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FRANCE Page 3

In February 2006 I did a week of skiing in Chamonix. A month later I did a week of snowboarding in Morzine, which happens to be just 40 miles north of Chamonix. This is the first time that I've taken two snowy holidays in the same season. This does make up for some of the years when I thought I was going to go, but didn't.

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Here is a map of the area showing both resorts


I thought it was time to attain some new gear. As the jacket I'd been wearing on previous holidays was too big for me and my previous salapettes were rather lurid. My mother bought for me a new version of each, the jacket was a Christmas present and the salapettes were a birthday present. She made some choices this time and went well with my skis and boots.
Click on this image to see me in action.
I was with a new group this time. I was invited onto the holiday by Benedict Adamson. He's standing on the left here holding a piste map. Also in this picture are Rob Murray (in yellow), Chris Arden (a.k.a. Chris 1) and Anna Charemza.


Click on this picture to see Chris 1 doing a little jump.
The gentleman here adopting a rather camp pose is David Hodgkinson (a.k.a. Hodge), the organiser of the trip. Also here is Sarah Murray, Rob's wife.

Here I am again, on a more blizzardy day. On the left here is Ally Fletcher, on blades, and on the right is Arend Kamping.
Here is Ally in action.

Here is Karen Sheriff, kicking up some snow.
Karen is unfortunaate enough to be the first person whom I've ever caught falling whilst I've been filming. Click on the snapshot on the right.

The other lady in this shot is Wendy Lissart.

Here's Phil Hands. His a very skillful and experienced skier. He never falls over.
.. Well, hardly ever!

If only I'd caught that one on film!

I caught him here shooting off into the distance.

Here's Phil again with his partner, Gunde Scholz. Chris 1 is adopting the kamikaze pose.
Here's Gunde on the move.

Here's John Sloan.
And here's Sean Carter, in action.

And here's Sarah.
Here's Anna, with her skis close together and parallel.

Here's quite a good view on a cloudy day.

Anna is quite a speedy skier. Here's one of those moments when she's waiting the others in the group to catch up.

Here's a video of one instance when she shot past me.
Here's Lio Lissart, a Frenchman with a thousand anecdotes. He was only one snowboarding.

Here's Phil, leading the way and wearing a jester's hat.
Some of the more confident skiers did some skiing off-piste. I joined them on a couple of occasions. Here are Benedict and Rob emerging from a tricky off-piste section.
Here are some of us, Phil, Sarah, Benedict, Rob and myself, all very cheerful.
Some people are impressed that I am able to record movies and ski at the same time. Click on the photo on the ... to see one such example. Gunde features in quite a lot of this.
We all stayed at Le Chalet Blanche. Here we all at dinner.

 Going clockwise from the front there's Hodge, Phil, Ally, Chris 1, Chris Ball (a.k.a. Chris 2), Rob, Karen, Benedict, Sarah, Sean, Claire, Leo, Arend, Anna, me, Gunde and John.
On one evening we had a meal at a restaurant. Here I am looking jolly, with Anna and Chris 2.
We did some of the cooking ourselves at this restaurant.
Needless to say, some drinking was done.
Quite a sweet photo, this one of Chris 2 and Karen.
That's quite an expression from Chris 1.
Three weeks after flying back home from Geneva, I came back again and went to Morzine. It would have been convenient if the two holidays had been on consecutive weeks, that way I'd have only needed two flights rather than four.

I'd had decided that I was going to do one week of skiing and one week of boarding. I chose to board at Morzine because the slopes are generally less steep and this was only my second week of boarding.
Here I am turning one way.
And the other.
Here is a film of me boarding.

I was back with some of the guys from the Livignio and Les Deux Alpes trips.

Here's Tom Baggs, Tim Dilks and Simon Banks.

Click here to see a film of them in action.
Here's Tom in action.

Click here to taking on a difficult bit. he did well considering that this was only his second week on the slopes.

And Tim.
To improve my boarding skills I took some lessons. The instructor Damian is the chap in yellow. On the right is Mathieu, the only other chap in the class.

It turns out that Tim's friend Rats was taking a holiday at the Morzine with some of her friends. Rats is a snowboarder, but I didn't manage to catch her on the slopes. However some of her friends did join us on the pistes a couple of times. Here are Colleen, Charli and Charlotte.

It was a rather blizzardy day, hence the goggles.
I rather like this picture.

Tim is in the foreground. The girl in pink is Lindsey and the girl in blue is Rachel (more of Rats' friends).

Below are some more pretty views.


Here is Mont Blanc in the distance.
Here's a photo I took of the village of Morzine from outside our chalet on the morning we departed. Only on that morning was snow on the roofs like this.

I have had little experience at doing jumps on a snowboard, as you will realise if you click on the photo!

Although the landing was not caught on the camera, it goes without saying that I landed hard on my rear end. This did not result in my first real injury, I'm sure I'll have one eventually, but even a couple of months after the incident I was still occasionally feeling a little discomfort in the area.
Now for the après-ski. We sampled several of the village's restaurants. This one was my favourite. I've forgotten it's name, but we went there on the last night and I had a healthy dose of mussels and prawns.

Those at the table whom you might not recognise are Vivian Wong, Robert Williams and Emma Wiggins. They were all novice and stayed with us the chalet. I didn't see them on the piste, but i received the impression that the enjoyed the skiing and likely to go again.

Tim looks like he's full. The portions were certainly generous.

Some bars were visited as well. Many of them donated by Brits.

On the left here is Rats, a jolly character.
We did visit a cheesy nightclub on the final evening. It was quite full so Emma and Rob here are having to dance on the seats.

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