Le Franco Phoney

I recently wrote about the lovely baby goats I got to feed and pat at the refuge near Thônes called Le Ferme des Vônezins. The ones pictured here are different goats in a very accessible place, and I’m surprised that I haven’t written about this before, given the photo on my ‘About me‘ page features goats from the same farm.

The goat farm at the very end of the Les Confins area of La Clusaz is open all year ’round. In winter, the goats are kept in a big shed with barn doors that are only closed at night and during the coldest weather. Most days, you can stand by the barn doors and the goats will come to the barrier for a pat. The adult goat pictured in the photo was attracted to the brush on her side of the barrier, and she enjoyed scratching for about five minutes while we patted her and watched the antics of the others. They’re entertaining to watch and the farm is one of my favourite places in winter in La Clusaz.

In spring, summer and autumn, the goats graze in the fields higher above the farm. You can walk through the fields with them. Most of them are shy without the security of the barn, but if you’re calm enough, one or two might come over to say hello. Best of all, those green collars tell you the goat’s name.

At the start of spring, when there’s still too much snow on the grass, the goats start producing baby goats. The newborns have a special pen where they can play together. The pen is accessible to visitors who can experience the feeling of a baby goat sucking their finger, and the goats being generally adorable, as pictured in the top photo.

When visitors have had their fill of watching the goats, they can buy cheese at the shop next door. There’s a choice of ridiculously stinky cheeses that I would never attempt to eat right down to fresh goat’s cheese, covered with herbs or spices, which tastes as inoffensive as cream cheese.

Of all the touristy things available in La Clusaz, this is the most popular with my visitors  (apart from skiing and snowboarding, of course). It’s a crowd-pleaser with kids and adults alike, and in all the years I’ve lived here and taken visitors to the farm, I’ve never been bored. Now, if only I can talk the staff into setting up a goatcam…

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One of the most challenging things about living in a foreign country is learning their language and culture. I’m not sure out of those two which is the most difficult in France: the language takes time to learn, with exceptions to every rule (and exceptions to some of those exceptions), but the culture really has to be observed rather than taught. It’s a time-thirsty task, and a very enjoyable one, although at times it can be just as confusing as all those language exceptions.

Some aspects of French culture, such as song lyrics and plays, are impossible to understand until you have a grasp on the language that is good enough to get you through. Song lyrics are hard enough to catch in English let alone French, and I’m still often lost trying to figure out what some songs are about. You can be sure, however, that every song will mention birds at some point. Why birds? I have no idea, but try finding a song that doesn’t mention them; it’s tough.

I’ve been putting off seeing a play for years, worried that I wouldn’t understand what was going on. Last weekend in Paris, that all changed when I attended a play called ‘Une semain… pas plus‘ (One week… no longer’). The story was about a guy whose girlfriend said she loved him and he got scared about being in a relationship. He wanted to keep the house they moved into together, so he had to make her the one to want to leave. He begged his best friend to stay for one week (no longer) so that she would get jealous, but as you’d expect, things backfired.

Relief overtook fear as the play carried on and I understood the storyline. Some of the jokes were still lost on me, but the play was humorous enough for that not to matter. Indeed, I was impressed — and not at all surprised — when the actress legitimately used the phrase ‘menage à trois‘ during the closing scene of the play. Given that so many French movies seem to revolve around threesomes and it all working out in the end, getting the phrase in seemed appropriate. Sadly, the ending was less happy for one of them, but the closing line was hilarious, so nobody minded. The audience clapped emphatically, and as the actors took their many bows, the claps became uniform beats, in typical French style. I’ll write a blog entry about French clapping another time. For now, I’m still reveling in the relief that my 26€ on a play was well spent.

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Why have I posted this gorgeous photo of a baby goat? She was one of the lovely surprises that greeted us at Le Ferme des Vônezins refuge near Thônes when a group of us went there in March. If you’re going to go to a refuge, this is the one to go to.

You might remember the andouillette sausage I wrote about. It was ranked the tastiest of all ‘poo’ sausages that my friend Julia had ever eaten, and it was the chef at Le Ferme des Vônezins who made it for her. The food at the refuge surpassed typical Savoyarde offerings, with snails, roasted leg of lamb and venison casserole on offer amongst other things. There were even a few vegetarian options which didn’t involve goats cheese salad!

Our large group were beyond satisfied with the food on offer, and the service was friendly and attentive — a massive difference from the refuge in La Clusaz a few weeks earlier. On top of the service and the great food, the setting was amazing! A twenty-minute walk up a snowy path led us to a chalet with accommodation available, low ceilings and an amazing interior (see some photos on their website).

