Tignesage Dirtbags
This blog was written on Saturday – internet sadness has prevented efficient blogging!
We’ve discovered this week, the locals don’t pronounce the ‘s’ in ‘Tignes’, making it sound like Teen.
That’s that explained.
Apologies for the late blogging, I fully expected to have one done a week or so ago after our drive down here but too much stuff got in the way; I now have that dilemma as to whether I talk about everything or try to make it concise and at least partly interesting. I know my last Vegas blog was phenomenally long, too long to even take to the bog. I’ll start off and see what happens.
We drove to Tignes and back. Two things spring to mind here; one was our visit to what The Don describes as “One of the top five sites in the Alps.” McDonald’s in Albertville. The second highlight was the use of French speed cameras – after being flashed three times we were worried about the situation but we then discovered (courtesy of the free wifi in McDonald’s Albertville) that the Frenchies can’t book foreign drivers and that a third of all motoring offences are by foreigners; indeed the highest speed recorded on a French motorway was by a Brit at over 155mph, and he got away with it!
Upon the return, we had a night out at the Knowsley Hall Christmas Extravaganza, which was excellent. It was a masquerade themed ball and the whole of Alder Hey hospital turned up for it which meant that the room was full of drunken scouse nurses – it was quite a night.
Following that there was a series of leaving dos incorporating a BOTT party at Stuoobs’ and a family drinkathon at Don Luigi’s. The result of all this meant we were quite glad to get to Tignes in order to have a bit of a rest.
Monday came along and this was our departure date, we were all naturally exceptionally excited as the snowfall for the start of the season has been somewhat exceptional. We had booked a minibus to take us from Geneva to Tignes and after we all had a little snooze on the bus we arrived at Bourg St Maurice and the snow was apparent. Bourg is at an altitude of approx 500m and the snow was a foot deep even down there. As we climbed the mountain to Tignes at 2100m the snow got deeper and the roads much much icier.
We arrived safely and settled in. We didn’t go on the mountain on the first day as we knew we had all season and we had to sort loads of stuff out, not least getting the lift passes for the season. We had our first day snowboarding on Wednesday and I suppose it was inevitable that one of us would suffer on day one. It was the turn of Pezza who found her first blue run a bit challenging (I may have tried to tell her it was only a green) and twisted her knee. Cazzie meanwhile fell and gave herself some nasty whiplash. Cazzie’s fall was slightly more notable than Pezza’s. Pezza at least achieved injury through snowboarding whereas Cazzie damaged herself by falling spectacularly off the sofa.
We took in the sights of our home in the area of the resort known as Le Lavachet and found a bar & restaurant known as Le Brasero where we were made to feel very welcome by the Karen, the owner, and had a great fondue and wine. We took it easy as we were all still knackered from the events of November!
The weather began to close in on Thursday afternoon. We were forecast 20cm of snow on Friday and 3cm today. It started snowing at 5pm Thursday and as I look out of my window now it is still coming down. There has easily been two foot of snow in the last 48 hours at resort level. That will probably equate to well over a metre at the top. We have learnt that the weather forecast is sketchy at best but it’s not all that bad, the weather is notoriously changeable in the Alps but tomorrow’s forecast of blue skies and sun beaming down on the fresh powder will have everybody reaching for their duvets for an early night in preparation for a great day tomorrow.
Stuoobs and I ventured out yesterday to give this powder lark a try and it was such a good day, we now know what snowboarders have been banging on about for years (Ian – no arguments please) .
We celebrated the powder and our first Friday night in Tignes with several vodka cranberries last night. We couldn’t get up to Val Claret where the major clubs are because the 24 hour bus run only starts today. We were all quite toasted and Pezza & I took a ten minute walk to Le Lac to find a cheesy club called Jacks, having spoken to the locals this will more than likely be the place we take you lot when you come to visit. Phrases such as Cheesy and stick-to-the-floor are being banded about. Pez and I didn’t make it that far as we got stuck in Jam Bar with some other locals. The walk home was fun with the first in a five-month series of ‘dicking about in the snow when drunk’.
It’s now Saturday afternoon and we’ve nursed our hangovers quite well. We’re about to pop to the pub to watch the Man Utd v Sunderland game and then crack on with some X-Factor Drinking games!
That’s just about everything. We get the internet next week and I’ll get the pictures of the apartment and snow up on Flickr and Facebook then.
Finally, big up to the Dalowskys and the Teages – both of whom have spawned a new kid each. Welcome to the world Isaac Teage & Edward Dalowsky.
xxx
Plenty of arguements about snowboarding in general. Powder isn’t one of them. Snowboarding in powder is excellent…one of the best things. I am a huge fan of it as the more people on boards walking out of runs the better it is for me to ski past them and get double the runs. No need for me to switch to snowboarding for powder though…i am one of the few who can actually ski it!