My rocky wanderings

A brief introduction to this blog can be read at About.

My name, Armorel, means ‘dweller by the sea’ and is taken from the 19^th century novel Armorel of Lyonesse set in the Isles of Scilly. Like the protagonist of the novel I am ‘strong and sound’ (although without the rowing skills!) and from an old Scillonian family. — My paternal grandfather’s mother was a Hicks from the island of St Agnes (which has around 85 inhabitants), and I believe that my ancestors were known to venture out among the Western Rocks, described in the novel (by Sir Walter Besant) as where ‘the swell of ocean is always rolling’.

I was born in Truro, the only city in Cornwall (the most south-westerly county in ‘mainland’ England) +100km from the Isles of Scilly, but was brought up in the islands (on St Mary’s). On being discharged from Treliske Hospital, Truro, after my birth my Mum and I were transported back to the islands by ambulance (provided as standard procedure) and helicopter. So, as a baby I went in a helicopter before I went in a car! My parents never had a car but, due to my Dad being a boatman, my family always had a boat to be used for travelling around between the islands.

St Mary’s has a population of around 1800, is the largest island in the Isles of Scilly and one of only five inhabited islands in the archipelago (along with St Agnes, Bryher, Tresco and St Martin’s, which are known as the ‘off islands’). At school there were sixteen pupils in my year and, for much of our formal education together, we were a mixture of eight boys and eight girls (with a few fluctuations over the years). My classmates from the off islands only got mains electricity in their homes in 1986 and, before that, had to rely on small private generators to supply their electricity (which necessitated purchase of fuel for their operation). At primary school the father of one of my classmates was a keeper on the Bishop Rock lighthouse which is 49m high, consists of the world’s smallest island with a building on it, and is battered by the Atlantic Ocean which reaches around and beyond the west of it for thousands of kilometres.

Conversation in the school classroom would often touch on subjects like fishing exploits, what speed of knots particular local boats could reach, and the yield of narcissi from island farms — flower farming has been a key industry in the Isles of Scilly since the 1880s where, due to the mild climate, even in the midst of winter the fields of the inhabited islands are ablaze with bright yellow and white, scented narcissi of different varieties. There is no cinema in the islands but endless entertainment provided by the many beaches, little coves and stretches of rugged coastline (dotted with Bronze Age burial chambers and Neolithic entrance graves) that there are to explore. Peninnis, on the coast of St Mary’s, is a wild mass of weathered rocks and boulders containing tunnels, caves, secluded spots, countless opportunities for scrambling freely, and great viewpoints for watching the waves crashing spectacularly on stormy days! The off islands have a handful of cars between them (apart from Tresco, which is entirely car-free), and although St Mary’s has plenty of cars it has no roundabouts, traffic lights or pedestrian crossings. A member of the Ford family stayed in the guest house run by members of my family on St Mary’s, and said that the island was the most difficult place they had ever seen in which to drive a car due to the roads being so narrow! There is no formal education in the Isles of Scilly beyond the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE).

After obtaining ten GCSEs in the islands, at the age of sixteen I went from the mixed-sex, mixed ability secondary (comprehensive) school on St Mary’s to a selective, highly competitive, private all-girls boarding school in Truro where there were around forty-five girls in my year. Truro has a population of around 18,766 i.e. more than ten times that of St Mary’s. Moving from my family home to a boarding house (and shared room), from the Isles of Scilly to living in a city on the mainland, and undergoing a stark change in school environment was a big shock which required an absolutely huge amount of adjustment. An on-site swimming pool, stimulating lessons, the friendly cooks who provided meals, Sunday roast lunches hosted by kind family friends, the pleasure of singing in choirs and in Truro Cathedral, as well as hiking and camping expeditions on the coast of Cornwall and amid the wild moorland of Dartmoor, Devon, all helped me to tolerate the demands of boarding school along with a few nice friends whose acceptance compensated for the damaging effects of frequently having to face a malicious, giggling clique of girls. There was also the good-natured fun of a school trip to the Loire Valley, France, during which my mistakenly describing ‘la France profonde’ [deepest France] as ‘la France plafonde’ [‘plafond’ means ‘ceiling’!] caused much hilarity.

