john kettley (weather god and erstwhile subject of lame pop songs) seemed to be smiling on us again as we arrived at the resort in falling snow for the second time in one year. bus had to stop for half an hour for gabriel to call his boss and gloat (and to put on snow chains)
The gelinotte seemed far away from everywhere but val is so small it makes no real difference - the buses run like clockwork in any case - though when the road is white I like walking...

you can see the village in the background on this photo (the view from our balcony) - our room was small yet awash with rechargable consumer electronics - mental recount makes laptop, dazzle, video camera, minidisc, mobile phone and fuckloads of wires lying around connecting them all (hey we had an ok view aswell) - apparently people though we were weird - this being of course surprising - you see it is in fact totally normal to want to immerse yourself in a bizarre virtual environment where everything is based around the number 5 for inane amounts of hours at a time rather than wanting to talk to some fuckhead loser from north yorkshire who's a stewardess with BA - don't you think ?

first day - straight up the bellevarde - still snowing which is always a little irritating despite the knowledge that it makes the snow better.
we didn't go off piste that day, not wanting to risk first-day blues or some such bullshit excuse. as usual gabriel bitched about his skis - claiming for the third holiday running that he's skiing worse than ever before.

the story goes on...