'Fessing up

So, it's that time of year again when people all over the country are packing their suitcases and setting off to spend six months of the year on snow covered mountains.

Do I wish I was with them??

No.

Not in any way shape or form. I am very happy here, thank you very much.

But it does cause me to think back to the good things I did, the bad things I did and the down right stupid things I did in my seasonaire days.

There has been one thing hovering about at the back of my mind since pretty much the night I got back to England, and, understanding social media the way I do, I have always known that this one stupid thing would make it's way out into the public conciousness eventually. As a certain person who got a really panicky text message that very same night will attest.

And so now it has.


In my defence I did not leave it there on purpose but I should have listened more to my mum when she said that you should always double check a room before you leave it to make sure you have not left anything behind. And I will always do this in the future.

And it wasn't through lack of cleaning that it was left there (as someone has suggested!) It simply must have fallen out of my suitcase. And to the person who found it, no thank you I do not want it back, you can put it in the bin.

Lets face it, I have written about much worst things than accidentally leaving a vibrator under the bed of the hotel room I lived it. I mean I have done stupider things.

But honestly, there really isn't much else to do when you live up a mountain.

Back in England - Update

Now I am back in England I have written a To Do list

1. Water plans before they die

2. Feed housemate's fish before they die

3. Find interesting and attractive man for dates, long conversations, hand holding and eventually babies

4. Buy Low fat Salad dressing from Sainsbury's

Finding a boyfriend is not as high up my to do list as it could be. In fact I know several of my close friends for whom this issue takes up much more of their time and energy than it does with me.

However it is further up on my list than eating low fat foods, so I figure it might be time to start actively start thinking about my future.

It's not that I don't occasionally meet men for mutual attraction, however I couldn't get the last one to commit to taking me out to dinner so getting him to commit to marry me would take a lot more energy that I am prepared to dedicate to the situation.

'You're not actually that bothered about being single' Said my wise housemate 'so maybe now is the perfect time to start looking for a man'.

'Where do you actually meet men' I said

'Well either at work, which is not an option for you as the heritage and museum industry is not known for its abundance of attractive single men, or through friends, but I don't know anyone either, or at a pub, but I'm not going to spend my evenings at the pub with you trying to eye up men when I could be at home. So you better start internet dating'.

Only the French

Picture the scene

The week before Christmas. Tensions and excitements are running high. Staff are all busy decorating the tree and the hotel. Hours are being spent on the plans for Santa's Visit, for making Christmas magic and for Christmas Dinner. Christmas songs have been playing on repeat for what sees like weeks, even if the song 'Driving Home for Christmas' has been banned because it makes me cry.

A few days before the big day itself I was summoned to the kitchen to be told that there was a bit of a problem.

'Err you know the Turkeys that were delivered'

'Yes'

'The ones that we were going to cook on Christmas day and have as the centrepiece for every table'

'Yes'

'The ones that I and all the other chefs were going to go out and carve for all the guests'

'Yes'

'They go out of date on Christmas Eve'.


Christmas turkeys that go out of date on Christmas Eve

Only the French would deliver those

Over Reacting

I must admit that, at times, I have been known to over react slightly. This is a tendency I have had since childhood and is not one I am willing to give up. Ever.

I am a firm believer that a good scream and shout and the banging of doors does everybody some good sometimes. Its a spring clean for the soul. After such a display I often wake up feeling a hundred times better and not remotely bothered about the event that caused the previous night's display of emotion. This is not to undermine the fact that the anger I was feeling at that moment was wholly and utterly truly real and justified. Over the the season I stormed out of everything from taxis (argument about my brother) and bars (a 'none argument' about ketamine) to the Meribel Village Charity Day ( an argument about the extend I did or did not defend someone's manhood when it was called into question). And this is just the angry over reacting that I did in public. There was a whole range of storming, swearing and slamming down of things that I did behind closed doors when I was on my own.

Now knowing myself as well as I do, I can look back on these incidents and say that, although I was always totally and utterly in the right every single time, I, on occasion could have handled the situations in a slightly calmer manner.

Now where is all this self assessment going?

Several times over the past few weeks I have chastised myself for not writing more on this blog. I work a 9-5 job, I have plenty of free time, why have I used it to do things such as ironing and rearranging all my kitchen cupboards and not to sit and write.

