Snow, snow, go away!

There is a small black cat sitting in the middle of our lawn. He has his paws all tucked in nice and tidy and he is surveying his domain like a little prince. He is blissfully unaware of the mortal peril he will be in once Tiggy cottons on to the fact that the dark object on the grass not 10 metres away is not another molehill but a potential meal. Actually, from the mud all over her nose and the holes all over the lawn it seems she already considers moles a potential meal, although despite her frantic scrabbling she has never caught one. However she is currently otherwise occupied and rather unlikely to notice the fair game right under her nose as she’s seen me get the vacuum cleaner out. She might act all macho barking at the garden gate when anyone dares to wander past, but one peep from a Dyson and you’d think someone stuck a rocket up her bum.

Hey, but at least you can see the lawn today, even if I use the term very loosely given how badly its been ravaged by Penfold and his moley friends, with added input from my dog. There are still some large piles of white stuff around to rival their efforts but I think we are finally getting rid of the snow. And good bloody riddance too. I never thought I would say it but I have now officially had my fill of snow. In the past I have always been a big fan but now I am so over it. If it dares to snow here again I think I may have to take to my bed until it melts. It doesn’t help that my sister is sending me emails from a beach-bar in Ko Samui where I doubt there’s any ice outside of her rum cocktail. (Her husband was complaining that they couldn’t find anywhere showing the rugby on TV, oh such hardship. Pooey!) To think, she was all jealous that we were heading to the slopes last week but sadly Austria did not deliver the clear blue skies and glorious mountain-top sunshine I had been looking forward to and a week with my goggles on unable to see my own skis through the white-out has finally done me in. I do not even have the tell-tale panda-eyes of the recently ski-ed and for once I am really miffed.

I have found myself dreaming of those beautiful days skiing down the gorgeous sunny slopes of Whistler with a bunch of friends, before we all decided to play at being grown-ups and started having babies. I’d love to go back but I know I couldn’t stomach the flight with 2 children in tow, not after 7 hours there and 7 hours back in the car last week, Nintendo and Disney all the way. And of course it snowed for the entire journey too, making the drive just a little bit more stressful than usual. Only a little though because Nobby and me always have issues when we get in the car together and especially when there is navigating involved. Add a layer of melt-water and a driving blizzard and we’re straight up each others noses. You see, I don’t like Nobby’s driving, because I think he goes too fast and reckless, especially on a wringing wet autobahn where the locals regard the speed-limit as a bare-faced challenge. But my clinging onto the door handle with a look of terror on my face and squeaking whenever he gets within half a mile of the car in front doesn’t seem to put him off any. In turn, Nobby dislikes my driving because he thinks I am too cautious and panicky. When we took a wrong turn up a mountain pass and needed to turn round he got very frustrated that I refused to chuck a u-turn on a narrow road with six foot snow drifts on either side, preferring to drive a couple of miles to a junction instead... you getting the picture? But rather than gripping the armrests or making faces at me he landed me with a Forbidden Phrase, just to put the boot in:

‘Would you like me to drive?’

Frankly that’s only one step away from ‘what have you been doing all day?’ so I made him stay in the passenger seat the whole rest of the way. Nyer.

But at least the hotel came up trumps once we’d slid into a parking spot and unloaded. A huge apartment, an indoor pool, a five-course meal every evening *and* they took the kids away during mealtimes and fed them for us. Hurrah! As far as I know they ate chips and nuggets all week long but what I don’t know can’t hurt me I reckon. Nobby and I, on the other hand, were treated to an extravaganza of culinary artistry – actually, if I’m honest, apart from the arrival and departure ‘Gala Dinners’ we think the chef was having a bit of a laugh. I could just picture him doubled up in the corner of the kitchen in his stripy apron as the servers brought out Monday’s starter: ‘Vegetables in Aspic.’ Picture it with me if you will: a few peas, some diced carrots and a bit of onion… in a cube of clear jelly. We promptly turned into a very long episode of the Catherine Tate Show, ‘…and do you know what it were? Jellied veg. Veg… in jelly. The dirty, rotten, bastards.’ The Hochfilzer Famous Cappuccino pudding, served with a lot of promise in a coffee cup with a swirl of whipped cream and a coffee bean on top, turned out to be chocolate jelly. The next day everything was coloured - Carrot and Ginger Soup with a Crimson Hood: it had pink whipped cream on top – and the next day we were back to jelly, this time in the gravy, please help yourselves to a slice.

Anyway, mustn’t grumble, I didn’t have to shop, or cook or wash up for a week so I don’t know why I’m moaning. I did complain about the ski-school though. I may have occasionally slagged off the French during my blogging but one thing they do know how to do is organise a ski-school. The Austrians we met? Notsomuch. The poor children had 5 instructors over 6 days, only ever skiing on two nursery slopes and by day three quite frankly I think they would rather have tidied their own rooms and done their homework than go back into lessons. Nobby and I took them out with us a couple of times but we’re not all that suited to ski-coaching or how to handle a wailing child who has just taken out a couple of snow-boarders and landed face first in a snow drift and is declaring they never want to put their skis back on. I felt slightly better when the ski-school agreed to refund us half our money but the kids’ll need to make their own certificates this year. Thank goodness for the hotel swimming pool and spa. We all agreed that was the best part of the day, relaxing in a hot Jacuzzi or getting a pummelling from the massage chair. Nobby especially liked the steam room. Pickle liked it too because of all the hilarious squelchy noises he could make on the wet seats. He and Daddy played a game of ‘Name That Tune’ with the funny sounds, until Pickle chucked in a couple of ripper farts for comparison and the lady they hadn’t previously spotted across the steam-filled room got up and left…
Them’s my boyz.