Enduring the challenges of boarding school proved to be worthwhile when, as a result of obtaining three A-Level qualifications, I was accepted to study for a degree (over four years) in French and Italian at Cardiff University in beautiful Wales. This was in the mid-late 1990s, before email had become a common means of communication and when it was quite normal to hand-write essays (although not advisable to write them overnight, as I often did!). Highlights of my time at Cardiff University included singing with a choir in Bristol and Llandaff cathedrals and Tewkesbury Abbey, consuming real ale as part of a convivial p**s-up in a brewery (organized just to prove that such a thing could be done!), performing in a couple of plays, and hiking in the South Wales Valleys, Wye Valley, Snowdonia and Pembrokeshire as well as the Brecon Beacons in the midst of winter (much to the admiring amusement of a dear uncle, retired as a Major from the British Army Intelligence Corps, who pointed out that those mountains are where the Army trains its elite special forces unit, the SAS!).

My most memorable experience at university was travelling with a group from the university rambling club in a minibus from Cardiff to Jaca, Spain, via Mont-Saint-Michel, Nantes, La Rochelle, the Bordeaux area and San Sebastián then spending a week camping and being guided on hikes in the magnificent Pyrenees by three Spanish guys who had been studying in Cardiff. This holiday also turned out to be a guide to the seductive properties of tequila shots, and to the appeal and versatility of red wine and how it can be mixed with cola to make ‘calimocho’, with chopped fruit (and other ingredients) to make ‘sangria’, and sometimes measured in litres!

For the third year of my degree course, I had the delight of spending five months in Annecy, France (with a placement at the Institute of Technology there), followed by the excitement of spending four months in Salerno, Italy (with a placement at the local university)…

Annecy is a charming town adjacent to the Alps, situated on a lake, with a pretty area of old buildings interspersed with a river and canals that give it the label ‘the Venice of the Alps’. When my parents visited me, we went on a day trip to Chamonix with the aim of taking a cable car to the Aiguille du Midi — a mountain peak 3842m high (just 966m below the summit of Mont Blanc!), which has a small visitors’ complex with viewing platforms enabling visitors to enjoy a phenomenal view over the peaks of the Alps. My Dad wished to practise his French and, being typically generous, insisted on purchasing the three tickets for the Aiguille du Midi excursion. He was wearing a smart Gore-Tex jacket and must have really looked the part in such an alpine environment because, on requesting ‘Trois billets, s’il vous plaît’ from the cable car cashier, he was astonished to be asked ‘Aller, ou aller et retour’?! What we didn’t know was that many advanced skiers take a cable car up to the Aiguille du Midi, and ski back down the mountain on the renowned Vallée Blanche off-piste route (which stretches for 20km)! Thankfully my Dad purchased return tickets, and simply getting exposure to such amazing mountain surroundings proved to be more than enough of an adventure!

Being in halls of residence in Annecy provided much opportunity for learning how to converse in French, often between beakers of wine to a background of ‘80s music at one of the parties that frequently took place in the spacious, communal kitchen area in one of the buildings inhabited by the highest concentration of friendly, jovial French people I have ever encountered in one place. I was also given a chance to practise my ever-improving French with Catholic friends in the more sober settings of day trips to Grenoble, Lyon and Turin as well as on snow-shoeing excursions in a magical, wooded wilderness and a weekend visit to the Taizé Community in early February when it was so quiet that our little group was granted an exclusive audience with Brother Roger, the founder.

One particularly patient French friend arranged for us to spend an afternoon cycling in the Ardèche where I was put on a tandem bicycle, in the rear seat, behind a fearless friend of hers — a burly man so broad that I had no direct view of where our bicycle was headed, something I was glad of when we reached a speed of 58km/hour on descending a winding road high up above the Rhone river! In addition to organizing this cycling adventure, my friend and her family kindly hosted me for a few days on their farm in a village in the Monts du Pilat. One morning I woke up in the farmhouse to hear scuffling and shouting, looked outside the window and could see my friend’s father and some other men chasing a pig around the yard. When entering the kitchen for breakfast I noticed a big, stone pot of steaming blood — the pig had been killed! In the evening, for dinner a delicious feast was laid on of pig’s neck stew and homemade ‘boudins’. This was, unquestionably, the freshest meat that I have ever eaten and a real case of ‘farm-to-table’ years before such a concept became widely marketed and trendy.

