Un Vacances De Neige

Look happy?  In reality it's a cocktail of subsiding fear, relief that the fear is in fact subsiding, and red wine sweat.

According to Google translate - that's "A Snow Holiday" - see how muthfucking cultured I bloody well am.  Shit yeah.  Not only am I incredibly cultured and gifted in many of the world's incredible languages, but I most definitely imagine that I'm much more hard core than I really am.  Whenever I imagine myself snowboarding down a mountain it's always really fast and I look stylishly cool - might even pop up the side and do a little flip on my back edge - yeah that's right - bring it scragrats (did I just make a new word up?).  Sadly the reality is more like me making that god awful scraping sound as I'm sliding down a steep bit and simultaneously wailing that "I haaaaaaate ice".  Well, either that, or sookin' for my Mummy cause I'm stuck on top of a small snow covered bush and sinking into the branches (this actually happened - teamed with a kind of gasping panic attack while my husband waited patiently for me shaking his head - he knows the tune well by now).

It's all about the image - look tough don't I?

But it was with images of the whooshing me, the me pulling a 'roast beef' (back hand grab through the legs to the heel edge - for anyone stupid enough not to know this basic move - like duh) that were floating around in my incredible gutsy, little bit cray-cray head, when myself and my husband took off for the shores of La Belle Francois......ok, not exactly the shores, but to the mountains....inland.  And to be more to the point we took a flight to Geneva first.  It was quite an interesting day.  We were in Israel, Italy, Switzerland and France all within about 8 hours.  I love that about Europe - and I also love that Israel is close enough to Europe so you can love that about Europe as much as you like.  Also to love, was that it was a "leave the kids in Israel" project funded by the incredible goodwill of Hannah and Alex Blau - 2 legends who basically have a slim 2 week opportunity to ask us for anything they can think of - after that expiry date, they're back to fair game again.

Freeeeeeeddddooommmm

It's unbelievable to me that I have reached that stage of my life where my children can survive happily without me.  Very happily in fact.....perhaps a little too happily I might add - we were only welcomed back with open arms by the fortunate stroke of luck that saw us buy a giant stuffed toy for each of them on our return.

I've been skiing with my kids several times, and while they might look unbelievably cute in their ski outfits, and we may cheer when they snowplow about 10 metres before stacking into a rubbish bin shaped like a frog, kids are a major pain in the a-hole at the snow.  For a start you have to get all their gear on and this is an unbelievable feat.  There are thermals, overalls, jumpers, ski jackets, neck warmers, helmets, the fricken ski boots which always bring on a howling fit (mainly because you accidentally do them up so tight that they cut off the blood supply until lunchtime).  And the gloves - don't talk to me about gloves - have you ever tried to get a 2 year old's 10 fingers into a pair of ski gloves?  You need a degree in engineering, a set of tools, some lubricant (not the pervy kind), a tumbler of whisky and a large joint.  My top advice - only buy mittens - you just have manoeuvre one thumb a piece, that is all, one thumb.  Plus once you've  got them zipped up in all that insulated crap, they need to go to the toilet and will probably piss themselves while you're trying to get the gloves off.  It will take you 3 hours to get them out on the snow.  Then they will get so excited that they will roll in it, eat it, and it will all go down inside their clothes, melt, and then make them freezing and they'll start bawling again.  Kids and Snow.  It's a shit world people, a shitty crappy world.

Shitty. Crappy.

But not for us.  We could sleep in, spend the mornings lazing round, have a soup bowl of cafe au lait at breakfast and 2 plates of croissants, piss around with our bindings and give the goggles an extra special spruce up, and still be on the first cable car up the mountain.  Bring it the fuck ON.

Sickeningly beautiful - like Miranda Kerr 

The Chamonix Valley is a place of unbelievable beauty.  It's like when you go to some fancy pants art gallery and your eyes are overwhelmed as to the amount of gorgeousness they are flooded with.  It really was a text book case of winter wonderland at it's most glorious.  This is the part of the world where the whole skiing winter cosiness started in the 1800s everyone.  Everybody else are just copy cats.  *Ok, I just tried to verify this with my old friend wikipedia and it seems like the Ruskies might have got into this about 5000BC (I'm sure this is bullshit, and that Putin just altered all the Russian text books - he always has to come out on top doesn't he?).  The Chinese are also claiming skiing for their own (dream on - you've got chopsticks ok, you don't need skis too) - and the Scandenavians are right up there as well (give them their due, the term 'ski' does come from some word in Norwegian meaning stick of wood).  Basically nobody really has much of an idea when it all kicked off if the truth be known, but I can tell you this much - snowboarding kicks the anus hole of skiing and that started when all the best things started - in the 1960s.

Mummy???

