La Plagne Apres Ski Report: 21st March 2013

It was standing room only in Scotty’s bar for the biggest grudge match of the competition (although France versus England understandably drew a large crowd also) and there was a fair distribution of supporters on both sides of the table including some French fans who were supporting Wales second to their own nation, great stuff! It was an excellent game, obviously given the result 30 – 3 to Wales, and the atmosphere in the bar was jocular and good-natured in its rivalry - no real hostility to be heard (although I might have seen one or two English fans having a sneaky cry in the corner later on).

Follow that up, the next day no less, with Paddy’s Day and we were looking at a great weekend for the Celtic nations, ok I’m not sure what Scotland were up to but they’re always cheerful right? Ireland and Wales were having fun for sure.

The Saint Patrick’s day fun kicked off early with Leprechauns visible on and around the mountain from Saturday afternoon and I’ll tell you one thing, I’ve never really thought of Leprechauns as great skiers before but from what I saw Saturday some of them have skills, although being magic counts as cheating in my book.

The festivities continued in style on Sunday with parties being held all over the mountain, notably La Mine down in 1800 who had a live band on and Spitting feathers in Bellecote who were ahead of the game from the start by virtue of actually selling Guinness. Add to that a barbeque, a Paddy’s day give-away including some excellent fancy dress items, bar staff rocking seriously funky green moustaches and the obligatory over sized green top hats and flags and you'll find it was an authentic looking bash....

I myself (sporting some very attractive leprechaun braces) decided to actively embrace the green beer. A Scotty’s creation it is so much more than mere lager with food colouring, it consists of vodka, Blue Curacao, orange juice and beer served as a pint. Surprisingly it doesn’t taste too bad but is remarkably potent and made pretty unpleasant by the fact that the orange juice that they use has pulp in it, so you are (forced) to drink a pint that is not only unhealthily green but also really quite lumpy, mmmm tasty.

The standard evening games of beer pong swiftly turned into not so standard green beer pong and chaos later ensued. Why do we do these things to ourselves? I have no idea and I certainly suffered for it the next day but on the night itself I chose instead to escalate the situation and a friend and I came up with ‘the Irish flag challenge’. Intrigued? Well you get yourself a pint of green beer, a white Russian and a pint of peche beer (that’s beer with peach syrup for the unitiated), line them up in the correct order to form the Irish flag, and then? Well then you and a friend race to the end of them in a fit of Irish high spirits. Sounds great doesn’t it? Surprisingly we didn’t have many takers for our challenge and had to abandon it in favour of green Skittle shots, apparently more to everyone’s taste and much easier to keep down.

I had an excellent night but couldn’t help but wonder why we only get to be stupid in head to toe green once a year? Why is it only the Irish that bring this out in us? I did not see anyone dressed as a dragon and necking red beer for St David’s day, or painted blue, drinking jock shots for St Andrew, and so I propose we rectify this situation and spread our stupidity across all the Patron Saint’s days. St George is next on the agenda, April 23rd, any one for dressing like a crusader and getting your Morris dance on? You know you want to!

Happy Paddy’s day week!