The reasons for this only dawned on me last night. It is because, although there were lots of great things about the season, there were also loads of really shitty things as well, things that caused me to storm out of bars, and be angry, and throw things and close my eyes and want to be back home. These things are, in my head, even now undermining all the rest. This has meant that subconsciously I have been avoiding delving too deep into my recent past.

I wonder to myself if this avoidance of examining the best things is a complete (delayed) over reaction. Because I often find myself thinking about skiing. I have already booked my next years ski holiday and even bought a beautiful pair of red glittery Volkl skis! So the love I have for the mountains is coming out in a series of very expensive ways (Expensive for my mum rather than expensive for me seen as she paid for both the holiday and the skis) (If I hadn't have added that bit on I would have received a very angry phone call)

Bloody hell hasn't this turned into something deep and which belongs in some kind of psychiatry session and not on a blog about seasonaires! 'Where are the drunken Nannies and the pyromaniac chefs,Where is the comedy sex?' I hear you all cry!

That is why am am determined to write more. This year the drunken nannies and the pyromaniac chefs, and yes, the comedy sex, might include some things that are more serious. This is my promise but also my warning. You, my dearest readers are now all my psychiatrists.

The 100th Post

So, this is my 100th blog post. I feel that this occasion should be marked in a dramatic way, with some big declaration or by revealing a well kept secret;

It should be in the 100th blog post that I announce that I'm pregnant and after careful consideration am keeping my season baby and am dedicated to my future life as a single mother.

Or that I have decided that after a month in the City I miss my life as a hotel manager so much that I have already arranged to go back and do it all again.

Unfortunately neither of these are true and I don't have a big decoration to mark this special moment.

Do you feel somewhat let down now? I do.

Instead I am sat in the sun, daring it to burn my mountain white skin, wondering what I should fill this blog post with. One of the last time I was sitting in the sun like this I was at the Ronny watching the DC riders performing, drinking beer by the jug. I am contemplating putting my bikini on but I have a very overlooked garden and it might be much for my South London neighbours.

I was looking through old old bits of of my facebook the other day and came across a post I had written on 27th June 2012, it said 'Just accepted the Job! Back to Meribel this winter! Not sure if this is the best of the stupidest decision I have ever made!' Now the interesting thing about this post, other than my over excited, excessive use of the exclamation mark, is one of the comments 'Its definetly the best decision youve ever made!'. As a historian I am tempted to write the word sic after that quote to show it is a direct quote and has has been copied as it was written, without modern alterations to grammar or spelling. But seen as I am one of the worst spellers in the world it would be slightly hypocritical. It also shows he loves the use of the exclamation mark almost as much as I do!

I wonder if AJ remembers writing that on my wall. I doubt it. Neither did I till the other day. It did get me thinking, I was sure that he had contacted me just before I flew out, because I had known he was going to be there before I went. I had another look on facebook and sure enough there was a brief conversation from the 8th October;

AJ: Hey you managing the (xx) this year?
Me: Yep
AJ: Ahhh cool im going back there
Me: to the (xx)?
AJ: Yes indeed
Me: Cool cool
AJ: Do you know anyone else going back?
Me: I don't actually
AJ: I know the head chef but thats it. Anyway im off to the pub. X


A somewhat short exchange I feel. And rather brisk on my part. I usually talk a lot  more than that.

What I do remember thinking after this conversation is 'Hmm I wonder if it is unprofessional to be facebook friends with someone who is going to be working in the hotel, what if he shows all the people who I am going to manage my facebook or worst still, my blog'. Looking back it was a somewhat ironic thought. But at least I was trying to be professional.

Sometime in mid February I was hanging round the kitchen, hoping someone would give me some food AJ mentioned something on his facebook that I should look at. It was at that point I had to confess that we were  no longer facebook friends and hadn't been since mid November. I think, judging by his horrified reaction, was the single biggest insult I ever threw at him. Considering the range of insults we throw at each other on a regular basis, it is saying something.

It took me a couple of days, a lot of cups of tea, and a facebook friend request to patch up the damaged pride. Though after this I wished it was that each to repair pride that had been damaged on a throw away moment.

 In the end going back to Meribel was neither the best or the worst decision I have ever made. The worst decision I have ever made was in 2007 when I decided to go platinum blonde, the best was going the first time.

