It's official - we're in the Mediterranean!

The skiing heat wave continues unabated. Thermals have been ditched and the black market trade in factor 50 sun cream is thriving. The standard of skiing has been excellent again and I have really enjoyed spending time with the beginners' group today watching them get better and better. They worked hard this morning, skiing over 8.5km followed by a further 7km this afternoon! I have no idea where they get their energy from - or maybe that's testament to both the quality and quantity of food provided by the hotel. Mr Barker show-cased his first trailer for the movie he is producing of the trip. Although it is still not up to his own ridiculously high standards, the rest of us teachers were very impressed and I know you will be as well. Hopefully we will be able to give you a 'sneak peek' on this blog before we return to England. The teachers have all been asked to choose their favourite track to be included in the soundtrack, so we spent a considerable amount of time reminiscing and comparing playlists; Mr Barker & Mr Robertson were in a different league compared to the rest of us! This evening's entertainment was the 'Mystery Auction'. 6 teams were formed and given a virtual £20,000 by our in-house banker Mr Barker or BOB (Bank of Barker) to bid for items ranging from a piece of string, sticky tape and piece of cardboard to a plastic bottle and a napkin. Bidding was fast & furious with several of the younger boys getting particularly excited. At the end of the auction, each group was given their task - to create a safe package for an egg using only the materials they had won in the auction. I take my at off to the ingenuity of some of the groups, unfortunately none were successful at actually keeping the egg intact! The winning group was therefore decided by who had spent the least amount of money. With the hot weather set to continue, I'm looking forward to getting back to Felsted with my 'Umpire's Tan' already in place for the cricket season!

Day 1 on the slopes

Smiling faces, tired bodies! Four hours of ski lessons has certainly taken its toll but everybody has come back to the hotel really pleased with their performance. There has been talk of jumps, parallels, blue slopes, red slopes and snowballs. However the biggest topic of conversation has been who has had the best 'stack' and eaten the most snow; leading contenders at the moment seem to be Beau & Jackson.

Lunchtime saw us all back in the hotel not only for our lunch, but also to cool down after skiing and remove a layer of insulation before heading back out. Although the afternoon started hot, I'm pleased to say that as we got back to the hotel, we had the first flakes of snow; hopefully this is the start of a big fall that will give us some nice fresh powder tomorrow morning.

With the day's skiing over, year 7 & 8 seem to be leading a major economic revival of Risoul - every single one of them has signed out to hit the shops having raided the 'bank of Barker' previously! The year 6 boys' gang was hot on their heels, although I'm not sure exactly what they were aiming to buy with their €5 each.

Hotel Le Morgan

We're here safe and sound and our worries about the possible lack of snow have been assuaged by the hotel staff who have assured is that the snow on the slopes is good all day at the moment. Having driven through 15 degree heat for most of the day, we were preparing ourselves for a beach holiday instead! The unseasonal weather meant that at least the lunch break was enjoyable, as those of you who are following us on Twitter will know. We were able to enjoy our sandwiches, crisps & Capri Sun in glorious sunshine. The minor glitch with the coach's air conditioning meant that we had to endure a couple of hours of discomfort, however Mrs Robertson's ability to be prepared for anything meant we had sufficient water supplies to see us through. The kids were brilliant throughout the journey and continued to be great ambassadors for the school when we arrived in Risoul. The year 7 & 8 boys deserve a special mention as they were put to work moving bags, drinks & general supplies from the coach into the hotel, although they still didn't mind to find the missing jam sandwiches!

The hotel itself is great - the rooms are all well sized, although some of the boys need to have some lessons in how to unpack and organise their rooms properly! Fortunately Mrs Bury is going to be on the case and will whip them into shape in no time. They all ate really well this evening as the hotel gave us a much needed three-course meal and the ski/boot fitting was done very efficiently. They're now all asleep and getting some much needed rest before we wake them up @ 8.00am tomorrow morning ready to hit the slopes!

Sleepy Jean!

