January in Rebbers

This is Reberty.

And that is the piste. 100m from my front door.

We’re the highest village on the mountain and have to ski/board down to get to a chairlift to take us further up. Please appreciate this shot – I nearly dropped my phone from the chair lift trying to get it! =]

And here's a shot of the village from the other side of the valley. Reberty is the top little triangle of buildings.

This is Chalet Eva, our biggest chalet. I used to live just behind the car underneath the balcony but Murren and I moved this week into the staff accom further down the road. A lot of nannies are leaving and we’ve got new staff coming in so to deal with the whole male/female sharing ratio thing we’ve all shuffled around. It’s nice to not have to walk down the street to use the kettle, though we still have to go down the stairs which are outside.

Times have been busy here in the Alps. The snow has been endless. Last week we had about 2m of snow in 3 days, on top of the meter or so that was already there. We’ve had the most snow in 21 years and the people who’ve been here for many seasons can’t believe it. I’ve been shovelling my little heart out and I’m pleased to say the muscles are coming along nicely!

The biggest challenge has been the Eva playroom balcony. Because I’ve been so busy recently and hadn’t got round to clearing it, the snow piled up around 1m deep, and the bottom couple of feet had frozen to pure ice. I’ve been slugging at it for about 3 days and I’m still nowhere near the bottom.

There’s nowhere to put the snow except on the road so it’s a case of flinging it over the balcony. In the process I built my own mountain! I guess I figured that if I didn't have time to go to the mountain I'd create my own - or whatever that old line is.

Everyone is throwing all their snow out onto the road and the snowplough is failing to clear it all quick enough, which meant the road became pretty impassable. Car after car got stuck in the snow, even when they have snow chains on they just got beached. So many people must have almost burned their engines out as their wheels just span. I’ve had to dig out at least 3 cars this week. One of our families drove to the resort and after it had been stationary for a week it took me maybe 2 hours to dig it out of the snow which had piled half way up the windows!

It’s not just car windows, this is the view from our lounge onto the road outside.

And it’s not just cars and windows that get covered either..!

(That's someone's satellite dish if you can't quite make it out!)

My biggest challenge is clearing a path from the road to the boot rooms where skis are stored. The banks are getting so high I’m now having to carry the snow from the doorway down the path and onto the road, rather than just pile it on top.

 The snowplough is both good and bad at the same time. While he clears the roads so we can all move around he pushes all the snow to the side, and covers up my freshly dug pathways! And then he piles snow up in really inconvenient places which mean I have to dig through icy boulders!

The kids have been helping me clear some of the snow though. I introduce you to Bernie, my first snowman of the season.

Bunny has been helping too, but he’s a bit small to hold a shovel!

Mostly he’s been up to his usual tricks of playing around. He’s tried bum boarding…

And he came out snowboarding with me today…

 But he wasn’t very good at it so he just decided to admire the view.

I haven’t introduced you to my babies yet. These girls are what make all the hard graft worth it. I’m working anywhere from 12 – 18 hour days so there’s no usually chance to head up the mountain, especially when it’s snowing so much. But today the sun came out and for the first time in a couple of weeks I got to really put them through their paces. As my confidence is increasing again I’m absolutely loving picking up a bit of speed, knowing I’ve got the skills to handle it.

The sun setting over La Pointe De Masse was stunningly beautiful.

Another part of my job is chopping wood for all the fires in the chalets. That’s a lot of fun. I’m getting really good at it. I think I’ve really found my niche. 'Niche', gettit? Cause you have to force the axe deeper and deeper into a niche in the log, yeah, gettit? Gettit? =] 

I know, seriously cheesy. 

On that note, cheese anyone?