After the wonderful experiences of France it was time to go and enrol at Salerno University and on flying into Naples airport, over the green hills of southern Italy, I felt more curiosity than anxiety about what may lie ahead. Salerno is a city 58 ½ km south-east of Naples at the end of the Amalfi Coast, in the Campania region of Italy, with an attractive seaside promenade (the ‘Lungomare’) stretching for around 1km and lined with palm trees, as well as a castle and a ‘centro storico’ (historic centre) with an impressive cathedral, archaeological museum and network of beautiful streets and atmospheric alleys. For my first few days in Salerno I stayed in an ‘albergo’ just off the main street running through the city, the Corso Vittorio Emanuele II. On my first evening in Salerno I was surprised to hear a sustained murmur of excitable chattering, punctuated with laughter. I thought this may mean that a special event could be happening but, on going out to investigate, realised that the buzz I could hear was simply the locals walking up and down the pedestrianized street on their evening ‘giro’. — It’s quite common, in southern Italy, to suggest to a friend that you go out for a stroll and chat just as, in the UK, friendliness is often expressed by inviting someone to go for a drink. I find that evening warmth characteristic of the Mediterranean, filled with the sound of lyrical Italian voices, truly uplifting and energising. Through the university I soon found an apartment to live in with two Italian girls where I was welcomed with a strong, sugary ‘espresso’ freshly made from a stovetop pot. A few days later one of my housemates came home waving a bunch of mimosa in recognition of la Festa della Donna.

Wishing to get out into the enticing hills of Campania, I joined the Club Alpino Italiano (CAI). My first excursion with CAI was a hike that began in the coastal town of Vico Equense, on the Sorrentine peninsula. After climbing up through a landscape strewn with olive trees, rosemary bushes, wild asparagus and clumps of rocks, on paths scattered with stones formed from lava from Mount Vesuvius, we could see that imposing volcano when we reached the summit of Monte Faito (at 1140m) where we also had incredible views of Naples, Pompeii, the bright blue sea and pretty bays of the Amalfi Coast and of the sun shining over the island of Capri. The enjoyment of the scenery was enhanced when a picnic was laid out on a table cloth. — I was handed a plastic cup of red wine, and urged to try some homemade sausage (made by a lady in the group), prosciutto, a stuffed fig and a spicy biscuit. One man gave me a handful of red mulberries to be eaten from my pocket like sweets, another gave me a tot of liqueur made in the Italian Alps, and this was followed by a taste of ‘arancello’ made with oranges grown on the Amalfi Coast. After this delightful and unexpected mountain-top feast we all walked through beech forest to Gragnano, a hilltop town where ‘panuozzo’ originated and which was served to us there for dinner. Panuozzo is a large sandwich made with a particular kind of bread and, on this occasion, it was filled with mozzarella and ham. I personally detest the smell and taste of cheese, but focused on the other ingredients and was happy that a copious amount of red wine was served with it! As part of this extremely lively dinner a drinking game was organized during which everyone present stamped their feet on the floor and banged on the tables chanting ‘L’acqua fa male, il vino fa cantare’ [‘water harms you, wine makes you sing’]!

Despite my hesitant Italian and limited vocabulary the members of CAI, the “Caini”, welcomed me among them with an unbelievable openness and cordiality which touched my soul deeply and still inspires me sometimes during moments of loneliness or cynicism. Along with fun evenings out in bars, pizzerias and trattorias, and a couple of parties in a country house in Montoro, I also enjoyed the company of the “Caini” on different hikes encompassing Felitto, Morigerati and Marina di Camerota in the Cilento National Park, Campania, on the Monte delle Armi near Balvano in Basilicata, and near Pescasseroli in the Parco Nazionale d’Abruzzo (where bears and wolves roam freely). Although Campania is renowned for its sunshine, during the spring when I was living there it snowed in the nearby mountains! I joined a Catholic youth group, ‘Azione Cattolica’, where I was welcomed as warmly as in CAI. The youth group leader’s father also belonged to CAI (coincidentally, I had met him before I met his lovely son!) and this unbelievably genial man invited me to go cross-country skiing with him and his friends (a number of whom were also members of CAI). So, two weekends in a row, I had the immense privilege of discovering the Monti Picentini on skis in great company: On the first outing we skied from a frozen lake, up through forest, and saw spectacular mounds of snow that looked like sand dunes (formed by wind erosion), hare tracks, red blossom high up in the trees, broom (‘ginestra’) and a valley of maple trees (‘aceri’), and had a picnic in a clearing with a view of Monte Acellica; on the second outing we skied for hours in bright sunshine and had a picnic overlooking a valley and the sea, with a view of Calabria in the distance.