A Michelin Star

Its official. I am an actual domestic goddess. I know I am and, while I have suspected this for some time, it was confirmed to me today only about an hour ago. I don't work Mondays and as my house mates are either at work or on bloody holiday I have had the house to myself and I have spent the day making a range of culinary delights.

What I was really worried about during the last few weeks of the season was how I would feed myself when I got back to England. I knew I would be all right for the first week back, as I would be at home my mum would do the cooking. It was after that, when I moved into my new house 250 miles away from my mother and her oven that I was nervous about.

What was worrying me was having to cook for myself for the first time in six months. I hadn't as much as boiled some pasta since I got on the plane out there. The only thing I had done was make myself some cuppa soup and even I don't class that as actual cooking. Not only had I not cooked anything, I had also not done any food shopping or taken the time to actually decide what I was going to have to eat. I have spent over five years living on my own so it isn't like I have never had to fend for myself before,  however I was rather worried that even the little skill I had forged in this time would have been lost in six months away. I hadn't had this issue the year before as I had lived in a chalet with my own kitchen and I often cooked for myself.  

I had hoped that spending so much time in the kitchen and around chefs would have meant I some how magically gain their skill, but, as my house mate delightfully told me you can't really just absorb knowledge that way. 

It isn't just the actual cooking that was the issue, its also the taking the time to decide what I am going to cook. I tend to walk around the kitchen opening cupboards and staring blankly into them before moving on to the next cupboard and ending up realising I have been staring into the freezer for a good five minutes and that my ice cream is starting to melt. At this point I usually just decide to have pasta. 

It wasn't like this in Meribel. After a few weeks you knew what food you would be eating at every meal on every day, the decision as to what to put into my own body had been totally taken away for a very long time. Breakfast and lunch were always the same, coco pops and any left over bacon and sausage for breakfast and a ham and cheese baguette for lunch. Always the same and I haven't been able to look at a baguette since. 

And then there was dinner;

Monday: Mystery curry - made from a range of leftover vegetables and bits of meat. Turkey, pork and chicken all went in the pot and they all look very similar. It really is quite disconcerting not knowing what you are eating. It was also very difficult to tell the vegetables apart and disappointing when you thought you have a nice big bit of potato, only to bite into it and find out it was actually parsnip. 

Tuesday: Now Tuesday was undoubtedly everyone's favourite day of the week because it was Chicken Pie day. It is difficult to explain just how excited everyone got about Chicken Pie Tuesday. It was without a doubt the highlight of everybody's week. It was made by AJ who pretended he greatly resented having to spend so much of his Tuesday making five massive chicken pies, but in fact loved all the attention he got from it. If a Tuesday had come around and there wasn't chicken pie there would have been actual mutiny. The children in the hotel had their dinner before the staff but throughout the children's dinner you could see staff edging closer and closer to the pie. There was a trick to getting the most out of the pie, the main one was not to fill your plate up with too much mashed potato, that was like an added extra. Usually two or three pies would be brought out and each one would be cut open and en mass the staff would decide which one looked the best, the one with the most juice and then they would all descend on the chosen pie. When that was consumed the next juiciest would be dished out and the least juicy would be reserved for seconds or for those unfortunate enough to be late. 

Wednesday: Wednesday, as I have already said was the chef's day off and as a result was the day were had to eat frozen pizza that resembled cardboard. 

Thursday: Turkey Stir fry. This was the worst day of the week. There is nothing more to say about the Turkey Stir Fry. 

Friday: Fish day. Home made fish goujons and potato wedges. If we were very lucky we were allowed tomato ketchup. 

Saturday: Cottage Pie 

Sunday: Spaghetti Bolognese and garlic bread. 

Unlike the food I reported on last year, this year we were fed well, the food was hearty and there was plenty of it. We were very lucky, there wasn't a potato ball in sight. 

All my worries have now been calmed as I look upon all the food I have created from scratch, a minestrone soup, bolognese sauce, and (because it is Tuesday tomorrow) a lovely looking Chicken Pie. 

Another Telling Off

'That vodka was for medicinal purposes only - You are a very naughty girl' said my mum down the phone about ten minutes ago.

The Girl Who Ran Away.

My last blog post ended on something of a cliffhanger...