Off the ferry and the bus is silent as everyone has fallen asleep within minutes of starting our journey. Good night and I'll post some breakfast news in the morning.

And we're off!

We're now sitting on the coach in the queue for the ferry at Dover, watching one of Heath Ledger's finest performances in 'A Knight's Tale'. Kids have been great although they're all looking forward to getting some sleep on the other side.

For those of you looking for reports, pictures and videos live from the slopes later this week, follow us on twitter @FelstedPE

Day 2 - afternoon off piste!

Absolutely shattered! The 'something special' that Ben & Sebastien promised us turned out to be the best afternoon's skiing I've ever had. However my legs have turned to complete jelly.

We should have guessed it would be extreme when we were made to wear the transceivers that are only worn when you are skiing in areas of potential avalanches! As I thought, Miss H decided to look after her mother instead so I was left to represent the staff and I was fine until the last hour when I managed to spend more time with my face in the snow than actually skiing. Having said that I wasn't the only one, as we took 45 minutes to traverse then walk across a ridge to get to our first proper run. Despite feeling exhausted, the view was well worth it as we looked out on an enormous expanse of completely untouched snow. Ben's instruction was to 'make your mark on the mountain' and we didn't need asking twice! Skiing through knee deep powder it was difficult to believe we would be back in Felsted within 24 hours and when we were faced with another long hike to our second run down through the pine forest there was no complaint from anyone.

I know I've given Miss Hookway a bit of stick in this blog, which is a little bit unfair seeing as she has been the one that has really made sure this trip has happened in the first place. Consequently it is only fair that I post this video of her making the final assessment run on the Luc Alphond look very easy.

Miss H on the Luc Alphond 

Day 2 morning - assessments done!

Well, as the title says - we have managed to achieve our primary aim for the weekend, namely to complete the formal assessment for all eight skiers and our solitary snowboarder. I can't give you grades or exact marks here as they are still subject to moderation later this term. However I can say that both Miss Hookway and myself are extremely pleased with the progress everyone has made and the marks they have acheived.

The focus this morning was on completing the final core skill, namely 'linked carve turns' which they had some instruction on yesterday but I felt they could improve on with a little concentration. This was followed by their assessed 'free expression runs' which had to be a minimum of 150m in length and preferably done on a demanding slope. The instructors chose the final stretch of the 'Luc Alphond', which is one of the resort's black runs used regularly for competition and can be very tricky. Everyone managed to complete the run successfully, with Alicia, Taylor and Harrison also attempting to spray me as they stopped. Thanks to them I skied the rest of the morning with a very wet, cold bag!

Anyway I am now warming up in 'Le Bercail' eating my lasagne and chips having spent the last 10 minutes listening to Janneke insist she isn't hungry and then watch as she devoures the leftovers from everyone's plates! We have Ben and Sebastien as our instructors this afternoon and they have promised us something 'extra-special' that may include avalanches, which has sent Miss Hookway into meltdown after being taken out of her comfort zone yesterday just by skiing through some trees! In suspect that Miss H will choose to guide her mother down the mountain via some more agreeable blue runs this afternoon instead.

Day 1 - parallels, carving and app sharing!

Friday Evening
It turns out that sticky rice, white fish and onion sauce does not constitute the most popular evening meal for Felsted students! Following this pretty poor offering from the hotel last night we managed to find a take-away pizza place that catered to the group's nutritional needs and gave them the energy to get through a whole drink each before turning in for the night. The boys got excited when seeing 'Miss Serre Che' being advertised for Sunday evening, assuming it was a local beauty pageant. The revelation that it was in fact the region's 'premier drag queen competition' quickly cooled their desires!

Saturday
A pretty impressive showing from everybody today - we have managed to see and video almost all of the core skills being performed to a high standard. We spent most of the day on the slopes, although Julien & Sebastien (the instructors) took the group into the snowpark to see if our group could transfer their skills to a bit of freestyle. It turns out that Ben L & Harrison are fighting it out for the title of 'most unbalanced skier', with Ben just shading it at the moment.