The absolute highlight of my CAI adventures was an Easter trip to Sicily where a group of us went hiking in the Parco dei Nebrodi. We arrived in the village of San Fratello, Sicily, on Good Friday during la Festa dei Giudei (Festival of the Jews) — this involved being serenaded on trumpets everywhere we walked by groups of men dressed up in bright red tunics embellished with elaborately-embroidered wide strips of yellow, and matching red trousers and red hoods covering their entire heads with comical black eyes, yellow noses, and black leather, studded tongues sewn into them! The mischievous antics of these “giudei”, Dionysian in origin and related to the worship of Eros, were juxtaposed with a sombre but splendid procession in which huge statues of Christ and the Virgin Mary were carried around San Fratello. In the village of Longi on Easter Sunday we watched the dramatic ceremony of ‘L’Incontro del Cristo con la Madonna’, also with huge statues, and it was moving to notice people crying in the street on seeing this re-enactment of the Resurrection. Whilst in Sicily we stayed for three nights in a monastery in the village of San Marco d’Alunzio, where we awoke each morning to hear monks singing. We enjoyed hikes to the Catafurco waterfall, over moorland to a lake in rain and fog, and to the Rocche del Crasto where golden eagles nest and which, at 1315m high, gave us views of Mount Etna and the Aeolian Islands. In the evenings we ate an abundance of exquisite, varied food including one seven-course dinner and a particularly tasty five-course dinner which included eleven different types of starter!

Salerno is a city full of surprises where I once saw a driver on a Vespa mount a pavement and drive into a shop, where it is usual to get up on tables to dance, where cream from a cake was flicked playfully at attendees at a party who were also sprayed with a bottle of ‘spumante’ and where I once opened the apartment door (after the doorbell rang) mid-afternoon only to have a priest walk in, dressed in a long white robe, carrying a silver chalice filled with holy water which he sprinkled against the walls with a brush whilst muttering a prayer — my neighbour told me that, after Easter, it’s common practice for a priest to visit all apartments in the city to bless them! Another surprise was when I locked myself out of the apartment — on calling the fire brigade from my neighbour’s apartment they told her that they would help after the World Cup football match between Italy and Norway had finished and, after finally coming and managing to open the door as requested, they parked the fire engine at the end of our street whilst they went for a coffee in the bar on the corner! The most overwhelming surprise of all in Salerno was the friendliness of the people there — I could give innumerable examples of their kindness and generosity. I have never come across such a high number of people anywhere who give so freely, without expectation. My time in Salerno went far too quickly and it broke my heart to leave.

