Brrrrrring, Brrrrrrrrring! It’s 6.50am when my hand, unwillingly, flops out of the duvet and starts bashing around to turn the alarm off. I’ll be honest it’s the hardest part of the day. But when guests have ordered their wake-up drinks for 7.30am, I like to look more than half awake when I knock on their bedroom doors with black no sugar and English Breakfast, extra strong. But the earlier you’re up, the quicker you’re out and onto the hill, which, let’s face it, is what it’s all about, so that first early half hour is never wasted. And besides everything speeds up once you’re into a routine. So as soon as I’m in the kitchen it’s oven on, croissants and pain au chocolates out to proof, last night’s wine glasses in the dishwasher and coffee ready to go in the cafeteria.

Snowline has very strict guidelines as to how it likes everything presented, and breakfast is no exception. At first, even though you learn so much on their week’s training course in La Tania, it all seems very fiddly and a lot to remember. But after the first two weeks of hard slog and just when you think you’re never going to get everything done before midday, suddenly it all dominos into place and poaching an egg with the perfect runny yolk whilst whipping up some crisp yet moist chocolate brownies seems second nature.

Personally I like making breakfast the best (once I’ve had my own caffeine fix). There’s a sense of satisfaction to throwing open the dining room curtains to a sensational view of the mountains and filling the table to groaning proportions with real French bread, yoghurts on ice, oven warmed pastries, jams, honey, Nutella, juice, different types of tea… and that’s before I take orders for cooked eggs and bacon. I use the free time when guests are chowing down to whip up a cake for afternoon tea – lemon drizzle is my speciality – and, if they don’t seem in a hurry to hit the slopes, a bit of prep for that night’s dinner. Being organised takes all the stress out of the job and means – if you’ve been smart enough to make your dessert or prep some veg - you can stay out until last lifts. Because even though you know that after breakfast you still have to hotel clean all the bedrooms (make the beds, clean the toilets and baths, dust and Hoover) and set up afternoon tea with that amazing lemon drizzle cake (which you’d really like a slice of, right now) the skiing is what it’s all about. Yes of course you want to do a good job and make the guests happy (and if you go in with that approach you can’t really go wrong), but like all the other chalet hosts you’re there to ski your buns off.

Last season, not including Sunday (transfer day, the hardest one of the week when you have to clean the chalet from top to bottom and get ready for a new set of guests), I skied 84 days out of a possible 96. As soon as my morning work was done, I’d be in my boarding pants, hooking up with some of the other guys and heading out for a full day of blue skies and fresh powder. And that’s the other great thing about working for Snowline. Even if you’re in one of the bigger resorts like Val d’Isère or Meribel, you still feel like you’re part of a small family and I guarantee you’ll make friends for life. There’s older people taking sabbatical’s from their usual nine to fives, university graduates on gap years, even people who have retired – but everyone has one thing in common that unites them all – the desire to be in the mountains and ski, ski, ski.

Highlights of my last season in Meribel include my birthday – a champagne lunch with the rest of the Snowline gang at the top of a mountain overlooking the whole of Le Trois Vallee, Plummers colouir (one of the many couloirs I skied in knee deep powder), the Gebroulaz Glacier hike, rewarded with crystal clear ice sculptures and miles and miles of untracked terrain, and, well meeting the girl of my dreams who turned a great season into the perfect season. Who could ask for more? Well I suppose another season wouldn’t harm! 

Of course the nightlife plays a big part in life in the Alps too. You’d be surprised how much energy you have even after a days skiing and preparing and serving a three-course dinner party for eight people every night. Just like breakfast, once you’ve made the menus two or three times, you perfect the art and find yourself finishing with enough time to eat what you’ve created with the guests or at least sitting down and enjoying a glass of wine with them later.

Again the secret to working efficiently is to keep organised, do everything in order, wash up as you go and keep the work surfaces wiped clean. That way you’ll be out after you’ve served coffee and mints, dancing till the early hours, especially on a Tuesday night with your precious one day off a week beckoning. Well, you have to pack it in because on Thursday morning that alarm is going to go off just before seven and that kettle needs to be boiled. Despite that it’s still the best job you’ll ever have. Cup of tea anyone?