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Part 45: Pink Dot Down
IT'S 9.00pm on Friday night, last night of our mid-season break.
Not a break of choice, it just panned out that way; though no-one will believe that with the Boys' Trip coinciding.
True though; we waved off two well-satisfied week-enders on Monday and fell into a gaping void on the wall-chart that my best efforts on Chalets-Direct had failed to fill.
But before recounting the week's events, there is much else to relate – we two are now three! Loveable Lyndy has been jetted in from Bute to bolster the fast-flagging team and now has three weeks under her belt.
Where did we find her – Ski Club, of course.
Uncle Mike is a veteran poster in the chat-room and as long ago as September was praising her virtues online in an effort to find a winter berth for her.
Long-suffering readers will recall we toyed with the idea of help last season, but a busy opening this year convinced us the time had come and early January saw the Boss in the arrivals scrum at Geneva with a 'Lyndy' nameboard wondering what on earth we had let ourselves in for – no doubt she was wondering much the same herself.
Well, suffice to say she has fitted in wonderfully, charming the guests and halving the workload so we have to ask how we ever managed without her.
And what of her skiing? A windblown week on Cairngorm was the extent of her previous experience but this plucky lass hurtled down the ski-in hell for leather on her first day out – definitely made of the right stuff – and instigating a hasty trip down to Fred's boutique for a crash-helmet.
Various cousins have apparently handed down her ski-gear – a different jacket each day according to prevailing weather conditions.
It was the strawberry-and-cream Spyder jacket that attracted the best comment from Dee, grumpily ousted from her invariable first-down-the-hill position on a Wednesday Half-Day trip to Les Contamines: 'I've been chasing a bl**dy pink dot all day!' And was Dee entirely sympathetic when the Bute Canonball pranged spectacularly on the lip of the Col red, inspiring the title to this piece – 'Pink Dot Down'?
So to the Boy's Trip – boys no more, sad to relate, with several old-timers clocking up their half-century in the off-season, and didn't it show? Next year (should any survive that long) the trip is to be gleefully sponsored by the Carroz Pharmacy, given the amount of time (and Euros) our heroes spent in there.
Pain-killers, aids to digestion and braces for parts of the body that defied belief; Eddie Teare would be very relieved there's no reciprocal health agreement with France otherwise M. Sarkosy would have been first in the abrogation queue when the bill for this lot was totted up.
Trussed up and drugged to the eyeballs they staggered onto the pistes in ever-dwindling numbers each day – new boy and yet another Scots-hurtler Met-man Colin must have wondered whether he'd inadvertently joined a zombie outing.
He, incidently, found his place in the hall of fame tumbling off-piste in Morillon and losing a ski in the deep-stuff – a fruitless half-hour prodding the powder was followed by an epic monoski trip back to the village, an inspiration to us all. If only he'd paid the 1€ per day insurance - so much for Scottish thrift…
So tomorrow we start all over again – High Season is upon us, clogged roads, stroppy lift-pass cashiers, long lift-queues, the pistes clotted black with skiers.
I got out for a wonderful morning with the boys today as the sky hosed down snowflakes like saucers, now the skis are hung up until March, but I have some wonderful memories to carry me through…
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Weather for Isle of Man
Tuesday 07 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 1 C to 7 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 3 C to 4 C
Wind Speed: 23 mph
Wind direction: South