I, tired of the people around me thinking there was nothing left for me in life other than knitting myself into the grave, had decided to get drunk, and, to use the phrase I myself used that evening, 'just go out and do something stupid'.

Of course to the majority of staff who worked in the hotel it was impossible to believe that I had ever been 18, had ever got up to any of the things they did, could ever have got as drunk, been as silly, stayed out all night, been as inappropriate, woken up in places that weren't my own bed etc etc when in fact I had, and indeed more so because I, unlike them, had also been 19, 20 and 21, and had been these ages at university, the best three years of my life.

So anyway. The only person who I thought I could  go out and get drunk with, who would not either run away and hide from the prospect of spending an evening outside of work with me, make me feel old or judge me at all was AJ.

There was one problem.

It was a Thursday (Thursday 10th January, in fact, as I have just now worked out) . Thursdays were not good days for the kitchen staff. Thursdays were the day after Wednesdays and Wednesdays were the kitchen's day off. Wednesdays for the chefs were all about waking up hungover from Tuesday night, having several beers, skiing and then having a lot more beers and ending the evening with a burger and passing out with all their clothes on (waking up with their ski boots still on was proof to them that they had had a really good day off). So Thursday was hangover day. Thursday was the day that they looked like death, worked really slowly, had to have a mid day nap and were really rude to everybody. Thursday was not a going out drinking day, Thursday was an 'if I even look at alcohol I will be sick' day. So when I initially broached the subject of going out after work with AJ I was met with a negative reaction. I however was on a mission and persevered, begged, pleaded and demanded until he (surprisingly quickly) agreed to come up when he had finished work and bring some orange juice and some very classy plastic cups so we could indulge in some of the duty free vodka that my mother had brought over when she had visited the previous week, before going out into town (therefore what happened next was actually my mum's fault).

GOOD PLAN I thought.

Promptly there was a knock on my door and export strength blue label Smirnoff Vodka was liberally poured into two glasses and we got talking. We then managed to miss the bus so poured another few vodkas to pass the time till the next one. It was only when we finally got on the bus that it dawned on me that I was actually very drunk. And this only dawned on me when I realised I had been talking absolute crap  bus to the unfortunate bar supervisor and her unsuspecting boyfriend who had also got on the bus to go home. What I was talking about for quite some while was how I was sick of being good all the time, how I wanted to do something crazy that no one would expect and shake things up a bit (last time I felt like that I got my nipple pierced). However I had not decided what this crazy thing was that I was going to do (thank God there are not piercing shops / tattoo parlours in Meribel)

When AJ and myself got off the bus it took me a few seconds to realised we were actually holding hands. I was quite shocked by this sudden and unexpected turn of events but actually found it quite pleasant.

Upon approaching the bar I decided that the first round was on me and as that I had probably had too much to drink I would order very sensible diet coke for me and a pint for AJ. After placing the order I realised that I did not feel very well so thrust the money into AJ's hand and walked quickly and purposefully towards the bathroom where I closed the door and was promptly sick in the toilet.

I composed myself for a few minutes and exited the bathroom to find AJ waiting patiently for me, taking the first few sips of his pint.
'Right I'm going home' I said
'Err what' he said in surprise.
I didn't answer I just put down the untouched diet coke he had handed me and headed to the door.

Now I am quite a determined drunk. When I decided it is time to go home I go home, there is no stopping me and I am perfectly happy to run away if it means I get to go to bed quicker. And when I get that drunk all I want to do is go to bed. In fact that night I was so determined that it was time for me to go to sleep that I strode away so fast that I was half way up the road before AJ had processed the information that I was leaving, decided that he should really follow me, taken one last mouthful of his beer, put it down mournfully and run on out after me.

My resolve to walk home was quickly replaced by the idea (encouraged by AJ) that we should probably get a taxi , and as it was still so early in the night there were plenty lined up ready to take us home. I can't say I remember a huge amount about that trip but I can remember jumping out of the taxi and running up the stairs to the hotel and into the lift without even looking back, wondering slightly if I was going to be followed before deciding that I should probably spend a few minutes sitting on the bathroom floor to see if I was going to be sick again. What seemed like quite a while later, but was actually only a couple of minutes AJ appeared in the doorway to my bathroom, looking quite worried to see me sat on the floor, when he hauled me up and put me to bed. The last thing I remember was pulling his arm around me before I passed out.

