Lockdown at the top of the world

Lockdown or holiday? For Lauren Aubé and family it’s just a matter of having the right perspective.

With social distancing rules, self-isolation and lockdowns being enforced the world over to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus, there could certainly be worse situations to find yourself in than that of Lauren Aubé and family.

As part owners of Chalet des Deux Lacs (Chalet of the Two Lakes) located in the middle of the Val Thorens ski field in the French Alps; Lauren, husband Nils and their young son Sam’s living situation is unique even in normal times.

“We invested in the business three years ago, Nils is the director and we live here and we run the restaurant,” said Lauren, who is a long way from the floodplains and red sandhills of her childhood home in Western NSW.

“We're right on the slopes, so you are skiing, and you find this restaurant in the middle of the slope and that's where we are —so there is no one else around.”

The village at centre of the Val Thorens ski resort is around a kilometre and a half away, accessible only by skis or snow mobile.

“We snowmobile Sam to day care, although the last few days we sledded, I took him on the sled down. He has probably been in a snowmobile more than he's been in a car in his life!” said Lauren

But, like the rest of the world, life has changed. It was two weeks ago that the French government introduced the first measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

“It was Thursday night, the President made a speech that schools and day centres and universities would be closing on the Monday,” said Lauren.

“Then Saturday, we got contacted that it would change to no more than 100 people in an establishment — at the restaurant, on a busy day we do 300 people between midday and 3pm and that is eating, not the people just drinking — but we thought at least we can keep going… then Saturday night at 8pm they said as of midnight everything is closed.”

Saturday just happens to be the arrival day for new guests at Val Thorens, but within two days the busy ski fields were empty.

“People had come from all over the world. Val Thorens full capacity is 44,000 people so there probably would have been 20,000 people that had arrived and probably 10,000 season workers and then everything had to shut,” she said.

“We kept our workers around on Sunday but then we were told that anyone who wanted to leave the village had to be gone by Monday night, if not they would be stuck here.”

Shutting down the ski season seven weeks early will certainly be a financial hit to the business, but Lauren says they are trying to make the most of the unusual situation.

“For us, it's fine — not considering the lack of money for a business — but with all this stuff happening it's probably the best place to be,” she said.

“Nils and I were talking about it and we said to each other, that we can either come out of this fit, tanned and in shape or we could come out fat and alcoholic — it could go either way,” said Lauren, who believes it is important to stick to some sort of routine.

“The first three days it was like a holiday, but one morning I decided we have to differentiate weeks to weekends and get some routine and some sort of structure in life. I know from being a stay-at-home mum, it can be so easy to just sit around in your pyjamas and not do anything for that day and then another day comes and you do the same thing, but I think it is so important that you wake up, you eat breakfast, you take a shower, you get changed and start your day.”

Nils and Lauren have both started running again, and Lauren is planning to take time to work on her French, which she needs to obtain residency.

But most importantly, Lauren said they are making the most of the precious time they have together as a family.

“I said to Nils, this could be a really once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have uninterrupted time with Sam, when we're not working and we're not busy, we just have to spend time together,” said Lauren

“Nils works seven days a week for six months during the ski season and I work five days a week, so we've said, let's just enjoy this time to be together as a family — this one is loving it!”

Movement outside of your home is being severely restricted in France, but the advantage of being locked down in a fully stocked restaurant is that there is really no need to go anywhere.

“We've got 800 kilos of fries if I get really stuck, we've got a pallet of toilet paper and five kegs of beer… we can go upstairs to an empty restaurant and make a fire, so there's space and we closed down so fast that we've got plenty work to do.”