Probably the most common question that I get asked during the winter season, be it in my capacity as a ski instructor or sometime transfer driver to the airport is, ‘So, what do you do in summer?’.
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| life's a beach |
This is normally the second or third question after the two other
guaranteed questions, being ‘What’s the snow like?’ (cold, white, attached to
the mountain) and ‘How long will it take to get to Chatel?’ (as long as it
takes, depends on whether you want me to drive like I am supposed to or if I
can drive like I’ve got a 74 number plate, which you really won’t like).
So I thought I’d write a blog about what I’ve done since the
ski season ended and for something to write about since I haven’t written
anything since April.
Non-ski season, I am a football coach and my 8 month off
season started with a week of Easter football camps and progressed into various
after-school coaching programs and summer camps. We are now into the after-school coaching
autumn season, with added rain, cloud, cold and general crappy weather.
This year, after meeting another particularly good coach who
has joined the company that I work for, I have changed my approach to
coaching. I have realised that much of
the work that I did last year, although fun, wasn’t that constructive in making
kids better at football. Trying to put
myself in the shoes of a parent, I figured if they are going to pay X to come
and have me coach them, then they should be a lot better at the end than when
they started. Even the ones who don’t
really want to be there.
I now work on a similar basis to skiing, with a lot of
questioning/discovery led approaches and a gradual build-up of skills in a particular
set order, which makes for development of individual football skills. At the age group that we coach, 5-11
normally, individual skills are hugely important. Team play etc comes after in development but
if you can’t do what you want with the ball, you’ll never get anywhere in the
game itself.
Apart from this, I’ve been on holiday twice. Once on Danny’s stag do. 18 blokes go to Ibiza – can’t really tell you
anymore about that but I had two amazing nights, one at Defected at Pacha and
the usual Space on Sunday. The highlight
of the Space night (apart from the eternity that we spent ensuring that
everyone was ‘ready’ to go to Space on Bora Bora sodding Beach – never again
Dan) was seeing one of my favourite DJ's Deetron live and the other DJ who dropped a Dr Dre track into the
middle of his set at about 4am. Dan won't remember this though as he was having his face painted as a tiger at the time.
The second holiday was a very pleasant 3 days that I grabbed
with Mrs Burrows to Italy. We went back
to the place that we went on honeymoon, Cesenatico on the Adriatic coast and
spent a couple of days on the beach and 3 nights eating in lovely Italian
restaurants. It was great and it was driveable from Chatel in about 7-hours.
It’s close enough that we are considering renting an apartment there
next summer for a month and just chilling by the beach. Getting out of the Chatel goldfish bowl for a
while.
In an effort to offset the epic drinking that counts for the
summer here, I’ve been helping a mate out who has been landscaping on an
amazing Chalet up at 2000m above Les Crosets.
It’s interesting trying to do a day’s work at that altitude because if
you don’t keep yourself fed and watered properly, you start making silly
mistakes due to the effects of the height.
Also, it’s tough trying to put a decent shift of work in at 2000m
and fatigue certainly was setting in at 8 hours + a day. Whether this was just me being 35 years old
and not used to manual labour after my previous life in suits and offices or
the work being genuinely hard, I am unsure.
Anyway, we’ve got a break now until November so I can rest up.
As an aside on the subject of epic drinking, I got so drunk
the other day at a wedding, I seem to
have actually scared myself into soberness.
I haven’t had a beer for about a week and a half now and the worst bit
about it (apart from the rather worrying fact that this is about the longest it’s
been since I started drinking at 15) is that I’m starting to feel quite
good. I am even considering seeing how
long into October I can go for without.
The next thing you know I’ll be finding god.I’m not missing the hangovers though..