I was woken up some while later by the strangest sensation and it quickly dawned on me what it was, every two minutes or so the back of my neck was being kissed. Now I lay there for a good few minuets, not quite sure what I should do. The total and utter drunken cloud that had earlier descended on me was starting to lift and yet I could not figure out what my next move should be, I had had slight suspicions that a crush had been forming since the first week on the season when he had presented me with five slices of lemon tart on a plate, saying that he knew it was my favourite, but I hadn't really thought anything about it since. A few minutes later I just thought, 'why am I thinking so hard about this?? What the hell'. However I did decided that it would be best if we kept it secret and he agreed.

'So.. this is just between me and you right?' became my famous last words.

The Beginning of the Never Ending Story.

First an apology for the silence. Last year, three weeks after I arrived back in the country I was pretty much prolific with the writing, almost every day there was a post and this year there has been almost three weeks of nothingness. This has been partly because last year I moved into a mouse infested house with two of the unfriendliest people in the universe so I didn't have much to do in the great expanses of time that one who works 9-5.30 finds they have. This hasn't happened this year as I have moved into a lovely house, with two very friendly people and so I have found more things to occupy my time.

It has also been because this year I have not quite known where to start. Life was more complicated this season. A lot more complicated. And it has taken me a few weeks to simply get over the whole experience. I took a week off when I came home and that week mainly consisted of me sitting down in various places in my house and waking up several hours later with a member of my family laughing at my ability to sleep anywhere. My body simply shut down, able to rest properly for the first time all season, knowing that my work phone had been handed back and wouldn't ring, that no staff would knock at my door demanding my attention, that I wouldn't hear the sounds of the children in the nursery next to my bedroom screaming or voices of parents complaining. It was like the deepest silence imaginable had descended on me and it was complete and utter bliss.  

It was complicated because it was constant, it was complicated because of a series of unpleasantness,  it was complicated because there was a man who had the ability to really bloody piss me off at times and complicated because I liked him enough to let him really bloody piss me off. It was complicated because you're not really supposed to start something complicated with someone who is technically a member of your own staff.  

But first an introduction to some of the characters that will feature in this year's story. I had four main members of staff, all 18, all just as irritating as each other, all very different, both in their persons and the way they were irritating. And all wonderful and kind-hearted and hard working

Two girls, one blonde one dark, Two boys, one blonde one dark. An apprentice plumber and electrician, a future accountant (and possible world leader), a sex mad man hunter and the little boy in the big world who became the big boy in the little world and who is now, well on the way to conquering it.  Four eighteen year old, hormonal, over tired, excited, bewildered children rushing head long and dazed into adulthood. 

There was also the kitchen team, the Head Chef (thankfully not a drug dealer this year) A man who I platonically adored for his friendship, his loyalty and his food (I taught him the meaning of the word platonic sometime mid season so I hope he still remembers). He also had a wicked sense of humour which no one wanted to be at the receiving end of and he had the was the image of the chef through and though (don't be lulled into a false sense of security by how nice I have been about him, he could be wicked if he wanted).  Swearing and crude behaviour were as prevalent in our kitchen as they are in other kitchens. 

And two commis chefs, bi-polar opposites, AJ the unlikely object of my occasional affections and the other  one, one of the strangest individuals I have ever had the dubious pleasure of knowing well. A twenty year old masturbation addict, who believes that he lost his virginity the season before, but wasn't quite sure, but from what he could remember the girl in question was overweight and not really to his very accommodating tastes. I liked him, despite his complete social awkwardness, despite the fact he asked too many pervy questions and despite the fact I once caught him masturbating while I was talking to him.  But more about him later. 

What really took me by surprise at the start of the season was just how scared my four members of staff were of me. It was actually really funny as I think I am about as scary as Winnie the Pooh. I had decided that I should start the season being professionally distant and I wasn't aware of just how this would come across. It became painfully obvious that these people were terrified of me to the stage that when I walked into the room all of them would visibly stand up straight. It came to a rather unpleasant head to me one night when, a couple of weeks into the season, I decided to go out with everyone after work one day (I did not do this often) and one member of staff, drunkenly whispered to my lovely bar supervisor (who thankfully wasn't scared of me and was actually a great friend) 'I just don't feel that I can be myself because Cat is out'. The Bar Sup related this story to me in fits of giggles and I instantly felt about a hundred years old, completely guilty that my mere presence in a bar was ruining people's evenings and slightly curious because I had just seen the girl in question make out with some stranger and so, I wondered, if that's what she does when she feels like she has to be on best behaviour, what does she do when I'm not there????  