So, when the chef brought the baby goats in, our night was complete (or so we thought). The goats need feeding every four hours, and with the weather still too cold outside, he had brought all four of them in so they would survive this snowy winter. We were given bottles to feed the goats and big smiles ensued. When we left at 1.30 in the morning, our night was not yet complete. We jumped on our parets (local toboggans) and raced each other back down the snowy path, without any angry mountain staff telling us off. A top end to a top night. GO to this refuge!

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March isn’t usually a month that you associate with outdoor festivals in either hemisphere of the world, but around these parts, one has just come and gone and another one is on its way. The Radiomeuh Circus festival is on this weekend, with live acts and DJs galore, both on and off the piste. This online radio station has loyal and happy followers all around the globe. Just a handful will get the opportunity to come to the Radiomeuh Circus festival — including me! If there’s one way to warm up on and off the piste, it’s dancing, and I’m all for it, even in ski boots.

Last weekend was the Glisse en Coeur event in Le Grand Bornand. This involves a crazy 24-hour race on skis or snowboard by teams who take the chairlift up throughout the night to do more laps of the lit-up piste than any of the other teams. They raise money for a charity called ‘Les Puits du Désert‘ (‘Desert Wells’ – to help kids in Nigeria have access to clean water.) To encourage the teams, various French musicians, DJs and comedians performed on a stage right next to the course. The skiers ski between the stage and the crowd watching from behind the course’s barriers.

I’d love to have shown you some great photos of the night, but my SLR was out of action, and the Grand Bornand tourist office haven’t replied to my requests for some of the fantastic photos that they took. Highlights from the evening were seeing a yeti on skis doing laps, hearing French singer Christophe Mae warble to a somewhat massive crowd for these parts, and a break in the downpour of snow during the concert. Punters had to be careful not to fall over on the slippery entrances and exists to the watching area, and despite the very cold temperatures, beer was being downed in quantities typically seen at summer festivals (complete with gloved hands holding the cups).

The food was not quite typical festival food. The only option was buckwheat crepes (galettes) wrapped around a sausage. A Savoyarde/Brittany hot dog? Being a vegetarian, I had a delicious galette with BBQ sauce. At least it only cost 1€. The staff couldn’t keep up with demand, and the smoke from the BBQ was actually greater than the smoke coming from the stage. One thing is for sure, a festival in the French Alps is a very different festival experience.

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If you look hard enough at this photo, you’ll see someone in yellow ski pants climbing what appears to be a concave piece of cliff to the top of Le Croix (“The Cross”) up at La Balme in La Clusaz. That’s local hero Candide Thovex. He climbed to the top with his skis and poles, then cruised down, making the descent look easy. It’s not.

Candide has been to lots of places around the globe to introduce his film, which talks about how he grew up loving moguls, then adapted traditional ski jumping into his own style, becoming the World Champion Freestyle Skier, breaking his back on Big Bertha (a jump at La Balme built each year for the Candide Invitiational), recovering, and becoming the World Champion Freeride Champion just two years later. It’s an interesting and inspirational story, with lots of La Clusaz moments.

After months of introducing his film in different countries and cities, Candide returned to his hometown, where La Clusaz aired the film for free on two separate nights. This is a guy who is pretty famous around the world, and hoards of locals and tourists lined up to watch his film. I was in the crowd, although I’d already seen the film on DVD. The mountain shots are massive, and a big screen is best for viewing!

The film was great, but the kids were pretty entertaining too. Candide was there to introduce the film in his usual down-to-earth way. He then mentioned the giveaways, producing hats, t-shirts, a helmet and a few other goodies. The front of the cinema became a gaggle of kids running around saying “cadeau!” (“gift”) and demanding the goodies. Candide seemed to think it was pretty entertaining too, throwing items into the crowd with a big smile on his face.

But back to the film. If you get a chance to see Few Words on the big screen, take it. The filming is truly beautiful, and the talent and ability of that French man simply enhances it further.

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Last week in La Clusaz, this was the scene down at the Champ Guiget area down by the ice rink in La Clusaz. Can you tell what’s happening? Is it a battle of machines against humans? Is there going to be a really odd game of hockey?

On the left are the piste bashers (aka, groomers, mogul munchers or in French, dameuses). On the right, are the crowd of people who have just downed the freebie vin chaud, hot chocolate and Reblochon cheese. The queue half an hour earlier at the stand offering the freebies was massive, and I wondered if the crowd would stay once they’re received their free drink and cheese. Stay they did. So, are they ready to do battle?

