On my three weeks training as a chalet girl, I worked 17 hours a day, 6 days a week. And we didn’t see the slopes once. But a couple of weeks in and things are starting to improve.

Our chalet is in La Tania. And we are live-in staff. Which is great because you don’t have to travel far to work, but not so great when a pissed client knocks on your door at 2am to ask if we can turn the heat up on the hot tub.

We are in the kitchens every morning at 7am. It doesn’t matter if you still haven’t gone to bed ( To quote my boss), if the clients breakfast is on the table, he is happy. Between 7-8am we try to bake the cakes for afternoon tea, that’s my job, while my boyfriend preps for breakfast. Cooking in the mountains is a nightmare, water doesn’t boil, cakes don’t rise.  Something to do with the altitude apparently. So one day your lemon drizzle cake can be perfect, and a week later, following exactly the same recipe, it can be flat as a pancake.

We serve a full English breakfast between 8-9, the night before the clients have to tick a sheet with exactly what they want, so we know how they like their eggs. Sometimes, the clients even add an extra column. For example; after porridge, but before my fry up, I’d like some French toast. Some clients are so cheeky and the amount they can pack away is amazing!  No matter how many times you stress breakfast is finished at 9am, you still get them appearing at 5 past. “but I’m only 5 minutes late’ yes, but there are 6 of you late. This is annoying. But you have to smile, and think of the tip.

Once breakfast is over my boyfriend cleans up, lays the table for afternoon tea, and sometime re-bakes my flat Frisbee cakes. I clean the rooms, this is simple, make the beds, change the bins, hang up their towels and make sure they have enough toilet paper. Cleaning bathrooms isn’t rock and roll. But so far, no nasty stories to report on the bathroom front.

As soon as all this is done. We throw our uniforms off , to be replaced with rad, uber cool, snowboarding gear. We get straight on the phone to see if our friends are nearly finished with their chalets. We are strictly not allowed in each other’s chalets. Which of course we pay attention to, especially when smashed at 4am, and someone suggests a sausage sandwich!

We usually all head over to Courchevel, mess around on the mountains, some of  us are skiers and the cooler half snowboarders. I am still learning, while my partner is an instructor. We all end up at a bar in 1850, sit in the sunshine, order lots of wine and say nice things about our clients!

We have to be back in the chalet and sober for 4pm, to ensure cake and tea is on the table for 4.30pm.  It is about now the clients tend to use the hot tub, we have to check the levels of the chlorine 3 times a day, and these are often very low after children have used it. A friend of mine recently struck her hand in and asked how the temperature was, at the same time she realised the couple were having sex in it.

Children’s dinner is served at 6.30pm, followed by the adults at 8pm. We prep for these after afternoon tea, has been cleared away. Before becoming a seassonaire I had no idea how to cook. This really worried me, as the main bulk of our work is cooking. But we have a big blue book, which gives you a step by step guide on how to cook each days meal. This book is my bible. The best part about dinner, for me, is the unlimited wine. Whatever is left over we can drink, whilst also helping ourselves throughout the meal. We can eat with our clients if we wish, but standing in the kitchen, getting the bulk of the washing up done and necking wine, gets you out earlier and drunker.

As Seasonaires you get a discount, this I thought would be amazing. But, 10% off on a pint that’s already 5 Euros doesn’t make much difference. But there are ways around this, a glass of Pinot Grisgio is 6.50 Euros, to the customers that spend just one week. But, if you are a seasonaire with a nice smile and big boobs, you can get 1 litre of wine for 5 euros. In what I can only describe as a vase, with a straw in the top. This is dangerous as half a vase and your smashed. But this I’m sure is what the male bar staff intend.

On Thursdays we have a day off, which means our clients have to eat out. Now at the end of my drive is a pizzeria. So the perk for us is, if we book 6 clients in, we get a free pizza ourselves. I’ve just made a booking for a table of 10 and a table of 4, I am so looking forward to reaping the rewards off that act of kindness.

The manager off the pizzeria is also a masseuse, she’ll come to your chalet and massage your clients for 40 euros. As a thank you, you get a free massages or a 5 euro tip. (Just enough to ruin yourself on a vase of wine.)

The smaller restaurants want to keep us sweet, so we send clients their way on our night off. It’s amazing how quickly the bill is wavered after they find out your running a 16 bed chalet.

Being a chalet girl is hard work, and nothing like the movie. I never thought I’d be able to tell the difference between a starter knife and main knife just by the feel, but I wouldn’t give it up; or even change a thing.

We spend 6 hours a day tearing up the mountains with a group of people who are fast becoming best friends, we find new routes and get far too drunk. I couldn’t really snowboard before I came here, but everyone is trying to teach me, I did my first red run last week, and was met by a cheer from my friends when I reached the bottom in one piece. I am currently ill, and one of the lads just stopped by to get me out of bed and the chalet, and try an hour on the mountains with him. We are becoming like a family.

Seasonaires have stamina, they work hard, they snowboard hard, and they party hard. On our last night out, we prepared skittles vodka while cooking dinner, necking it straight from the bottle. Which we ended up sharing with the clients when they found out what we were up too in the kitchen….

We then all headed into town, made our way from bar to bar leaving destruction in our wake, we find the bar with the most dirty beats, on this particular night we took it in turns to stand on the bar and throw ourselves into the crowd of our new best friends. With my resort manager being sick on the floor and dawn breaking on the mountains, we all slid, stumbled and crawled into our chalets to prepare breakfast and start the day all over again.

Cassie is currently working as a Chalet Host in La Tania, France