The beginning... not the end!!

And so it begins. Another Winter. Another season spent in the Alps with a bunch of miscreants, misfits and the miscellaneous. Sounds wonderful doesn't it? Well it is, except for one small problem – winter hasn't begun this year!!

I mean, yes it's cold and yes there's some snow on the ground (enough, probably, to bring Britain to a standstill), but it's still not enough. We need tonnes of the stuff – and it's not just the resort that I'm in, pretty much the entirety of the Alps needs more snow.

This looks like a good amount to start off with...

The current scenario does make the beginning of the season very interesting and unusual. More staff in a resort that guests? Check. People taking mountain bikes up the pistes rather than tumbling down them on their skis? Check. Pubs being open, but nobody in them? Check. The list goes on...

Chatting to people around resort has taken a turn for the surreal as well. From the trailer park boys that vehemently tell you that the snow always comes – the same amount every year, but its just starting a little later this year. To the fraught resort manager who is telling you that a lot of guests are cancelling because of 'family emergencies' and that it's nothing to do with the lack of snow and their holiday insurance.

Oh and everybody has become Michael bloody Fish – “It'll snow on Friday”, “See those clouds... they're snow clouds. We'll have 3 inches before nightfall”, “I've heard it's not going to snow until January” and my favourite of all “Yeah, well, it's too cold to snow at night and too warm in the day, so basically we're fucked”.

That's what happens though, you end up going one of too ways – start believing that winter is coming and it's going to happen sharpish. Or you end up believing that it's never going to happen and we might as well go and swap our board pants for board shorts.

I like to think of myself in the first camp. So I'll sign off with a promise that I'm off to do a snow dance. What do you reckon – the larger and more exuberant the dance, the more snow that will arrive?!