Spring Fever

I’m very lucky with where I live in Méribel, the apartment is perfectly situated close to the pistes, in the middle of town, but also with some gorgeous views looking down the valley. This time of year the colours down on the south facing mountains seem to change daily. Spring is on full throttle at the moment, the longer hot sunny days accelerate the melting of the snow and turn the south facing aspects from winter brown colours to green. Each morning when I wake up, I look down onto the village of Villard,  above Les Allues, just as the early morning sun lights up the small hamlet.

Oops, there I am banging on about the scenery again, just like my previous post. Back to skiing, last week I taught a small multi-national group of beginners. Let me go through the list; Connor from Dublin (who sadly doesn’t feature in any of these photos due to a niggling injury on his last day), Sam from England, Galayna from Malaysia, Vanessa from Australia and finally Ung from South Korea.

It was brilliant fun introducing them all to my favourite sport of skiing, we kept it relaxed and simple, and took it one day at a time, starting on the nursery slope, then progressing to a green piste when we were ready. The mountain has been very quiet recently, which really helped us all progress rapidly without being terrorised by whizzing maniacs.

On the final day you could see them all grow in confidence and really enjoy the experience of skiing. In fact on the fifth and final day I asked them all if they thought they had become hooked on this new type of holiday? Before I even finished the question I received the answer, it was a resounding YES. Job done as a certain celebrity chef would say.

It’s so nice being able to share their experiences of fun and progression. Starting off as wobbly jellies of stress, quickly evolving into confident snow-ploughers. It’s often sad saying goodbye to people at the end of their holiday, especially when you realise you may not see them on skis again in the future.

Both last week and this week has seen the British Alpine Ski Racing Championships taking place here in Méribel on the Olympic race piste. There’s been some awesome ski racing on view, and there’s certainly been a buzz each morning whilst the racing has taken place. More on that perhaps during the next post.

Plus as a Private Ski Instructor in Meribel, I’ve recently had, and will continue again later in the week, an incredible experience. Let’s just say that I’ve climbed another rung on the ski instructing ladder. However I don’t want to get too carried away on my blog, because I need to check the Royal protocol again at the end of this week and find out firstly if I can say anything, and secondly what I can in fact say.Have a great week.Martin