Chilly Powder Skiing

Happy Easter! We've just returned from our favourite holiday place!

http://www.chillypowder.com/

A really lovely place to stay in Morzine, in the French Alps. We started by visiting in the Summer, after a random internet search. The kids were 5 and 3 at the time, so we needed to stay somewhere which would be suitable for them. This chalet suited perfectly - fantastic food, great facilities (hot tub, garden, kids play room with toys and games, adults library with pool table, free wifi, onsite childcare available if you want it)
The owners Paul and Franscesca live next door with their 3 children, and immendiately we felt at home - the children played together, they offered advice about things to do and we felt as if we were joining a house party rather than staying in a hotel. The hospitality was warm but not intrusive.

5 years later and we're regular visitors, both in the Summer and the Winter. The ski area is massive, and many families appreciate the excellent childcare available in the chalet - though we no longer need this as the kids ski with us after lessons. Our older son was involved in the local weekly ESF ski race and was delighted to get his bronze badge on his first attempt - though Eloise, the owners' daughter and 4 days younger than him, is on the cusp of her gold badge, and ski races at a National level! The " private group" ski lessons arranged by Chilly Powder (if that makes sense - Chilly Powder hire instuctors for the week and arrange the children into group lessons) are ideal for most children, our younger son had a group of 2 children last week!
Excellent food is one of the main selling points too, with the children eating together earlier than the adults, and restaurant quality food for all, not to mention free flowing good quality wine at dinner for the adults.
We love it, and have already booked for next ski season, with the children pressing us to come in the Summer this year too!

 The home run to the chalet - deserted!

 Always time for some football in the back garden...

...or a dip in the hot tub after a hard days skiing!

Saving for a rainy day.....

Just thought I'd share a great idea for saving without pain - not a huge amount, maybe, but enough for a special treat at the end of the year - possibly even enough for a family weekend away!
This is something my neighbours told me about - they've been doing it for years, so I though we'd have a go too. It's really straightforward - just save all the £2 coins you get throughout the year in a jar, then take them to the bank and exchange them for notes!
Every time a £2 coin appears in your change, don't spend it - save it! Easy and relatively painless. £2 coins aren't that common, so you don't have to sift through your change every day, and even a relatively small number of them can soon add up to a nice little nest egg. As loose change goes, they're nice to get, and even nicer to save....

Football....

Both of our chidren love playing football for the local junior team and though I do like football, it can sometimes seem all a bit much during the football season - no lie ins as they train at 9am on Saturdays, then matches happen almost every Sunday - often with them playing in different places, so we have to take a child each!
 On top of this my husband is a Stoke City fan with a season ticket, so every other week he travels a 230 mile round trip to see them play! Oh yes, and not forgetting the afternoons we go to watch York City - sometimes with one of the children acting as a ballboy...
Watching junior football in all weathers can be less than pleasant - but I do remind myself regularly that we are so lucky that our kids are healthy, enjoy sport, and have the opportunity to get involved in team sports - not everyone has the chance. I can't say that the end of the season will be a disappointment though, however they've just started cricket practice!

coffee machine of my dreams.....

I'm a big coffee fan, and whilst "surfing the net " I came across this rather fantastic monster of a coffee machine - now this really would get me raring to go in the mornings - a serious piece of kit that could make coffee all day and all night! My younger son described it as like a "hippopotamus" as it was so big - not sure a hippopotamus would make such good coffee though!

http://www.catertrade.co.uk/Bezzera-B1D-Bistro-Espresso-Coffee-Machine-Coffee-Bean-Deal/

Sadly at almost £3000 it's a little out of my price range - maybe I'll stick to my cafetiere for now!

Thomas Cook competition number 3!

Thoms Cook have another blog competition! This one is to win a Tom Tom XL IQ and this one I would really love to win - as our trip to Austria proved, an accurate sat nav device is invaluble!

In fact, we did have the help of a sat nav as we drove down to Austria this half term (from York, via the overnight ferry from Hull to Rotterdam). Unfortunately our sat nav is rather elderly and not recently updated - the traffic feature has ceased to work, and it steadfastly refused to update the maps prior to departure despite our best efforts (and annual subscription...)

Despite this it actually did a reasonable job as we travelled on the main roads down through The Netherlands, into Germany and eventually to Austria. Yes, the rather optimistic estimated time of arrival kept getting later, and the traffic wasn't accounted for, but things were OK until we came closer to our destination, Ramsau, close to Schladming.

As we passed Salzburg, the traffic abated somewhat, but it was dark and snowing lightly. The snow got steadily heavier, the visibility reduced, and suddenly the sat nav (with the rather surreal voice of C3PO) told us to turn off the main road. We did as instructed, then rapidly decided that this was possibly not the best decision ever. We found ourselves on a single track road completely covered in snow, with very few tyre tracks on the road....

We asked the sat nav to select another route, convinced that this couldn't be right (as we still had almost 20 miles left to travel!) but it appeared disgruntled at the prospect (in as much as a sat nav can express emotions in the voice of C3PO...) and offered the option of a further 30 minutes of travel. Reluctantly we continued, having no evidence that the alternative didn't also involve a single track road.

