So here’s what you do.

You wake up at 4 in the morning so you can get to the airport by 5 to sit in the regular EasyJet luxurious discomfort for 2 hours, get into a car for another hour or so, get stuffed into as many layers of clothing as you can find in your case, put on a pair of boots specially designed to press on every sensitive part of every foot, and then work on the not normally sensitive parts, grab a pair of skis, some poles, put on a helmet, even though its 25 degrees outside… ok, it feels like that by the time you’ve dragged your skis up the stairs to the first of two cable cars.

By which time, you’re wondering why you do it. What could possibly be worth that much aggro, inconvenience and discomfort? And being France, obviously, they charge separately and cripplingly for aggro, inconvenience AND discomfort.

Then you’re up high, you click into your skis and…

You’re in heaven. Not literally, unless you turned the wrong way, but metaphorically, wonderfully and a bit rapidly really. The ultimate feeling of freedom as you glide effortlessly and sinuously down the piste. The skis, which weigh 56 kilos when you carry them, weigh nothing when you’re standing on them. Your fucking great, rock solid, clumps of clamping, squeezing ski-boots are transformed into red slippers that Dorothy would be proud of. You even forget the horrible helmet which they make me wear.

Lila’s mummy asked if, after an 8 year hiatus, ‘it had all come back’; ie the ability to ski. To which I replied, ‘I never had it in the first place’. Because to have that you have to be French. Or otherwise really annoying. Or learned from childhood. The rest of us just ‘wing it’. Yeah, I’ve had lessons in the past. Old dogs, new tricks kind’a thing. But it doesn’t matter. It’s like re-writing Marx’s mantra. From each according to his inability, to all, according to their ability to GET OUT MY FUCKING WAYYYYY!!!!!

And best of all, skiing leaves no room for ‘casual thoughts’ creeping in. You don’t ponder Ukraine, Trump is as far away as Courchevel (miles away from here), even tax is forgotten. Skiing, as the Bee Gees said, is about Stayin’ Alive. But having so much fun while you do it.

Have a lovely Monday

The Ski Bunny
Xxxx