Full disclosure: I’ve been lucky enough to ski fairly regularly for most of my life, and I know what a jammy git that makes me.  But bear with me, if you will; I promise to infotain you about the four stages of skiing.

Key stage 1: childhood ski lessons with the French Ski School. Coming as I did from the more caring, pupil-centered and holistic English educational system (despite being French), the Ecole de Ski Française seemed a little brutal. To be fair, it was several decades ago and it appears rather less harsh nowadays. But back in the days, you were left in the care of some old geezer who had not been trained in the art of pedagogy and who had been born with skis on. Said skis were very long and thin, seemingly designed to tangle themselves; and the boots they were very securely attached to were designed for maximum discomfort. Blisters were part and parcel of the experience and Compeed hadn’t been invented. I may have mentioned my childhood inaptitude for anything sporty (see “anything for chocolate”) and this was sport at its worse because it was imbued with visceral terror. It was in equal measure imperative and impossible to keep up with your man in red who was nonchalantly sashaying down the slopes demonstrating how easy it was. All I had to do was lean forwards, bend my knees,  keep my derriere from protruding, keep my skis closely parallel and keep my arms low. To this day I can do none of these things. I developed a method that remains unique. I call it the “get half way down the slope alive (this involves very wide skis, snow plough at will, butt out, arms up and some shrill vocalising just to let everyone else know that you are incoming-but-not-100%-in-control) and then pointing your skis downwards for the remaining half” method. This method was born of fear and necessity and while it is neither graceful nor efficient (apparently skiing doesn’t have to be such an effort), it is surprisingly successful. No-one quite understands why. Nowadays the ESF will begin your training with the most gentle slopes and lots of lovely badges, more for effort than success, and I’m all for that. Back in the days, there were fewer levels and a week of hard-core training was no guarantee of being awarded any badge. I probably managed a couple of badges over several years, then mercifully we stopped going.

Key stage two of skiing, if one is lucky enough to be granted the opportunity, is returning to the slopes as a young adult with a bunch of friends. To be completely honest, I can’t say why I thought this would be a good idea. This same unquestioning sheep behaviour is what also had me jumping out of planes. Twice. And running a marathon. Utter foolishness! But in the intervening years, the skis had got shorter and more amenable to, well, skiing! I was pleasantly surprised. The fear was gone. Unfortunately the method remained. But I can’t lie, it was fun. It was care-free and exhilarating. I’d somehow managed to pick up just enough technique in childhood to maintain a modicum of control over my speed and direction but there was still a frisson of unpredictability for that extra dash of adrenalin. And of course, there was the après-ski at a point in life when one’s liver can deal with the abuse and allow one to be reasonably functional the next day. After that, if you’ll pardon the pun, it’s all downhill!

Because key stage 3, you decide to go with your baby/toddler. Oh dear. Why the horror, you ask. Let me explain. The ski crèches (which are great, don’t get me wrong) are only open in the mornings. By the time you have managed to get out of the chalet with your ski boots, your skis and all your paraphernalia PLUS the baby and all all that it needs, it is gone 10am. You will be walking uphill with baby, nappy bag, skis etc so when you finally reach said crèche you are wiped out. Obviously baby hasn’t slept the night before and you foolishly thought you deserved a glass of wine or three, so that didn’t help. By the time you get on your first ski lift (which you nearly fall asleep on), it’s time to pick up the toddler. You’ve managed one run. You schlep back to the chalet where you now have to while away a very long afternoon with a grumpy toddler who (as of this week) no longer naps. You have zero toys. Because although you packed so much stuff that you paid thousands in excess baggage (you’re still new to this travelling with infant shenanigans) you did not bring toys. You’ve managed to spend half an hour playing in the snow but had to quit because you were both soaking and freezing. By the end of the week, you’re managing 3 runs. The same 3 runs each time because you cannot afford to go far. You cannot end up at the far side of the resort where it will now take 2 ski lifts, 3 runs and a cable car to get back to the crèche. You will be très en retard. You wisely decide not to repeat the experience. Until you discover Club Med.

I’m not gonna lie, this is the winning formula. You leave your child at 0900, neither suited nor booted, and they are returned at 1700 after six intensive hours of skiing, while you go off and join your adult group for an equally intensive session.  This would have been idyllic but for one small thing: the geezers in red are all keen to wean me off ‘the method.’ Me, I’d just like to ski with a bunch of people following a guide who knows the best slopes and legitimately lets us queue jump at the busy lifts. The huge benefit of following a guide, for me, is that I have zero spatial awareness and not a single iota of sense of direction. I was one of the first people to invest in a sat nav back in the days when it cost half a month’s salary. I was a home birth midwife and getting to my labouring woman was by far the most difficult part of my job. Over the years I have developed workarounds which allow me to overcome my inability to orientate myself in space, but on the ski slopes, nothing works. It all looks the same. And while I can at a push  read city maps, ski maps will forever look like a multicoloured scribble. Normally I’d admonish myself for such defeatism and remind myself that it’s amazing what you can do when you have to. And mostly this is true. But the problem with skiing is that a mistake can land you at the top of a long, icy, steep black run. The horror! I actually can get down a black run if I have to. The method does actually work. But I can’t stress enough how little I want to. It’s no fun. You feel like the fearful, tearful child you were all those years ago. This cannot happen if you follow your not too advanced group of like-minded skiers headed up by your red-clad geezer.  Except that said geezer really wants to teach you to sashay elegantly. Said geezer has never known the fear, and cannot understand why you wouldn’t want to ski like a ballerina. Keeps repeating the four simple instructions (lean forwards, bend knees, tuck your tushie in and keep your skis closely parallel), he repeats these in both English and French just in case I have wierd vocab gaps in either language. I don’t. I understand the words. My brain just refuses forward the instructions to my legs. It overrides any attempt to upgrade The Method because it has not forgotten all the frightful pre-method wipeouts. You know the ones, where either you lose a ski and it finishes the run without you, or where your skis are both still attached to your boots but they’re pointing both ways and you can’t get up til you untangle them but you can’t untangle them because this will destroy your knees.  My brain rationally points out that any injuries at my advanced age would be a mission to recover from. And it firmly believes that injury is the inevitable consequence of so-called improved technique. It might be wrong, but it ain’t listening! My rational self will try to intervene in favour of change but it knows that realistically, this will necessitate a week on the nursery slopes completely relearning everything. And frankly, that’s not nearly as amusing as getting those wind in hair sensations from those hair-raising-properly-downhill moments. So anyway, your kids learn to ski. Well Firstborn Son does, you discover that the other 2 have your ski genes and you cannot apologise enough for that! And you have a blast, you quickly learn to tune out your man in red, but happily let him lead you to the runs with the best snow, and home again.

Key stage 4, I may never get to. That’s the one where you go on your own after the kids have flown the nest. It’s the one where the pre-holiday ski admin is limited to booking the holiday (outside of half term dates) and packing for one. No last minute runs to Decathlon to replace outfits that have comically shrunk (or did the kids really grow that much since last time?) It’s the one where you mosey onto the slopes at lunchtime having had a lazy morning (and maybe a glass or three of wine the night before). Crucially, it’s the one where you unpack for one; and the one where you don’t spend the following week doing 267 loads of laundry. Maybe that’s the one where I finally figure out the graceful ballerina sashay. I doubt it, there’s no need!