Several miles  and half an hour later, we were travelling through a blizzard on a snow covered road in pitch black conditions, and had begun to wonder whether the road was even open, having not seen another vehicle at all. Our concerns were soon relieved (sort of!) when a bus approached from the opposite direction. The sudden appearance of a large bus travelling at twice our speed in the opposite direction to us on a single track road in a blizzard was not an experience I'd like to repeat again anytime soon, despite our winter tyres. Our attempt to put on the snow chains in the dark and with temperatures of -12 degrees C was also something not to be dwelled on. The hair-pin bends were also an experience - bad enough on the way up the mountain, but when we started to descend, we wondered if we would even survive the night, never mind reach our destination!

Another half an hour later, and the lights of Ramsau came into view - hooray! Unfortunately we still had to find the chalet,and unfortunately it was at this pont that the sat nav decided that it's only advice was "oh dear, turn around where possible" irrespective of the direction we took... A few phone calls later, another scary ascent on a minor road through 20 cm of fresh virgin snow and we at last arrived at our destination - exhausted and an hour and a half later than planned.

This would all have been just another holiday experience to recount to our friends later if we had not then discovered that our sat nav had taken us the "scenic route" recommended only in the Summer and for those who enjoy pleasant views (none to be had in driving snow in the dark!). So a new sat nav is definitely on our wish list!

:

I entered the Flythomascook GPS Competition:

Our trusty car in Austria (complete with less trusty sat nav)!

My Anywhere Working Tips

This week is "Anywhere Working Week", so I thought I'd have a little think about this - how do I do "anywhere working" and what are my tips to make it work?

In my job, you may think that the opportunities for flexible working patterns would be a bit limited (I'm a Paediatrician, and this can make it hard to work from home - after all, patients tend to be in the hospital!)
Nevertheless, as a lot of my work is based in the community, there are things that I can do to enable at least some flexible working (there are benefits for myself, my patients, and the environment!)

Firstly, some of my work is regional - based over the whole of North Yorkshire, so I could easily travel from Scarborough to Skipton, Northallerton to Selby within the cousre of a day if I didn't think ahead!
So my first tip is: plan your meetings wisely - try to arrange meetings to avoid excessive travel if possible. I try to arrange meetings in Northallerton straight after meetings in Thirsk, for example, as I'm heading north anyway.

Secondly: If your patients (or clients) are all in the same area but a distance from you - travel to meet them, rather than have them all travel independently to meet you - better for them, better for the environment - so for example, I do a clinic in a school where I happen to have lots of patients, rather than make them all come to the hospital to see me.

My third tip: Not all administrative work needs to be done in your work place - working from home can be efficient both from a time point of view (that half an hour spent travelling can be spent working) and an environmental point of view. Obviously for me this is harder than for many people, as clinical notes need to stay within the hospital, but I can do some of my journal reading and training from home.

Fourthly: Flexible working can be good for your work/life balance. I've got two smallish / medium sized children, and the more time I can spend with them, the happier we all are. I'm lucky that I've been able to arrange a flexible working pattern where I can work more hours in term time when they're at school, and less time in the school holidays. I also choose to work until 3pm on two of my working days, rather than one full day and a half day - so I can collect them from school on both of these days.

Fifthly: If feasible, travel by train so you can work whilst travelling - I occasionally have to go to London, and then I'll always take the train - I can get busy with my laptop and instead of 4 hours of missed opportunity, I can do some online training, write up my audits, read up on some literature....
I really need a 3G dongle to make full use of the internet, and this is something I'm planning to get, but I can still use wifi hotspots.

So even if it seems your job isn't suited to "Anywhere working", most people will find that with a little thought and planning, it can be done!

Skiing in Austria

So it's half term, and we're skiing in Austria.
Everyone in our family loves skiing - the kids ahve been doing it since they were three years old, so now, at 9 and 7, they're better skiiers than me - the eternal intermediate!
I was a teenager when I learnt to ski, and my husband didn't start until he was an adult, so learning early is definitely an advantage.

We chose Austria at half term, though we love France for a few reasons:

1) It's so much cheaper, accommodation is at least half the price of France on this week, as the price rises for half term don't seem to happen in Austria. The price of food etc on the slopes is a lot cheaper too - we've been paying about 45 euros for drinks, main meals, and a couple of puddings and/or coffees - for a family of 4. In France it would be 60 - 80 euros, depending on the resort.

2) The slopes are practically empty this week - we've had a few runs where we have literally been the only ones on the slope - not something that's going to happen in France! The reason for this is that very few British seem to come to Austria ( at least here to Schladming - and it was the same last year in Nassfeld), though I guest the more "British" resorts like St Anton and Kitzbuhl may be busier. Also the main visitors seem to be Austrian, German or Dutch, and apparently it's not half term week for them this week. We're certainly not complaining!

Anyway, we're in Ramsau, just outside Schladming ( but with local slopes too) and the chalet/hotel is lovely, we're in a 2 bedroomed appartment attached to the chalet but enjoy all the food and facilities of the chalet, and have plenty of space to spread out. It's called Pension Hoffelner if you fancy googling it....
The weather was gorgeous when we arrived, very cold but sunny, but is now very snowy - well over 30 cm fell yesterday, and the powder today should be immense! Looking forward to getting out there, though we'll have to dig the car out first!

You really need a car here to make the most of the many slkiing areas covered on the one lift pass, so we drove over, taking the overnight ferry from Hull, which was fun for the kids, and "interesting" for us. We're glad we've got a 4 wheel drive car, as we've had so much snow here, and despite the snow chains it's been challenging driving
Must go, time to get skiing!