The only person who found people quaking at my very presence in the room as funny and unfounded as I did was AJ. He had worked briefly at my hotel last year and so had seen me in my first few months in 'management', when I was frankly, a bit shit. And having someone who did not think I was Cruella was a complete and utter relief and it was nice to have someone to talk to normally. 

We had known each other the year before, but as he had moved onto a different hotel in Meribel quite early on, he had not had a huge effect on my season and I had mainly encountered him when he was absolutely and completely wrecked. I have since talked about him to both the Rep and the Childcare Manager about him and they both said the same thing, 'He was always nice (pause) big drinker'. But at the start of the season he was a complete and utter breath of fresh air, and also as we knew a lot of the same people, he was someone to talk to and reminisce with. 

Now come mid January I was getting a little fed up of being view as the 'past it old lady' by my group of staff who had barely gone through puberty and saw being 25 as the same as being 125. And I started to have a few very dangerous thoughts about wanting to do something to shake things up and stop acting old. In truth I wanted a night off being the 'manager' and to just do something stupid.

I decided to get drunk 

but just how drunk I actually became was a surprise to more than just myself.

Avoiding A Telling Off

I have spent much of the last six months either telling people off or holding back from telling people off. However today the tables turned and was told off by two separate people.

The first was my hairdresser. He was horrified that I had not visited him in so long and greeted me with the delightful phrase 'Well we have to get rid of that fluff don't we?' and ended with 'Come back in SIX to EIGHT weeks, DO NOT leave it any longer this time'.

The second person to tell me off was a blast from the past, the fashion designer, one of my great friends of season number one for those of you new to the blog. I popped into where she worked today to say hello after my long trip away. After getting over the delight of seeing each other after all this time and after she had lulled me into a false sense of security she let rip;

'I cannot believe you have fallen in love with a chef again!'

'Well I liked him a lot but but I wouldn't say I was in love with him, I don't think I actually fell in love with any of them' I replied.

This was apparently a very unsatisfactory answer for the fashion designer. A look of hatred flashed through her eyes.

'If I'd have been there it would not have happened, I would not have let that happen'

'Well it probably would have...well there was this bottle of vodka ...and he was actually quite nice'

If the fashion designer had had a handbag with her she would have hit me with it at that point.

And that is where she started to get hysterical,
'I just hate chefs as a breed, I just hate them, and now you are going to marry him, you are going to get married to this chef'.

I uttered denials that I was not going to get married but she wasn't listening and instead told me that should I get married she would burst into the back of the church to stop all proceedings.

She really is very rude about chefs!

One day - so many airports.

A few weeks ago I thought the moment would never come, the moment where I landed down in Britain. And on Saturday I did it twice. I flew from Geneva to Heathrow and then from Heathrow to Manchester. 

All in all it was a long day, the morning spent wandering aimlessly from Chamonix, contemplating just how different it was from Meribel and trying, and failing to see any actual ski lifts. I did however see a French hippy woman wandering around with no shoes on. And I had a fabulous burger from a tiny little shack called the Annex. My staff accommodation was also called the Annex and was an absolutely disgusting place in which I point blank refused to spend any time what so ever, so the decision to eat food produced in a place with the same name was only made when my companions had raved about the place as they had visited it only hours before hand when they were drunk, and were now returning for sobered up seconds. 

At 3.15pm, myself and two other people finally got into a van and went to the airport. I brought with me four  of the best packed bags anyone has every seen, within them was a huge amount of clothes, ski boots, a double duvet, speakers, a bottle of vodka and a bottle of gin, two other pairs of shoes, a laptop, make up, toiletries and a variety of other things totally (not?) necessary for a life in the mountains. To help you understand just how impressive this packing was it wasn't 4 suitcases, it was 1 suitcase, 1 boot bag, 1 carry all and one hand luggage bag. Now that was impressive packing. It did however cost me £68 to put it all on the aeroplane. As we checked in I found myself trying to take the other two's passports and tickets in case they lost them, even though both of them were grown men. 