The first day was spent as most first days are - an uncoordinated mix of joy and exhaustion.  The second day we booked a guide to take us off piste.  We were imagining piles of powder, forest trees and lots of gliding.  What we weren't prepared for were avalanche transmitters, harnesses, ropes and backpacks containing longer ropes, a shovel and a probe for poking into avalanches to locate the broken body of your skiing partner.  This is what I mean by masquerading as far more hard core than I actually am.  I felt sick on my way up to the very top, packed more tightly into that cable car than my ski pants felt on the last day after 5 days of melted cheese for every meal.  It wasn't good.  And the wind at the top was also a bit alarming, although not as alarming as when our guide Phillipe - a small insane mountaineering fruitloop with bad teeth and a jacket that said "Catch Me If You Can" on the back of it - said " We go here".  The "Here" he was referring to was under a rope and past a sign that said 'CREVASSES" complete with a picture of a body tumbling down a rocky tunnel.  "Are you sure Guide Phillipe, are you sure? - we told you we were pretty shit right?".  But we were assured, it was perfectly fine for two spazzas to be riding blind, with gale force winds onto a giant glacier littered with dangerous cracks.  Fine - I was up for it.

Higher than a group of 18 year olds at a Legalise It Festival

Descend to the start

Really?

Go Glacier!  Apparently they are actually moving you know

Down there?  Fuck me, Dude.

Glacier up close

Wow

It was of course incredibly and insanely beautiful, fun and exhilarating.  I only had one spaz out - on a tiny track above a steep slope leading directly onto the edge of the icy glacier.  I literally couldn't move. But didn't shame myself by crying for my Mummy on this occasion.  She wouldn't have come to get me anyway, she hates heights - the cable car would have finished her off.  But the rest of the way down saw us going past sights that were so naturally stunning we had to stop and just soak it all in.  We actually got what skiing in that part of the world was all about - not so much the quality and quantity of the snow, but the incredible beauty of the place, the height of the mountains, and the peaceful tranquillity that permeates through you while you're up there on top of the world.

For miles......

Talking of the top of the world. the next afternoon we decided to visit the Augille du Midi - an extremely height point in the mountain ranges of the Chamonix Valley.  Some people ski off here but you really need to know what you're doing.  Most people go for a look/see.  The top station is over 3700 metres high, and you reach this in 20 mins.  It sure is a fast ascent.  Unfortunately for some, this fast ascent proves to be a little much and they can't adjust to the altitude.  I was one of these some.  I felt fine at the mid station.  But as the cable car ascended the final steep rocky outcrop I began to feel terrible.  Like everything was swaying and I was going to faint.  When we got out at the top I couldn't even look at the amazing view. I honestly felt like I was going to topple off the mountain.  Such a bizarre sensation, and one I've never experienced before.  I've never had fear of heights or anything remotely similar.  I jumped out of a plane at 10 000 metres without issues (apart from pooing my pants - ok that didn't happen....).  But this was so strange.  Every step I took left me shaking and swaying, and finally I was really having a good old howl.  My husband had to hold me up and escort me back into the cable car.  It was again so squashy in there that I really had to talk myself down from a panic attack, and when at last at the bottom I couldn't contain my relief.  I have not fucking idea how they built that top station or cable car (and I hope they got paid an absolute truckload of cash).  Absolutely crazy beautiful view - just a shame I was bawling too much to look at it.  Pictures are nice though.  Next time I'l just stay home and watch it on the television.

I'm sure it was swaying

Icy Exit

You'd have to be a total nutjob to ski down here

I'll stay here next time

But of course 5 days flit by fast, and before you know it you are squashed up in your crappy plane seat playing arm rest wars with the Italian dickhead to the right of you and asking the chick in front of you to get pull her dreadlocks out of the gap between the seat because they are resting on your leg.  All this pain, plus a hangover from lunch time wines, and mourning for the loss of your too brief holiday, as you touch down in Tel Aviv at 3am on a Monday morning bites it big time.  You then spend the next couple of days really missing the snow, and watching the weather report at all the European resorts just to see where's getting the most snow.

We've had a storm of a different variety here in Israel the last few days.  Dust and sand.  It's horrific.  Everything is covered with a thick sandy coloured coating, and your mouth feels crunchy every time you have to go outside.  There's bit of trees, guttering, and a various assortment of junk flying round the air - I nearly wore my ski helmet when I went to the shop yesterday, but decided I would rather have my scalp gashed by a flying piece of iron than look like a dick, so I didn't.  The good news is that Mount Hermon in the north of the country appears by all reports to be getting over a metre and a half of snow in 3 days.  That is some serious dumpage.  Very serious indeed.  And with all the roads closed for now, it looks like Sunday could be unbelievable up there.  We may just get another mountain adventure in sooner than we thought.  Hummus in the snow - who knew?

I think I prefer 2 tons of melted cheese though.....