In her version, the chalet looked over a valley, and was backed by a mountain.
My two big set pieces of the week were a bollito misto late lunch on the terrace (see recipe below) and, of course, like British ski parties in chalets all over the Alps, we just had to have a fondue on our last night.
Operated by the Kempinski Hotel, 15 luxury ski chalets gaze over the slopes, allowing visitors to watch the bambi-on-ice skiers slip and slide down the slalom or applaud the smooth boarders as they twist and carve their way down.
It is nestled amidst a promise of Makalani palms and Baobabs, the stilt-supported chalets dangling over the liquid thunder of the main horseshoe falls.
At the summit is the Taverna Lemonia, a wooden chalet with views over valleys and crags and distant white villages.
"Amazingly, it hasn't been a wrench," Margaret Shelton tells me, "because we are so happy in our new home". Along with her husband David, a retired chartered surveyor, she moved from a large five-bedroom house to a three-bedroom chalet bungalow just over three years ago.
I've been spoilt by having this as my first chalet experience, and am won over by the concept, even with the quirks of sharing with strangers.
THE BABYSITTERS David Ross's smarmy, repellent drama begins with a prologue in which Shirley Katherine Waterstonn), a nubile teen-ager, services middle-aged men in a rural chalet and explains, in voice-over, that "paid fellatio's not that much more humiliating than flipping burgers".
We rent a chalet for the week and take over the town.
The location of course is the main draw: built into the hillside, Chalet Saunton looks out over the spectacular Braunton Burrows, a UNESCO designated Biosphere Reserve and Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
