didn't make me that happy in the long-term back then, but I'm a very, very different person now.

Arrrrgh, I just don't know!  I'm also fighting an annoying obsession with buying a house right now, which also doesn't fit in with my plans (or my financial viability), as well as looking longingly at pictures of dogs and wishing there were space in my life for one (there isn't - it wouldn't be fair on the dog at all).

My brain is just.  All.  Over.  The.  Place.

So instead, I'm going to make the effort to get back into the moment and enjoy the here and now, rather than wishing it away and that Spring was here already / worrying about the future.

So on that note, I'm off to sit on a sunny deck for the afternoon with my housemate (in the pink jacket below with my friend Hannah last week) and try not to worry about anything more than getting a sunburnt nose.

Au revoir, mes amies!

... 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!

Happy December

Happy 1st of the month all!

Can you believe it's December already?  Crazy, right?

Here in Meribel I feel like I'm suffering a little pre-season blues, so I'm making the effort to try and make it at least a little festive to cheer myself up!

As you can see, it's still greener than a green thing here, which I think is part of what's getting to me.  I think the rest of it is just that I forgot how intensive this first month of training and resort set up is, and it's just wearing me down a bit.  Looking back to entries from this time last year, and remembering how it was last season, it's nothing different ... in fact, honestly, it's probably slightly easier going this year, as I know what I should be doing this time round.  At the same time, I'm not the newbie in the team any more, so I'm being leaned on more, and also being relied on for my French more than last year which is a little stressful as I don't feel very confident about that.

At the moment, our flat is being used as the resort social hub for our staff team - it's invaded morning, lunchtime and evening, and often between-times too, for meals, work and relaxing, and I'm finding having people around all the time very intense ... especially as my flat-mate and I are basically expected to host - cook every meal and clean up after the boys afterwards.  Some are better than others, but we keep finding empty beer bottles in unexpected places, wet foot-prints on the floor and they'll happily sit there and let us cook and wash up for them.  It's a lot of people for a smallish place, and I feel rude retreating to my room, but have started doing so anyway, just for the illusion of some space and peace and quiet!

This too shall pass though, eh?

The snow will come, the lifts will open, the guests will arrive and I'll settle back into my normal relaxed routine.

And it's not all bad!  Whilst I miss my friends in La Plagne, I drove over to see them a couple of nights ago, and realised they're actually much closer than I thought they were which is ace.  And Meribel itself is pretty cool - it's very pretty with it's traditional chalet style architecture and lack of high-rise buildings, and it's certainly got the facilities (or will do when it's all open!).  We must have at least 6 bars within 50m of the apartment, the bar staff I've met seem friendly, and the offices I'll be needing for my work are all within walking distance of my apartment instead of a bus ride away, which makes for a lovely novelty!

On the weight side of things, I didn't have my scales with me for training, so I stepped on them with some trepidation when we arrived in resort, only to find I was pretty much exactly where I was when I left the UK - not bad for 10 days of training!  I'm seem to be holding steady at the moment, which considering we're cooking 3 meals a day for the boys and doing a lot of hanging around working without much moving or any skiing, and a bit of comfort snacking on the side, isn't too bad.  I'm keeping an eye on it, and trying to make sensible decisions and hope to see some downward movement when the season proper kicks in.

So now we're just waiting on the snow .... where are yoooooooou??

In the meantime, we're getting some very pretty, dramatic views from our windows - love a bit of cloud forest!

Happy Birthday To Me!

Greetings from the not quite-so-snowy-yet Alps, where I am currently celebrating my 34th birthday.

Good grief! 34?! How on earth did the years pass so quick??

It's been a busy sort of week, in that I drove out last Saturday / Sunday, and went straight into training every day, 9-5, on Monday and the days go very quickly!




(Everything packed in the car ready to go)




(Beautiful autumnal fog as I passed Gloucester)




(Chilling out on the exceptionally quiet ferry as I waved farewell to the UK)

The journey itself went very smoothly, with a stop overnight in Reims, and I think I got most things done that I needed to before I left. It's so strange coming at it all again for the second time; so many things are familiar and others so different!

I got to see a few friends at home before I left, and spent a couple of days with my dad before the expected emotional farewell for 6 months. And then, quite suddenly, I'm back with friends from last winter and it's all heartfelt hellos!

I'm taking things much easier this year on training, so rather than being out every night and exhausted / hungover in training every day, I've had two big nights out, one relaxed night in the lodge bar where we're staying and two really early nights, which I've absolutely loved! I feel like I have nothing to prove this year so I can just sit back and enjoy the ride a bit more.

Weight-wise, I obviously didn't hit my targets before I left, but I did manage to drop 3lbs of my gain back off again. I've bought my scales and like last year I shall try and find the balance. Unlike last year, I have a flatmate this season who loves cooking and is keen to do some healthy eating too, so I might actually get some regular vegetables in my gob over the next couple of months - hoorah!

Looks like I just have to survive tonight, when everyone seems intent on having a massive night out and getting (me) hammered!


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It's Nearly Time

It's 8am on a Thursday, and I'm wide awake in my old bed at my Dad's house. Yesterday I left the corporate world of my job behind and I have two days at home before I drive out to the Alps for the winter.

Two days in which I want to unwind and let the stress of the last couple of weeks go. Stop and stand still for just a second before I start packing a small part of life into the car to take to the mountains for the next 6 months.

I feel exhausted and pretty gross from eating too much bad food as I've gone through the whirlwind of saying goodbye to UK friends - not quite how I wanted to feel at the beginning of the winter season. Last year, I was so excited and I'd worked hard on my eating and fitness to feel pretty good about myself as I embarked on a new adventure. This year, not so much. However, I also feel calmer and less terrified, and I'm excited about returning to friends, rather than venturing into the complete unknown.

And of course, rather than being on sabbatical, I've jacked in my job completely to see where life takes me.

It's time to close one door and open another.




(My empty flat - home for the summer)

It's the same again, but also different: Winter Season no. 2.

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All Systems Go

Hiiiiiiiiiii.

It's never a good sign when someone disappears for a while is it?

I shall get it out the way and 'fess it up straight away. I did indeed gain last week, as expected. 4lbs. Did I get back on the derailed train at that point and get back to work? Nope. I had another hectic week with not enough caring and added another 2lbs to that.

Soooo glad I worked so hard then for the autumn and undid it all in two weeks.

Sigh.

So pretty much back where I started the summer and too busy to care enough to do much about it. Another sigh.

Somewhere in the midst of that, work's quiet period came and went (a whole week! Lucky me!) and everybody seems to either have a birthday that needs celebrating or want to see me before I leave. Oh, and the flat needs packing up and moving backs to Dad's again.

I'm getting there slowly and tomorrow is the do-or-die day where I have a van for just 8 hours to get everything loaded and 70 miles away and the van back again.

I might find some energy to start caring again about my diet, but not just yet it seems.

There's been some of this:




And this:




And then some of this:




And all whilst living in this condition at home as I try and pack.




(From top to bottom: sticky jerk ribs at Turtle Bay, the wonderful Indiana at Thekla, pizza and gin at The Stable and ... a mess in my room)


T - 8 days until departure to the continent.


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