There was no battle.

There was no puck.

There was no ballet.

Dameuse ballet was promised, and I’m pretty sure that promise killed a ballerina somewhere in the world. The damesuses made their way, one-by-one, down the hill, then lined up side-by-side. The ballet — I think — involved a couple of the snow ploughs at the front of the machines getting lifted a few centimetres into the air and being wobbled around. I’d been expecting a few swift turns close to other dameuses, or at least some appropriate music while they reversed backwards and forwards. I wondered if maybe there would be a few girls in tutus on skis twirling behind the big machines, or jumping over them from big kickers doing ballet moves at the same time.

The drivers turned off the engines and got out. That was it. On the upside, the crowd was allowed to climb into the drivers’ seats and get a feel for what it must be like to drive one of these things. This was the highlight!

Next year, La Clusaz, can you ditch the whole ballet idea and just go for joy rides instead?

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This is the third and final post about how to annoy the locals merely by celebrating a birthday.

After causing frowns for asking for a drink in a bar in Croix Fry, then paying far too much for terrible service and not much food for dinner, the birthday of my French friend Elodie was almost over. The fun part had arrived – sliding down the blue piste from Beauregard back to Croix Fry after climbing it earlier on the way to the refuge.

Our group had brought a variety of objects to slide back down on, from the local parait sledge to snowboards and skis. The piste had been groomed and light rain was falling, making the piste soft and deep to step on. We hurtled down the first hill, then reached a flat area and paused while a dameuse (a machine that flattens the pistes) approached. A dameuse‘s function is a serious one: over the course of a day, a ski run will get bumpy and icy in places, and there may be mountains of solid, man-made snow ready to be spread across the piste. The driver of a dameuse must not only flatten the bumps, cover the ice and spread the new snow, but also ensure the camber is maintained across the piste. They work at night so that the pistes are in pristine condition in the morning for everyone to enjoy.

The piste we had just slid down had been flattened, and the wetness of the snow meant our marks were very obvious, with footsteps, toboggan lines and even dog paw prints embedded in the flat, previously perfectly groomed piste. When the driver of the dameuse saw the damage we had done, he drove very close to our group and put the brakes on. We said ‘bonsoir‘ in high spirits, and one of our party pointed to Elodie and said in French that it was her birthday. The driver was unimpressed. ‘So?’ he said. ‘Look what you’ve done to the piste. I spent ages flattening it and now it’s damaged.’

Of course he was right, but given that there are at least two restaurants open in the evenings at Beauregard, this must be a regular, even nightly, problem. Do the locals expect us to walk in the heavy, deep snow on the side of the piste when we all live here for the joy of sliding down the mountains? What’s the point in walking to a restaurant in the middle of nowhere if you can’t enjoy the thrill of a night-time slide on the way home? Has La Clusaz not thought about perhaps preparing this piste later in the night or first thing in the morning? I know that some work in the morning because they hold up the opening of La Balme after the security staff have declared it safe for skiing after a big dump of snow. Why not do the same at Beauregard?

But back to The Night Of The Angry Man In A Dameuse. He ranted for a few minutes about the state of the piste and a few of us said sorry. His rant continued and he was aggressive with his words. I wondered if everyone else felt as much like a naughty child being told off by an angry teacher as I did. He drove off in his dameuse, missing a snowboarder perched on the side of the piste by centimetres — perhaps to emphasise his anger. If his over-the-top anger hadn’t already spurred some of us on to dig more heavily into his piste, his closeness to one of our group fueled the motivation for the rest of us. We hung around until he was out of sight, then carried on down the piste towards Croix Fry. Had he found us again, I suspect we would have witnessed a scene out of a C-grade horror film (surely named ‘The Night Of The Angry Man In A Dameuse‘), and I wouldn’t be here to tell the story!

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This is part one of three posts about how to annoy the locals merely by giving them your custom.

My friend Elodie celebrated her birthday this week, and she wanted to start with an apero (a pre-dinner drink). She called a bar in Croix Fry (up the road from La Clusaz) to check they could provide a very specific drink for everyone (grapefruit and lychee juice mixed with rosé) before she invited us all. Being French, Elodie was late to her own party, but only by 15 minutes, which really is nothing in French time. We drove up together, and a friend called her from the bar, saying the manager didn’t have her apero booking recorded. Elodie presumes she called a different bar with the same name in La Clusaz centre. Sure, it’s nice to pre-book, but surely a bar can sort out 19 people with a drink. Is that not what they do? Pour drinks? A detailed discussion with the manager followed, with prices negotiated, timings confirmed and one very apologetic Elodie (I’m still not sure why she was apologising for bringing him business). They agreed we’d be there for no more than half an hour, as we had a dinner reservation.