Now what the customs people don't tell you is that although they specify that you are only allowed one hand luggage bag on the plane, they do not specify how many coats and jumpers you are allowed to take through. I tested this yesterday by taking through two ski coats and a massive woolly jumper. For the first set of customs I put one coat inside the other and no one seemed to notice or to care and then didn't even bother for the second. 

So.. getting everyone's luggage onto the plane proved to be the easy bit of the journey. As we moved on to go through security I was stopped and pulled to one side to have my bag searched. Now, even though you know that there is nothing in your suitcase that shouldn't be there, there is always a moment of terror in case someone, somehow has managed to get into your suitcase and plant drugs/knives/ a bomb and a life spent in prison flashes before your eyes.

Anyway the security woman opens up my bag and sees that inside it are a huge amount of DVDs, 'Ah' she says in her Swiss accent, 'are you a  DJ?' I just smiled, and tried to look how I imagine a cool female DJ to look, as she took the top DVD, presuming it to be a CD from my imaginary lucrative DJ career and waved it at the man who spotted my bag as a potential terrorist threat and asked him if that was what he had seen in my bag. What she didn't notice and I did was that the DVD that she was waving round Geneva airport had two words written on it, and those two words were 'Lesbian Vampires'. To those who haven't heard of the very silly spoof film Lesbian Vampire Killers, a DVD entitled Lesbian Vampires could make them think I was into some very very dodgy porn film, and this in turn could have got me into a lot of trouble with customs. Luckily however she just put the DVD back and I went on my way. 

Although I would have loved to do a lot of shopping in the airport, I remembered that I am in fact poor and cannot afford to shop in the Gucci and Chanel shops that make up Geneva airport. So the boys decided that we should instead look for a bar. They were both incensed that there was not a Wetherspoons in said airport and were quickly disheartened that, as we walked round, the only place selling alcohol was the Champagne and Oyster bar. Now I would have loved to while away the hours at the Champagne and Oyster bar but unfortunately the boys were not of that same opinion, and we made two laps of the airport, with them both chuntering loudly about there displeasure with the whole situation before I spotted a little place with an actual beer tap. The two boys visibly relaxed and finally stopped moaning. 

An hour later we boarded the aeroplane to Heathrow and, like a child on his first aeroplane ride, one of the boys I was with, JL, made it absolutely clear that he wanted to sit by the window. I made it clear that if he was going to sit next to the window then he couldn't be getting up and going to the toilet every few minutes. He took this so much to heart that by the time we landed in Heathrow he was in so much pain that he ran at the speed of light to the bathroom in the airport.  

We were literally rushed through Heathrow and onto the next plane, without any time to buy the food we were so desperate for by then. 

The next flight went by in a blur, with JL deciding he didn't really want to sit by the window again. What we did find out though, that we had missed on the first flight, is that when the BA air hostesses come round with their trolley offering the free chicken tikka wrap and a drink, is that they only have the soft drinks on display and they actually have a whole range of things hidden away inside the trolley! All you have to do is ask! Wine it was. 

We got to Manchester and waited for our bags, first one came off, then all of mine. But there was nothing for JL. His bag it turned out was sat waiting for him in Heathrow. It also turned out that that bag contained every item of clothing he owned other than what he was wearing.  

It was a slightly smelly few days for him until his bag was delivered to his house.

Here We Go Again! Meribel 2012-13

Well here I am, not quite back in the city yet but I said goodbye to Meribel yesterday and now I am in Chamonix which is the biggest place I have been to in almost 6 months, its rather overwhelming really, it has a Japanese restaurant and everything. God knows how I am going to feel when I get back to London in a weeks time. Actually, who am I kidding, I am going to bloody love it .

So last year when I started this blog about life as a Seasonaire in Meribel I started right back at the beginning when I got off the plane in Geneva and went off for two weeks of management training. This time I am going to start at the end. Partly because at this time I haven't even started to recover from the season and, as a result, my mind is still soup due to lack of sleep and free time, so, I can only recall things that happened in the last few days. And partly as an introduction to some new readers to the staff I put on the coach back to England only a couple of days ago.

