Joyeux Noel et Bonne Annee !

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Last blog before Christmas and I finally went up on the slopes for the first time on Sunday. It was -12 degrees up there, practiced on some easy greens as its 3 winters since I was last on my snowboard. Was a bit rusty and kept falling over but cheered up on Sunday night as we found a bar serving roast dinners so we went for le ros bif!

Safe to say it’ll be a white Christmas here, the festivities began this week with our office party on Tues night. Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, some festive music, dodgy shots and secret santa ! I received a new hat and ear warmers, as modelled by myself and Rosy in the photos. Jim next to me received a bottle of potent green cactus drink so everyone on our table had 5 shots of the stuff and consequently Weds was a bit of write off.

Yesterday's snowboarding was much better when we went out on for Rosy’s first snowboard lesson. I am trying to convert her from skiing but we spent half the time in deckchairs and laughing so much at Rosy's 360s round the piste marker poles and then missed the bus back !

Christmas day we plan to go on the piste in the morning and then all have dinner together in the afternoon. Have some parcels from home ready to open and loads of cards on my wall. You’ll be glad to hear I’ve found a shop in Chamonix selling mince pies ! Just got to figure out now where to go for a Boxing Day leftovers baguette.

Last week went up to the Al Fresco ski resort at Grand Bornand for my day off. Had a few beers with the summer folks and caught up on all the Al Fresco gossip. Stayed over in a very warm mobile home. Was most impressed with the heating and the resort is very pretty too especially covered with snow.

Next week it looks like I'm going back to Meribel to do some training. The resort accounts rep has decided she doesn’t like snow and quit already so my old boss rang up and offered me my job back in Meribel. I’m quite happy here but I volunteered for a resort visit to help out the new recruit and maybe coincide with the reps bar crawl ?!

Its all one big social whirlwind here and official apres hasnt even started yet !

For fear of being a social outcast, I have finally given in to the pressure and signed up to Facebook. It is banned in the office but I have free wifi at home so you can view my profile and will be able to see my blogs there now too.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Meilleurs voeux !

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