Happy New Year and welcome to 2011

Fancy dress for NYE

Just a quick note to wish you all a very happy new year.

I spent my New Year's at the Underground bar below my chalet, drinking with guests and workmates.

It was open fancy dress so I decided to go as a cat with whiskers and tail to boot.

Our guests insisted on pouring me wine glass after wine glass and, unsurprisingly, when it came to finishing work I was feeling a bit drunk. A splash of foundation and a glass of water and I was good to go again.

We all danced on tables and drank festively until the countdown to New Years.

The cat costume

When it came to the countdown, all of the staff ran around and kissed each other and it was so lovely sharing the occasion with my newfound friends.

I don't think I bought a drink the entire night - I just kept being given drinks - but this morning I was feeling awful.

I woke up with 15 minutes to spare before work and, when I entered our chalet, I could not believe my eyes. There was food EVERYWHERE! There was cheese all over the counter and empty wine bottles strewn across the tables - and I had only half an hour to get the place ready for breakfast service while feeling delicate to say the least. To make matters worse, my colleagues weren't up and after ten minutes of going solo I had to wake them to help me. To be fair though, if being hungover is the greatest of my concerns life obviously isn't so hard.

Fortunately after lots of manic picking-up I managed to get everything ship-shape with my workmates' help and all was fine.

I felt a bit too sick to ski today but, having skied the past few days, I wasn't too phased to be missing out.

I might add that yesterday afternoon Sarah (my roommate), some of the longstays and myself all went to the supermarket and bought these amazing drinks called Desperados (which are beer and tequila) and skied to the top of the mountain. The five of us all sat and enjoyed looking out over the slopes, particularly because it was warm enough to take off our ski jackets and just sit there with our hoodies on. Bliss.

Enjoying some chilled bevvies on NYE afternoon