Well the day before yesterday I watched and waved as a double decker coach pulled away, a coach full of people I had spent every day of the last five months with. They differed in every way from the staff that my loyal readers have been reading about for the past year.  Differed in personality and temperament but at the same time, they were the same; they still all got drunk, they still had sex with anything that they could pin down for long enough, they still fell in and out of love faster that in takes to eat staff dinner, they still drove me mad, did ridiculously stupid things, turned up late, turned up hanging out of their arses.

And yet they were all new.

The girl whose love of life and of the opposite sex meant she, unwittingly, totally embodied the feminist idea that was first declared by Mary Wollstonecraft in her 1792 'Vindication of the Rights of Women'. This girl just thought she was enjoying having a lot of sex, I thought she was the perfect feminist creation.

The two boys who lived the seasonaire life as it should be lived and never let being thrown up upon by a variety of girls put them off.

The chef who, even though he was desperate to have sex for a second time in his life (he said he had had sex once, even though he couldn't quite remember it), did not quite manage it. In fact he didn't really manage to do anything with any females, other than the hug I gave him when he left. Despite his eternal optimism and enthusiasm.

The other chef, the one I quickly learned to care very deeply about, despite him being 2 days off being born in the 1990s, despite his love of setting things on fire, despite everything, he was, often, my rock, when times got hard and I just needed someone to talk to, he was there, and I will care about him for the rest of my life. It might not have been love, but it was a very deep rooted friendship. That is how I saw it anyway. This same  chef was in Meribel the year before and had spent the summer reading this blog and has spent the winter slightly dreading what I would write about him. Well my dearest darling - keep  on wondering and waiting.

And so it has come to an end. And it is raining in Chamonix. As we left Meribel last night the sun was shinning, the rivers were running with the melting snow and we had the first MacDonald's any of us had had in months.

And now is the time to write it all down, the engagements, the fights, the drunken behaviour, why I turned away from the Ram Raid and the time I was propositioned by five men in the same evening.  

The End is nigh

So

That is it

The last guest food to go out of our kitchen has just gone.

It was a white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake.

I have never been brought to tears by a cheesecake before. I didn't think I would be this sad to see the end, to be honest I started counting down the end of the season sometime at the beginning of February. But tonight is a sad night, and a happy night all at the same time.

But there it is, I a sad, and I watched my boys working today for the last time and I realised how much I will miss all my staff. I'm sure they wont miss me, how many people have ever said 'Oooh I really miss my old boss?' Very few I expect. But I will miss them, and I will worry about them even though they don't need worrying about and I will care about them all for a long time to come.

Bloody soppy I am tonight eh! I started work at 7.30 this morning and it 21.50 now so maybe I have been at work so long that I am going mad. Maybe I worked so long because I wanted to soak up the last few hours of being here. I don't know why I wanted to soak it all up today, I haven't had the slightest desire to do that at all for the last 5 months.

Oh well, I better go to bed before I start crying in front of the staff. Won't want to ruin my image now would I?

I'm going to compile a play list of sad 'saying good bye songs'

Goodbye - The Spice Girls
Time to Say Goodbye - Andrea Bocelli
The Power of Goodbye - Madonna
Every time We Say Goodbye - Peggy Mann


You get the picture

Are my eyes deceiving me, is there finally a new Seasonaire in the City post???

Yes, yes there is. And I'm not even back in the UK yet but I will be back in 11 days (thats 264 hours or 15840 minutes).

So I took some time off writing. This wasn't actually an active decision for the first couple of months, but it was a choice between spending my free time away from the hotel that has been my home for this long, cold, snowy winter or spending my free time in my office, in front of a computer being asked questions about keys/ hot tubs/ rotas/ menus or weird medical conditions staff and guests felt they could potentially have developed. To be honest in my spare time I mainly balanced my laptop on the sink, put on a film and had a bath. Hard core I am (and very clean)!

So I thought I would write this quick post to remind you all that I will be home soon. Home and ready to write all about my last six months. It was completely different from last season (apart from my naked chef stories, there was one of those this season too, but when isn't there??)

('Just one naked chef?' I hear you cry -

Well the season isn't over yet)


So to come - stories of the 20 year old virgin chef, fire misadventures, finding a love of skiing, a romance, a fight, being the boss, someone with a phobia of peas and how I learnt the meaning of the phrase 'Finger blasting'

11 days to go!