Quit your day job. Go on. I dare you.

So obviously after the heliskiing the stag do carried on drinking late into the night. Much partying. Then Saturday night was La La Land at the patinoire. It’s one of very few club nights that get put on in Chamonix, and end of season party where everyone you’ve ever met can be found. So that was another late night.

Sunday dawned, but I didn’t see it. By the time Sarah and I woke up it was the afternoon. The weather’s still amazing – hot and summery; so we drove down to the lake in Passy to swim and hang about in the sun. The water’s still bloody cold even with a wetsuit on, but it’s good to swim.

So this morning is the day of the first full week of work with no skiing. It’s a little sad to have put away all my ski clothes but the upside is that over the winter I’ve always struggled with finding a good balance between work and skiing. Any day I haven’t been up on the mountain I’ve felt a bit guilty that I’m not making the most of the opportunities here. Now I’ve made the decision to finish skiing I don’t need to feel that anymore.

So to kick myself into summer mode I borrowed Sarah’s mountain bike this morning and cycled into the office from Les Houches. It’s about 5km on a beautiful track which goes through the forest on the North side of the valley. I’m planning to cycle into the office this summer, so today was a bit of a practice. It only took about 30 mins. Now I need to get myself a bike. More kit. Does it ever end?

Heliskiing. We were at the Italian side of Mont Blanc (heliskiing is illegal in France) by 9am ready for our first drop high up into the Mont Blanc Massive. Out of a group of 7, four of us hadn’t heliskied before - but everyone was a more than competant skier.

The first drop to the top of a glacier had everyone smiling. Skiing down took an hour and the chopper was waiting for us to take us to our second drop - the top of another glacier facing a ravine with a stunning view of the summit of mont blanc from the Italian side.

I did fall - at speed. Took a right tumble I did, curled up into a ball and rolled end over end about 10 times before coming to a stop. Miles, our guide, just casually mentioned when he dropped my ski back that he’d fallen at the same spot and snapped his leg in two places last time he skied that pitch. Still. No bones broken and I’ve manged to make to the end of my first full Chamonix season alive and intact. Might sound dramatic, that but skiing at the level I seem to be skiing at now is a serious business.

Of course…. there are photos :)

see the flickr slideshow

Almost always better done the night before. So if you want to go heliskiing, you apparantly need the following kit. Otherwise you’re a numpty. So I thougt I just about had everything together when I remembered my ski pass. Hold on…. I don’t need a ski pass. Because I’m going in a fucking helicopter.

I was in Geneva for dinner last night. It was a friend’s birthday and well…. Sumink different innit? So this guy Charlie Adam turned up with his wife and brought Fred a framed print for his birthday. I immediately recognised it as the work of an artist I’ve seem all over Chamonix since I arrived. I had no idea that it was done by a contemporary local artist – I assumed it to be some famous 60’s pop-artist I’d never heard of.

Solarim, by Charlie Adam
www.bungalowgraphics.com

And here he was in the flesh. I was a little bit star-struck to be honest. But the question I really wanted to ask was…. Are the images created in paint? Amazingly not. Charlie creates all his art in Illustrator. Thing is, when I first started developing my Les Houches Royalty cartoon idea, what I had in mind for the graphical style were his images. Turns out he’s been thinking about animation for a while now, and wondering how to move towards flash and bringing movement to his art.

The Les Houches Royalty cartoon idea lives. Sweet.