Here are a few clips from the snowpark

Julien shows how it's done
Gavin's wipe out
Ollie gets some air!
Miss H gets some big air!
Taylor shows off
Harrison's hop

Miss Hookway and myself were able to take most of the morning to observe the group from remote positions and get them into some sort of rank order - the first stage in making a formal assessment. As I mentioned yesterday, the standard is high and there should be no problem completing either the core skills or the 'free expression' run element that constitute the two parts of their assessment. Alicia and George in particular looked excellent, with some good showings from Ben G, Ollie & Taylor.

They were all extremely interested in the 'Ski Tracks' app I have on my iPhone that allows you to track the number of runs you ski, the distance travelled and [more importantly?!] the maximum speed reached. Top speed today was achieved by Taylor with just over 58kmh and I clocked the slowest at a mere 56kmh - consequently I had to wear the 'hat of shame' for the evening; hopefully all photographic evidence has been destroyed! This was exacerbated by the fact that on the last run of the day, Ben - our instructor - decided to take us on a gentle off-piste run. Everything was going fine until I managed to catch an edge going through the woods and ended up facing backwards with a small tree stuck in my backside!

After last night's poor effort for dinner at the hotel, we had a much more enjoyable experience at Mojo's restaurant where the burger and chips was exactly what we were after. A couple of drinks and some pool at La Grotte rounded off a very successful day. It looks like the locals are about to engage me in conversation, so I will need to finish this post in order to be polite and accept Jean's offer of a beer!

Nous sommes arrivees!

Fantastic! We managed to make the journey to Serre Chevalier quickly enough so that we were able to get our boots, skis and lift passes in time to have 3 hours on the slopes. For many of the group this was a return to familiar ground as they were on the GCSE PE ski trip last January. We already knew that these students were good skiers, but Miss Hookway and I have been pleased with the standard of the newcomers as well, including our one 'boarder' - Gavin. It all bodes well for the high grades they are aiming to achieve this weekend.

The transfer wasn't without hiccups though; on arrival at the AutoEuropa hire car desk we were shocked to be asked for a £3000.00 deposit per car! As you can imagine neither myself or Miss H were keen to bankrupt the trip before leaving the airport and we are extremely grateful to Mrs Hookway (yes, Follies' Matron!) who was able to charm the [male] representative at Avis car hire into giving us a very reasonable deal at a fraction of their competitor's cost.

Havnig piled into the cars, I realised that I had lucked out with my passengers as they all fell asleep within minutes, allowing me to listen to french radio and reacquaint myself with the language in preparation for the weekend when I am expecting to have to explain the requirements of A-Level PE to french ski instructors! Miss Hookway on the other hand had the 'party bus' where the students managed to talk non-stop for the entire journey.

I'm looking forward to a quiet night and early bed so I can catch up on this morning's sleep and be fresh for tomorrow.

On our way

Well we're over the first hurdle and 'en route' to Serre Chevalier as we start the school's first A-Level PE ski trip. Having nine motivated, talented skiers convinced Miss Hookway & myself to forego our Exeat weekend for 2 1/2 days on the slopes. The snow has been good this season and the weather forecast is reasonable, so I woke up at 4.15am today ready and raring to go. Convincing my wife to get up at the same time in order to drive the minibus and drop us at Stansted was not easy, but I promised her it would only be half an hour and she could get back to bed. Unfortunately Ben G had other plans and didn't wake up until 4.55am! Cue a very disgruntled Mrs Bury and an impromptu early-morning raid into Deacon's from Taylor & Harrison.

However we were able to make the flight and as I write this we are somewhere over France heading for Turin and hopefully a quick transfer to Serre Chevalier and an afternoon warming up the legs in resort. As ever with RyanAir I am unable to sleep as they only have enough legroom for people up to hobbit height so I am trying to distract myself from the increasingly regular cramps in both legs.

Next update [hopefully] from the hotel.