On graduating from Cardiff University with a BA Joint Hons. degree I spent a summer and autumn working in the Isles of Scilly — firstly in a gift and clothes shop, then in the local Tourist Information Centre in the daytime and in a restaurant a few evenings per week. Conversation with the ladies who I worked with in the shop was entertaining and thought-provoking. I lacked their capacity for perfectly folding T-shirts and sweatshirts and stacking these neatly on the shop shelves, but made up for my impracticality in this task through assisting any French tourists who came into the shop. One day, in the Tourist Information Centre, I was having a pleasant chat in Italian to a couple at the front desk. A couple standing behind them waited patiently then, when it was their turn to be served, the husband humorously boomed in a strong Lancastrian accent ‘I bet you don’t speak our language — we’re from the north of England’! The restaurant I waitressed in was owned, at that time, by a Swiss man from Lake Geneva who was also the chef. He is extraordinarily talented — customers in the restaurant often told me that this was where ‘the best steak in the Isles of Scilly’ was served. The restaurant had no specific vegetarian menu, which I think constituted something like ‘Chef’s suggestion of the day’. Although generous by nature, this chef’s kind-heartedness did not extend to understanding of vegetarianism. The chef and I communicated in English and, when I went in the kitchen to tell him ‘There’s a vegetarian–’, before I could say anything further he would interrupt with ‘’Ee/she will ‘ave polenta’! This was pronounced ‘pol-en-ta’, with strong emphasis and a slight pause on the ‘en’, almost as if a sort of punishment was to be delivered. I would return to the customer’s table, trying (probably unconvincingly) to make polenta served with vegetables (in a light sauce) sound appetizing and exotic! It was nice to have many drinks, dinners, boat trips, barbecues, picnics and walks with my parents, other family members and a few friends during my evenings off work.

I applied successfully to become a representative in a ski resort for a British holiday company so, when winter came, I left the Isles of Scilly. The company provided a two-week training course in Alpe d’Huez, France, for all representatives and my serious approach during this course led to my being appointed as a resort manager in Morzine, in the northern French Alps — initially supervising two chalet hosts/chefs, later three (after one broke his ankle!), based between two chalets, and also in charge of two nannies who operated a childcare service from one of the chalets.

Being the resort manager required working closely with the rep from Avoriaz, a resort situated at 1800m on top of a cliff at the end of a long, winding road from Morzine (1000m). On arriving in Avoriaz late in the evening to take up our duties the Avoriaz rep and I had to wade up to our knees in thick, fresh, powdery snow to find the company chalet where we were to spend the first night of our ski season — it had not been lived in since Easter, and was so cold inside that clouds of our breath were visible! We were introduced to our teammates when they turned up at 1am, banging on the front door of the chalet! The next day my small team and I moved down to Morzine, where we had eight days to get ready for the arrival of our first guests. As well as being responsible for the chalets I had to agree on the hire prices of ski and snowboard equipment for the company guests with a local sports shop, find out the prices, timing and levels of ski and snowboard lessons that could be taken, get definitive information out of the lift pass office about the prices and types of lift pass that were available, find out what a local Savoyard restaurant, the Bowling Bar and other bars could offer guests in terms of discounts and particular arrangements (including a pub quiz, to be held once a week!), and document all this clearly in a welcome booklet. I also had to open a bank account for the company (for the season), get landlines operational in my accommodation (an apartment) and the two chalets, find out how and when keys could be obtained for apartments that some guests would be booked into, and was expected to visit and establish an effective working relationship with four hotels who accommodated company guests — three near the town centre, and one situated in the village of Les Prodains a ten-minute bus ride from Morzine.

Within a few days of arrival of the second lot of guests it was obvious that there was a massive discrepancy between the utopia of how a ski resort should run, as portrayed on the training course, and the reality of the everyday, unpredictable challenges that needed to be dealt with in trying to manage the company’s operation in a resort! I had imagined cheerily welcoming guests in my smart uniform, having convivial conversations with them as I effortlessly sold them après-ski activities, escorting them on the slopes (which was one of my official duties) and feeling general satisfaction as I efficiently facilitated the enjoyment of their holiday in a picturesque, snowy paradise. Instead I spent hours trudging up and down the slippery pavements of the long road between the apartment and main company chalet, breathing in traffic fumes, and between the other chalet and two bars where I was supposed to be present for half an hour every morning and evening to answer any queries from guests. I greeted guests in my oversized company polo shirt and unflattering fleece, which had both been issued in ‘medium’ size, and trousers (which, being the only part of the uniform I’d had to provide measurements for, fitted nicely!) in a sleep-deprived state of anxiety.