Although the place was otherwise empty when we arrived, a busload of tourists poured in soon after, and then Christophe Pessey arrived. Do you know who that is? He’s a local celebrity in Croix Fry and La Clusaz: he’s the famous, award-winning, child-prodigy accordion player. Here he is, playing keyboards, with a child dressed as a chimney sweep (bottom left corner), and some other guy playing the piano accordion.

Our group of 19 were chatting while the band played. What you don’t see in the photo is the little old lady who started singing extremely softly and not all that much in tune, dressed to match the era of the chimney sweep boy, and glaring at us at every opportunity. In fact, all the performers glared at us during the three or four songs they played. And fair enough I guess. But why didn’t the manager tell the birthday girl about the performance on the phone earlier instead of wasting time discussing whether or not the initial booking had been made? If he had mentioned that we’d have to be quiet while Christophe Pessey played music, she could have redirected our group to the other bar in Croix Fry.

We left after our apero and took a very long walk to a refuge, which I’ll talk about next time. What I want to talk about now is what you do see in the photo. First of all, that fox. That’s one massive fox! I wonder what he would think if he knew his death had led to a life of fame with Christophe. Why is the fox there in the first place? The chimney sweep kids makes more sense: the Aravis valley used to be a very poor area, and the kids often had to find work to survive. Their shortness and agility made them perfect for the work of a chimney sweep, and they became renowned in cities throughout France, usually wearing red scarves to cover their heads.

Since Christophe sang some traditional songs, it makes sense to incorporate the traditions of the region into the act – a chimney sweep, and of course, a hunted animal. Nobody else in our group seemed to notice the performance, nor care for it when the dirty looks came our way. Some friends found it cheesy. Even though I’ve lived here for a number of years, I find the traditions as charming as they are cheesy. The locals have a real sense of belonging that’s harder to gain in big cities. Although I’m not sure they passed that sense of belonging onto us the other night, it’s unique to this region and if I’d had the chance to learn one of the dances, I would have jumped at it. How about you?

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With snow on the ground here in Saint Jean de Sixt, and the partial opening of La Clusaz happening this weekend, the locals are happy. The man driving this car was particularly happy when he arrived home and parked his car. He did three fantastic donuts on the road, which was covered with a layer of ice, then powdery snow on top of that — perfect for making snow donuts.

He can keep his snow donuts: I’m off to La Balme to check out the snow. Happy Saturday!

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The lovely  Mademoiselle Caroline  is an illustrator who blogs about all sorts of things, such as having kids, daily life in the mountains, and the experience of expatriating herself from Paris to the small village of Manigod, just down the road from La Clusaz. Manigod has one bakery, one small supermarket and just a few other shops. It’s a proper retreat.

You don’t have to be French to enjoy the situations she draws and writes about, but it helps if you understand some basic French. She’s published several books already, and her latest one, pictured, is about that culture shock of moving from a big city like Paris to the French Alps. You can see samples of her work on the Mademoiselle Caroline website, as well as links to the books for purchase.

After my stint in London, I can identify with her frame of mind: she too shuns snow chains and has a wardrobe full of high heels that she rarely gets to wear (but she’s at least had the opportunity to buy more ‘winter’ shoes and boots which is a nice bonus).

If you’re in Paris, you can meet Mademoiselle Caroline and have her leave a personalised drawing in your copy of her book at her book signing.

You’ll also get a chance to see me!

Here I am, about half way through the book, doing the wide telemark turns on the right of the image. Mademoiselle Caroline is the one in the foreground who looks like she’s going to land on her back — and as self deprecating as she is, she’s actually a brilliant skier (for a Parisian).

That day, the four of us pictured attempted to ski off-piste at La Balme. Tim had his racing skis on and I was wobbly on telemarks, leaving Ali and Caroline to show us how it’s done. Actually, Tim managed pretty well on his skis too: I was the only one screaming with every turn, and I was relieved when we returned to the piste, all with burning muscles from our adventure into the powder.

Mademoiselle Caroline will be in Paris on 3rd November at the Virgin Megastore at 5 Boulevard Montmartre between 3pm and 7pm. Her stocks of books sold out in Annecy, so my advice is to get there early.

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