'So, what do you do in the summer?'

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?’. 

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..

 

What do you do in summer? – an open letter to Misplaced Person

Dear Christa

Loved your last blog entry, goading the collective ski related bloggers for their inactivity.

Since I regard the 7 months of summer as little more than an extended wait until the 5 months of the year here when everything is covered in snow (except last year of course), I just couldn’t bring myself to write about the trivialities of my existence when it’s not ski season.

Also, being an capitalist at heart, I don’t usually write unless I’m getting paid for it, hence the ski related topics of my efforts this season. That said, I often trawl the other blogs that I find amusing/racy and am also disappointed by the lack of activity.

Since you asked though, here’s a rough list in no particular order of all the stuff that I’ve been up to since the snow went;

1. Coaching football

Now my main job in the months from late April until December. Somehow, I’ve become a football coach working for a company that does after school football and summer camps. Compared to ski teaching, it’s much more difficult due to the lack of ‘dead time’ that you don’t have. By dead time, I mean time on lifts, time chatting theory, time spent skiing from one place to another. With the footy coaching, it’s full on and the summer camps in particular have been pretty draining, especially in 35 degree heat. Frankly, the last thing I want to do after getting home from coaching is write and normally I detour to the pub – see point 4 below.

2. VTTing

I admit to twice having been mountain biking and I still don’t get the attraction. Perhaps it’s because like any sane and normal person, as soon as I got a car when I was 17, I sold my bike and never looked back. I actually used to race VTT’s when I was younger and I know I’ve still got all the old skillz BUT, it just looks like a money pit and potential injury minefield to me and I’d rather spend time on point 4 below. The first time I went, we went to Les Gets and did a load of downhill stuff which I admit, was rather fun. I then stupidly got all excited and signed up for something called the PassPortes du Soleil, which is essentially 70kms of uphill biking round France and Switzerland, cleverly marketed as riding round France only going downhill. Never again and if you are reading this and thinking of doing it, consider yourself warned.

this VTT for the PassPortes - knife to a gunfight mate

3. Playing Vets football

And I don’t mean playing football with M. Jacob the vet from Abondance, I mean a bunch of 35-years + French ski instructors, Butchers and Pompiers running about on a Friday night and generally thrashing the pants off other local sides like Morzine, Brevon and other obscure towns you’ve never heard of. The great bit about Friday night football is that it’s played on better facilities than I’ve ever played on in my life (for some reason Chatel has an unused UEFA B standard floodlit pitch) and the whole game is played in French. There are a couple of other English chaps that play (well, actually 2 are from Yorkshire) and we seem to be working our way into the team on merit, with myself falling back to my old favourite role of number 5, generally kicking strikers and cheating, with the others bossing midfield and creating numerous chances up front. For the team, it’s also quite social and everyone goes to eat together afterwards and sink a load of beers (see point 4 below).

4. Drinking (& BBQ’s)

Now we’re talking. Pretty much since the tourists left at the end of April, there has been a lot of drinking going on and in many ways, I’m a little bit over the remorseless drinking culture that has permeated the summer over the course of the various village fetes, happy cow competitions, birthdays and god knows whatever else we have celebrated this summer. The lack of work at this time of year leads to many of the usual suspects (of which I count myself) constantly in a state of, or topping up last nights drunkenness . This said, in many ways, there is little else to do so you’ve got to be a little disciplined and me working summer camps this year has meant that I’m out of town for 4 days of the week which leaves me the weekends to either go do something different or watch the test matches in the Avalanche and get pissed. A pleasing development though was the Chalet that some friends are renting just by the river which has a most excellent garden, river fridge and oil barrel BBQ, meaning a whole new (and cheaper) way to get wasted.

river fridge - surprisingly effective

5. Pitch and Put golf

A interesting development this one, given the presence in the village of a European Tour caddy that plays a little bit, as I did when I was young. Ever since we found out that the course record for the Golf de Loy (6 holes – par 18) is 17, old man Chris and myself have been hammering the golf looking for a new record. We are not helped by appallingly kept greens and a fiendish 5th hold which is only 30-yards long. It completely proves my point though that regular golf is at least 12 holes too long.

some big numbers on this card

6. Ibiza

The less said about this the better but I went to Ibiza with the Essex boys for 4 days and destroyed myself to the point that it took me 3 full weeks for my digestive system, sense of smell, cuts and bruises to recover fully. I’ve been on boys holidays before but this one was so far off the scale of what was normal and so hedonistic that it will be interesting to see exactly how much larger we can have it next year when it’s actually a stag do and not just practice. It was wonderful though to get back to the home of dance music and actually hear some proper stuff in its proper setting.

the only photo that made it back from IBZ

7. Cricket

They play cricket in Switzerland just so you know. There’s actually a league and everything, so much so that I had to get my cricket bag sent out here. Swiss cricket is heavily Asian influenced so there is limited room for a Chris Tavaré type player like me here. Most of the time, the Indian and Pakistani boys just tee off from ball 1 and I’m getting used to seeing some very big totals to chase. Luckily, I seem to be in the side for my wicket keeping, which for those that know me, will indicate very well the level of one of the best clubs in Switzerland….

8. Boxing

Slightly coupled with number 6 and the gradual realisation that I’m getting on a bit, last week I started at the local boxing club here in Chatel. Not quite sure what my aims are for this, other than getting slightly fitter and learning something new but if it means that I’m more confident getting my shirt off in Ibiza next year then it would have served its purpose. (we all know that ski instructing doesn’t keep you fit)

9. Summer skiing

The skiing you know about from other blog entries but this may drop off a little now that I’ve had to cancel my ISIA exams in November to accommodate football coaching work. The massive benefit of summer skiing being so close is that if you can be bothered to drive the 1h45m it takes to get there, you can have a great time and feel like you are in another world, if only for a day. I’m actually going there tonight. (see point 4 above)


So there you go Christa, that’s what I’ve been up to (unless you want to hear about how amazing my new Kindle is and my brother's wedding). Told you it wasn’t very interesting but I consider myself chastened and I will attempt to blog more, if only to keep you from slitting your wrists about your various cat related troubles..

Yours in blogging

Dave xxx

Chatel, August 2011