When your busy preparing cakes and mains in the morning, furiously cleaning rooms watching the clock to get out of the chalet and enjoy a portion of the afternoon time seems so important and seems to go at double speed. Yet those precious few hours off seem to melt away like the snow under the warm striking sun on the clearest day. Not been enough of those clear days this last week, too much of the English grey skies.
Time has been the theme with our weekend guests who arrived for a 50th birthday celebration, such a milestone in life as it is.
Prior to their arrival we had enjoyed a night almost as guests in the chalet with no one booked in and the owners away in Italy skiing with friends.
Champagne, jacuzzi, sauna, 2 course meal a la moi, sky tv...we could almost imagine the luxury of it after a hard days skiing. Pretty nice to feel what it's all about.
We were broken gently into new arrivals as first through the door were cool, sophisticated and appreciative French couple from Paris Anne and Thierry. Cooking for them was a joy, they loved our Spanish Chicken with Chorizo and Lemon Posset, finished dinner early and were easy to talk to. If serving people like this was all that was required we would be happy every day.
The peace was broken by eight 50 something's, who for the whole weekend behaved like a bunch of 18 year olds. The noise! The volume at the dinner table, the lewd and rude conversations took us quite aback. The two French couples, including Thierry and Anne having understandably and wisely decided not to dine with them after the first night. Saturday was the big 50th shindig and with a special menu planned, Debbie the masseuse/hearty home cook came to help us prep and although we learnt some new recipes, the result was that we spent 14 hours working, 6 of those with extremely loud voices ringing in our ears.
This was our first real experience of a rich elite, a class with seemingly little class to speak of and it made me prouder than ever to have been brought up the way I have, and more respectful still of my parents.
Fortunately after 4 of the more garish of the group departed and only 4 remained they mellowed and began to act like the more sophisticated guests we had envisaged. It's hard to engage with CEO's of huge corporations and their wives but they were consistently impressed with our food and we managed to engage with them a little.
The different world they come from and their successes has made it a ponderous time and as we approach the half way point of our first season, we have been looking towards our own future. It looks bright.
Short term, we are getting another ski lesson (we are progressing slowly and finding it hard to motivate ourselves to push on to the next level) Then our next job, we have secured a job via a twenty telephone conversation in part thanks to our experience here and perhaps in greater part to my brother Sam who currently works for our future employer. And yet further ahead we are looking to expand our spiritual and physical horizons and head east for a short time and experience working together in a different way, in a Himalayan Forest Project. Life has a lot to squeeze in before we turn 50...
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