There was a once-weekly transfer day, which involved travelling to Geneva airport to meet guests and accompanying those for Morzine on a coach to the resort. The journey to the resort was a chance to sell ski packs to the guests (between answering and making phone calls related to that day’s problems, such as the clean linen for one of the chalets not being delivered!), which I tried to do on the long, straight part of the road before the coach started veering around bends as it approached the mountains. On one transfer day I got up at 4.30am, and only felt able to lie down to sleep at 2.30am the following day (after striving to get on top of all pressing tasks!)! Once, at Geneva airport, a senior company manager asked me to round up more than twenty guests at Terminal 2 (where all chartered ski flights arrive) with their luggage — I did this, then the coach that the guests were waiting to board abruptly drove off to the main terminal to collect other guests instead! On another transfer day, on dropping off ten guests (including a family, whose flight had been delayed by four hours!) at one of the chalets, our coach was greeted by one of the nannies exclaiming that the lights had just gone out (due to a power cut) so the guests were ushered in by torchlight! By the start of my third week in Morzine, most of the snow that had fallen in the first week there had melted — the lower slopes, and even some mountain tops that were visible from the resort, were green and it rained heavily on Christmas Day! The company had supplied me with a fax machine, which was useful until it ran out of thermal paper — I had to wait for one of the senior managers from Chamonix to come and replace this! One of my responsibilities was to liaise with the transport manager and a local coach company to ensure that, every transfer day, all guests in Morzine would be collected from their accommodation in time for their flights back to the UK which could amount to up to seven different pick-up points. Despite my attempts to communicate accurate, clear information the coach(es) often turned up at times that caused maximum inconvenience and stress, and sometimes did not turn up at all which meant that I needed to insist on an alternative one being provided at the last minute! The coach company and its drivers were merciless. Thankfully the ski company had given me a mobile phone which was essential for communicating with the chalet hosts and hotels, coach company and drivers.

During the six days between transfer days, rather than spending time on the ski slopes in between my twice-daily half hour ‘on duty’ slots in bars, I ran around the town escorting guests to the sports shop and to the meeting point for skiing lessons, getting copies of the next batch of welcome booklets printed, preparing a pub quiz, accompanying an injured colleague and various guests to the medical centre, signing insurance claim forms, trying to complete health and safety inspections of the hotels, filling in forms reporting on any differences in the accommodation compared to what was advertised in the company brochure, getting rooming lists signed by the hotel receptionists and attempting basic accounting knowing that I would probably have to spend four out of six evenings socialising with the guests at my welcome meeting, on a bar crawl, at a bowling night and at a pub quiz whilst suffering from a severe sleep deficit as the eve of the next transfer day loomed. After two impossibly demanding months the company gave me an opportunity to go and work as a receptionist and assistant to two hotel managers in Les Deux Alpes, in the southern French Alps, where I worked for three and a half months until the end of the ski season.

The hotel, surrounded by pretty trees at the end of a gravel driveway, was run by the British holiday company for the season and was owned by an amiable old French lady and her family, who lived on the premises with a number of Alsatian dogs that roamed around the grounds. There were twenty-eight staff members at the hotel, ranging in age from late teens to mid-thirties. Out of all the staff only the head nanny and I spoke French — given how occupied the nanny was managing her team and all the children they looked after, this led to my being asked to do frequent interpreting for the manager and assistant manager, and for several other colleagues and many of the guests! The interpreting requests varied from booking a table for a family for dinner in a restaurant in the resort, to arranging for one of the barmen to have his nipple pierced! Sadly, another request was sensitively passing on messages from a group of firemen to a vulnerable, female British guest who had climbed onto the roof of a chalet belonging to the hotel — this woman was eventually coaxed down to immediately be offered medical care by a doctor and paramedics (in the presence of police officers).

The exterior of the hotel was charming, formed of unpainted stone walls decorated with slabs of slate which probably came from the slate mine that used to exist in the village of Venosc, in a valley below Les Deux Alpes on the edge of the Parc national des Écrins. Although the interior of the hotel was attractive, with an inviting bar and vast and impressive dining room, the building was around seventy years old with an ancient plumbing system. I frequently had to call a plumber and ask him to come and fix problems — on one particularly terrible day the sinks in room 10 and rooms 20–25 were blocked, along with the showers in rooms 26 and 27 and the toilet in room 17, and a smell of sewage permeated the area at the bottom of a set of stairs! Fortunately every single member of staff was cheerful and welcoming, with a strong focus on providing good customer service (encouraged by the managers), and the friendly atmosphere that pervaded the hotel meant that the guests were surprisingly tolerant of its plumbing defects. There was one day when I had to work for thirteen hours (eight in Reception, then three waitressing at dinner, followed by two participating in a staff-guests quiz) but, much to my relief, I did not have to endure any exhausting twenty-two hour days as I had in Morzine!

