Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

The seasonal festivities may be over, but someone somewhere must have been singing the classic ‘Let it snow’ song as it has done nothing but snow all day.  We've had around 10cms down in the village, with probably more up at the top of the mountain.  There was a noticeable drop in temperature today, which caught some of the children unawares – Aboudi and Loulia have learned that a little more than just a t-shirt under their ski suits would be more beneficial to keeping warm on the slopes!

The skiing conditions, despite the problems with visibility, have been absolutely perfect, and BISAK pupils have been whizzing in all directions (not always as planned) across the mountain.  The speed and confidence of some of the children as they snow plough their way down the slopes after just three days of tuition is an absolute joy to behold.  The wind dropped today, and that was a definite plus – had it been snowy and windy we’d have had a completely different day to contend with.

We did have one slight mishap: Ayra had an awkward fall, and had to hobble down the slope with Mr. Suter to the waiting Mrs. Suter (always handy to have your own in house Nurse in attendance!) at the bottom.  Ayra was more concerned about being seen holding Mr. Suter’s hand than she was about the pain she was experiencing.  And good to report, she’s fine and dandy again this evening and raring to go again tomorrow.

As we walked back from the gondola that brings us down from the slopes back to the village (from where it’s a 5-10 minute walk back to our hotel), the snow could be seen building up on the roads.  That lead to some disappointment for the evening; despite dressing to impress and preparing to strut their funky stuff on the dance floor, our evening expedition to the discotheque was unfortunately cancelled.  The road to the hotel is extremely narrow and on quite a marked slope, and the Interski coach drivers took 45 minutes to dig their coaches out and move them up the slope to a flatter piece of road.  Local drivers have been proceeding extremely slowly as it was, and our drivers, quite rightly, decided it was too unsafe to take the coaches out.  So plan B: our older children went out for a walk into Courmayeur for the evening with Miss Hunter, Mrs. Carroll and Mrs. Annoni, while those remaining pitted their wits against each other in a battle of the brain cells, with a range of questions to appeal to all.  

The highlights? 

Q. What is the Italian word for snow? A. Snowé

Q. What is the only mammal that can’t jump? A. The wombat (??!!)

Q. Name of the events in the biathlon in the Winter Olympics. A. Snowball fight.

And so to tomorrow.  It’s promised for no more snow, no wind, although we probably won’t see the sun again either.  Perfect for skiing and snow boarding.  Onward and upward (and then down…)

Quote of the day:  From Miss Hunter today, as she saw an embroidered message on a passers-by ski hat in front of her, stated, “Look – Cairo”  Only very rapidly realising afterwards that it actually said “Ciao!”