Skiing in Les Deux Alpes

Well, that was great fun indeed! I’d been looking forward to the skiing trip from the day we booked it and it really didn’t disappoint.

It was me, Tash, Jack, Charlotte and Miles this time — Lewis obviously wasn’t coming as he’s tied up with Frankie and Emily. We had the Friday (2nd Jan) off, which meant we could get on the road around 5.15am and start the road trip down to the south of France nice and early.

Flexi+ served us well as usual, and it was pretty funny that we bumped into Miles’s uncle and aunt (Pippa and Phil) and their kids. We knew they were travelling the same day, but what were the chances we’d be there at the same time?

Driving through France was a pleasure as always — the roads are so good and the toll tag worked perfectly. I drove most of the way, as per usual, but Miles took over for a couple of hours so I could get some sleep. That worked really well and helped keep me fresh for the long haul.

We did hit a snowstorm at one point which was a bit challenging, but once we got through that and further south the weather improved and we were treated to an amazing sunset. Weird weather, but very impressive.

We weren’t staying in Les Deux Alpes that night as it was too expensive, so we carried on to La Grave instead and stayed in a nice hotel there. Got sorted and headed down for dinner, which was good.

It also meant we weren’t travelling through the night and could enjoy the skiing properly from Saturday onwards, which felt like a sensible plan.

Food was decent, we played a bit of pool, had a few drinks (including some chocolate vodka), and then it was bed by about 10.30pm. A long day, but a good one.

Doing the journey during the day made perfect sense — around 14 hours door to door, which wasn’t too desperate, and sharing the driving really helped. When we plan this again, I think we’ll do something similar rather than pushing through the night and then trying to ski the next morning on little or no sleep… we’ll see!

End-of-day reflection:
A long but very well-planned travel day — sensible driving, good company, no stress, and a relaxed evening meant we were set up perfectly for the skiing to come. A great start to the trip.

Lewis pay-rise, Charlotte in France, Jack in exams

Really pleased for Lewis – he’s been away in Croatia for a week’s break and had a great time. He was driving and there were no reports of problems or incidents and the photos on Facebook suggest it was a lovely place and they loved it. Back to reality now but he’s just advised the family group that work are really pleased with him and he’s been given a pay-rise again so he’s now on £34.7k – which is brilliant for his age!

Certainly a lot more than I am on. Told Tash about Peters Books and she wasn’t surprised at all, positive attitude and all that but I need to get more work and in touch with people to get more money coming in asap.

Charlotte is now in Nice, South of France, she travelled down yesterday by train of course because Miles is still scared of flying and they didn’t get there until about 10.30pm – they travelled all day, nightmare really but there you are. She’s been sending photos throughout today and it looks lovely and hot there and she’s spending money on perfume and clothes so she’s enjoying herself

Jack as Business and PE exams today, I’ve no idea how he’s doing, I don’t think he’s doing enough and last night he went off and played football and didn’t d anything in the evening claiming that he’d done all the work he could in the day. I’m not convinced!

That’s it, I am in day 4 of a new diet and fitness attempt to lose weight, it’s not working yet but I am really watching what I am eating and I am trying to be more mobile and doing exercises. I’ve given myself 8 weeks to lose a stone – I’d love to get under 12stone, currently I am about 13st 9lbs, that’s depressingly fat and heavy for someone my size. It’s early days yet but I am not missing eating loads of food so it might be something that I can stick to…again, I doubt it very much but it would be great to not be self-conscious and embarrassed when I am on the beach in Crete. I hate my moobs and stomach so much, getting really pissed off seeing me in photos looking so big…well,  it’s up to me to sort it!

Tash off to France

That’s it then, this is one of the last blog entries you will ever see from me, Tash went to France today with Lucie and another woman and won’t be back until Thursday night…we’re going to starve to death!

She’s using a villa owned by Claire from work and she says it’s beautiful there, so she’ll be relaxing and drinking nice wine and food.

Good for her – she deserves it!