I was accommodated in a chalet adjacent to the hotel with four other colleagues — myself and one of the hotel’s ‘extra pair of hands (EPH)’ on bunk beds in one room (I had the top bunk!), with the head chef and maître d’ (a couple), and one of the chefs, in the two rooms either side of ours and a bathroom shared between us all. Our chalet was near a tree-covered mountainside leading down to the village of Mont de Lans and, on waking up in the morning and throughout the daytime (when taking breaks in the bedroom), I could hear enchanting birdsong through the window which became louder when spring arrived. A staff dinner was served every day at 6pm, and I was also able to eat breakfast in the hotel kitchen. It was fantastic working with, and living alongside, an inordinately high number of warm, fun-loving people although being in such close proximity with many others sometimes made me crave solitude! Most of my colleagues worked in catering or as EPHs and liked snowboarding and, due to our working different shifts and the fact that I preferred skiing, I did often get to escape to the mountains on my own. Les Deux Alpes is situated at 1650m, with glaciers at the very top of the resort and slopes stretching down from 3568m. For one whole day and an afternoon per week, I could spend hours feeling the calming sunshine on my face, sitting on chairlifts, absorbing the breathtaking scenery, breathing in the invigorating mountain air and practising my skiing on extensive pistes — I frequently began skiing at 3200m and, after repeatedly descending several runs at a leisurely pace in the upper-middle part of the resort, would ski all the way down to the door of my temporary chalet home with a feeling of contentment. I had a fabulous surprise when it snowed the eve of my birthday during the third week in April, enabling me to have a thrilling day skiing on fresh snow on wide, empty pistes. That same week, true to the infamously hedonistic spirit of ski resorts, as we started closing down the company’s operation of the hotel for the season all staff were invited to ‘drink the bar dry’ (empty the bar of all its remaining products!) — a birthday celebration which continues to be unsurpassed in its wildness!

On browsing through an old newspaper that had been discarded by one of the guests in the hotel, I saw adverts for bilingual secretarial jobs in London. My parents had taken my sister and I on a couple of family holidays to London when we were children and, mostly as a result of those holidays, I loved the city and had dreamed of working and living there for more than ten years. So, at the end of the ski season I moved to London to try my luck at finding a bilingual secretarial job. I was dismayed when actually applying for such a job (mostly indirectly, through recruitment agencies) to discover that, in addition to language skills and administrative experience (which I had), most companies also asked for ‘MS Office’. Although I had typed basic documents in Word, I genuinely had no idea that this was part of a suite of software created by Microsoft along with Excel and PowerPoint (and a number of other applications), and it had not occurred to me that knowledge of Word, Excel and PowerPoint would widely be considered prerequisite for employment as a bilingual secretary. My score in the MS Office test administered by recruitment agents was low! However, I gained employment through a temporary assignment, followed by another, then worked as a Reservations Agent in car hire for six months — my nice boss in the car hire company showed me how to use the ‘copy and paste’ function in Word! I took a touch-typing course and part of the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) course in Streatham Library. Consequently I started getting a better result in the MS Office test at recruitment agencies although this improvement was also because, having done so many variations of that wretched test, at a certain stage I could simply guess what I needed to click on to achieve a high score!

Photo: Walking on a tightrope, Covent Garden, London.

Photo: The Sacré-Coeur, Paris

One evening, in the autumn, a small group from the accountancy firm went to the cinema to watch The Devil Wears Prada and the scenes filmed in Paris featured the Palais Garnier, at the end of the street where we worked, other buildings a short walk away from the office and even the brasserie adjacent to our office giving the impression that we were living in a giant film set! Also in the autumn, another new accountant friend introduced me to Montmorency forest (20km north of Paris) when the trees were at the peak of their seasonal variety of colours, and walking amidst those trees showed that, thankfully, wild nature was very accessible from the city centre. At weekends I would often go in search of fresh bread, a ‘pain au chocolat’, almond croissant or other classic French pâtisserie delights all over the city, especially from places recommended in the Time Out, Paris for Visitors magazine that I had bought. On these mini-expeditions I frequently ended up off course but realised, every time this happened, that getting lost in the captivating streets of Paris is a great pleasure that will almost always lead to an enjoyable discovery.

