March and the start of April in Montgenevre continued with our routine of skiing, walking Merlin, enjoying the views and spending time with our new friends in the aire. There was fresh snow and also an evening enjoying a little too much French champagne.

I was progressing with my skiing and decided a ski lesson would help me improve. The lesson taught me that I’d become a little lazy with my ski style. My Apple Watch told me that in that 2.5 hours ski lesson I’d used more than double the energy of my old ski method. I had some new exercises to practice and practice I did. I also managed to fall and distend my thumb coming down a relatively easy red run. It was pretty painful and involved getting an X-ray – it was all pretty easy although claiming for this and the thumb brace through the insurance took loads longer than it should have and was not as easy.

Our ski season in Montgenevre was coming to an end. We were heading to see friends in Puy St Vincent a small ski resort just down the road where our Montgenevre season pass gave us 3 free days ski pass in Puy.

Whilst staying in Montgenevre we hadn’t used our automatic stairs or Beatrix’s handbrake as these things can freeze and stick in low temperatures. As we left the aire in Montgenevre for the final time we foolishly put the stairs down for me to get in to Beatrix after paying. I got into Beatrix grinning and we tried to move off however realised there was an issue with the stairs. They hadn’t auto returned to the up position when we started the engine. This was a pretty serious issue. You can’t drive around with the stairs of your motorhome down, especially not down twisty mountain roads! What was worse, we were on the clock as once you’ve paid for the aire you only have 10 minutes to exit. Knowing we might not fix the problem in 10 minutes I phoned the help line on the pay point. Using my pigeon French, still not brilliant, I tried to explain the issue. In a reasonably short time, a man with a white van came to find us in the middle of the aire. His English was worse than my French. I tried to explain the issue and that we needed some help exiting the aire as our ticket time had elapsed. He was a little bit too helpful and wanted to help us fix the stairs before letting us go. It’s always a little nerve wracking when someone you don’t know starts trying to mess around with the electronics in your home. We stopped him getting too involved, although he did get us thinking about how we could secure the steps in the up position so we could make our way down to Briancon to make a better fix. We used some ever handy bungee cords and some striped tape to help others know there could be a problem. If you’ve read our previous post you’ll know that getting down the hairpins last time had been “interesting”, now we had the added bonus that our stairs may fall down when going round one of the bends – not ideal! The man in the van allowed us to exit the aire without paying any extra and we took the plunge.

Driving slowly and very carefully down to Briancon, I was constantly looking behind me to check the stairs had not fallen. Luckily the drive down was uneventful and even the tricky hairpin where we got stuck last time passed without incident this time around. We had wanted to get some LPG on our way off the mountain however as we arrived the gas station in Briancon there was maintenance and it was closed. We decided to wait till it was fixed and this gave us the opportunity to get provisions at the E L’eclerc and Toby could take a look at the stairs. I got back to Beatrix to find Toby under Beatrix with a grin on his face. He had found the issue and put in a temporary fix. One of the pins holding the stairs up had “fallen” out which meant the mechanism wasn’t working properly. We ordered the formal part to arrive at our friends house in the UK and moved on with the temporary fix holding. Puy was not far away so we filled up with LPG and were off.

In Puy we were hoping to have a choice of aires to stay as search4sites said there were three aires at different heights in the resort. When we arrived the one we had wanted to stay at was being turned into a hotel! We had to go to the higher aire and guess what more steep bends – although now Toby was much more confident after navigating the hairpins getting to Montgenevre! There was only one motorhome in the aire and plenty of electric hook up points. We hooked up and waited for someone to come so we could pay. No-one came.

As we’re honest individuals the next morning we went to the tourist information to ask how we could pay and they said – someone will come and take the payment. No-one did. We ended up having 3 nights free stay with EHU all in a stunning location! We took a day to get to know the resort and had a cheeky ski. The snow was not brilliant – however it was a new resort which was good experience for me!

The next day our friends arrived from the UK. I waited in Beatrix and Toby went down to the main resort to meet them. Whilst Toby was helping our friends and their two daughters move into their apartment for the week an antique, overloaded van arrived in the aire and parked directly in front of our view! Next the occupant – a young man started emptying some of the contents of his van onto the floor outside – a couple of bikes – some skis, an axe and then a chainsaw……

Aires are not usually like this so I was a bit surprised when he looked around and then started up the chainsaw. At this point I began to get a little nervous – there is of course is a horror movie about chainsaw massacres, I had heard of it however never watched it – surely this would not be my and Merlin’s fate.

The guy left the chainsaw running and went back into his van.

With my nerves a bit on edge, I messaged Toby to let him know what was going on, just in case anything should happen.

Thankfully, the man and chainsaw went out into the woods rather than coming over to Beatrix and he proceeded to chop down some wood which he brought back as small logs. A few minutes after going back into his van, smoke began pouring out of his chimney. I guess he heated his van with a wood burner but perhaps fresh wood is not the easiest to light?

With my fear of a chainsaw massacre in Puy St Vincent allayed and smoke continuing to pour out of this tiny van, Merlin and I walked down to meet our friends. We enjoyed a few drinks and skiiing together the next day after a light snowfall.

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Sally, Toby, Merlin and Beatrix