My short-term contract at the accountancy firm ended and the specialized agency in Geneva where I had worked for four years changed its rules about the maximum number of short-term contracts it would offer, so I returned there. However, the transience of the Geneva social scene frustrated me and I found myself longing for Paris. I had turned thirty, and the significance of being at the start of a new decade propelled me into giving up work as an administrative assistant and enrolling on the CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) course at the International Language Centre in Paris, one year after I had returned to Geneva. The full-time CELTA course is reputed to be extremely challenging, and the studying and practice teaching sessions that it necessitated really were intense! Luckily my four fellow coursemates were wonderful individuals, and the five of us encouraged each other as we learned and laughed together through four weeks of written assignments, lesson planning and minimal sleep spending our weekdays in an especially stimulating area of Paris near the Latin Quarter off the rue Dauphine, which leads from the bustling rue Saint-André des Arts to the grand Pont Neuf. On a high from obtaining the respectable CELTA qualification and at being back in Paris, I started applying for jobs as an English teacher. One month later, after seven interviews, I was given full-time work for a language school on a buzzing street perpendicular to the Champs-Élysées. An American accountant friend and her brother (from Colorado) very kindly gave me refuge in their apartment for a month whilst I looked for longer-term accommodation and, after two months in another shared arrangement, I secured accommodation in a studio apartment.

The apartment was in an ideal location on the rue de l’Université, five minutes’ walk from the green lawns of Les Invalides, the Pont Alexandre III and the banks of the Seine, and just around the corner from the enthralling rue Cler and the rue Saint-Dominique with its views of the Eiffel Tower. Nevertheless, living in this area came at a price — the studio apartment was 9m²! It was on the top floor of a seven-storey building so had plenty of light and contained a comfortable bed, powerful shower, small storage space with a curtain and a kitchen area next to the window consisting of shelves, a sink and a beautifully-crafted, wooden food preparation surface and bar table with high chairs that perfectly fitted it. There was also a toilet, but it was too close to the kitchen area so I used the shared one on the landing instead. The language school was half an hour away by foot and, when teaching on school premises, I enjoyed walking there over the river then via one of the many attractive streets branching off from the Jardin des Abords du Petit Palais.

Photo: A view from le Boulevard des Invalides, Paris, in the springtime.

Teaching English was very fulfilling although I was paid by the hour (and the number of hours per week dropped significantly during the summer), and had no disposable income. The trainers on the CELTA course had explained that learning to teach English effectively is like learning to drive and that it is only after obtaining the qualification, once in the classroom (comparable to being ‘on the road’), that some of the most helpful insights into teaching occur. In the course of each week I liked interacting with a huge variety of students, at a range of different levels of English, from a fascinating array of companies. I often gave afternoon and evening lessons at the school and would walk home afterwards via part of les Champs-Élysées, the Avenue Montaigne and the magnificent Pont Alexandre III. Having so much daytime interaction with others meant that, most of the time, evenings of solitude (after lessons) were needed so having a minimal budget for socialising did not become too problematic. The enjoyment of learning to teach, and the challenge of planning lessons, distracted me from neither being able to dine out nor take advantage of all the cultural activities on offer in Paris. Despite the restrictions of time and money, throughout my fourteen months working for the school I did have many memorable, fun evenings with a few accountant friends, a new friend from the CELTA course, her husband and their friend, fellow teachers, and acquaintances who I met through a social networking site. There were some real moments of excitement during that period — Pope Benedict XVI coming to hold Mass at Les Invalides (which was attended by around a quarter of a million people!), bumping into two British Olympic medalists one afternoon whilst walking by the Seine, and finding myself metres away from film stars who were promoting the premières of their films on the Champs-Élysées as I was walking home from work.

Photo: The view from a corner of la rue Saint-Dominique, Paris.

‘Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots’. Victor Hugo.