Tag Archives: skiing

Ski Pass

‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…. it was the Spring of hope, it was the Winter of despair…”

– Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities  (Chapter 1)

Sapphire is going skiing! She, and everyone else on the plane, knows that she is going skiing because Sapphire’s Mummy (definitely with a capital M) keeps telling her this and, by default, everyone else sat in the metal tube bound for Geneva, early in the morning. Lo, we have already witnessed the delights of Sapphire’s Mummy dragging her to the plane on her wheeled suitcase – “SIT ON YOUR TRUNKI, SAPPHIRE AND LET MUMMY PULL YOU ALONG”. The journey is going to be a treat for all those who enjoy a parental narrative. If you don’t,  you’re stuck with it just the same.

Forget having a snooze, contemplating life in companionable silence or perhaps reading a book quietly; little Sapphire is hitting the slopes and her Mummy wants to tell everyone all about it, whether we like it or not. “Sapphire, you are going to go to Ski School with all the French children, and YOU WILL LOVE IT!” (At this point, most of the passengers, now woken from their attempted slumbers, are thinking: No, actually Sapphire you won’t – but we’ll let you find that one out for yourself, you poor child).

Also aboard the plane for this adventure is Sapphire’s maiden Aunt (I’m allowed to say this, I am also one), who sits smiling nervously across the aisle in the manner of a woman who hasn’t had time for the usual three cups of tea that morning, but has had time to braid her hair into “fun” plaits and clutch a rucksack to her, which, one suspects, might contain a few “miniatures” to get her through what should be a fascinating trip.

Sapphire’s Mummy is however full of woes. “ Geneva is an hour ahead, darling” she sighs. “So it will be even harder to speak to Daddy in Doha.” (Cue further sighing and juggling of two i-phones). “Now, Sapphire, Mummy had bought you a COMIC and WHATEVER YOU DO, you MUST NOT lose the dolly’s shoes (It transpires that the alarming-looking dolly is attached to said comic with some coated wire round her neck, wearing fetching pink high heels). Oh NO, Aunty Amber, Sapphire has lost a shoe. Can you find it?” Aunty Amber can’t. She’s too busy wondering if she can get back on the next plane from Geneva.

So began my most recent holiday in March this year. I hadn’t been skiing for three years, so agreed readily to throw myself on the tender mercies of Les Gets (a resort, not a man – don’t get excited) when my super organised friends P and J set about organising the trip last year. And so it was that we ended up in Hotel Les Marmottes (I do love a marmot) for a few nights – and hit the slopes.

My transfer bus from Geneva to Les Gets is slightly gloomy. No one says anything. At all. As someone with about 30,000 words a day to expel, I find silence rather difficult and am thrilled when I am dropped off just so that I can greet the receptionist effusively in my best French. When I get to the hotel, P is there to greet me and said that they had a fabulous time on their bus – they all decided if they wanted to be buried or cremated and asked the driver to go round again as they were having such a laugh!!!

After that, it’s time to pick up skis and boots, whereupon I spy a fellow passenger from my transfer bus – and decide that he is definitely going to want a conversation with me.

It turns out that the International Man of Mystery (IMM) is an advanced skier, and so is my friend P. After a spot of light conversation, IMM thinks that he has got off lightly and strolls away with his kit. It is then that I spring into action. I leave P holding my flowery “clearly not very advanced” skis and midget length poles as I decree to IMM that he must ski with P one day, we’re all hilarious (honest) and what is he up to. IMM, in the manner of a marmot caught in the headlights of a snow plough, agrees to meet us all later (after letting slip that he usually skis off-piste, actually, and he’s hired a guide); and I am thrilled because I am obviously the self-styled Cilla Black of the slopes in terms of matching up ski buddies – and it’s only 5.30 pm French time.

The next day is my birthday and it’s eight years to the day since I started skiing. It also dawns on me then that it might have been a good idea to try on my stuff on before leaving Jersey after all, because the sad truth is that I can’t quite get my trousers to do up and this is somewhat inhibiting when getting dressed in front of one of your friends. Still, I’m sure that other skiers will love the sight of me going by – giving them a daring glimpse of my pale blue thermals if they’re lucky.

Day two is harder. Despite new trousers, (If you think shopping for jeans is bad, try looking for ski trousers with your friends standing guard outside while you get warmer and ever more panicky) it’s just not my day. I manage one run with our instructor (poor Kev, his reward will be in heaven) and then have to call it a day before I stumble miserably back to the Marmotte and sleep for five hours. I also fall over in front of a kindly British man whilst getting out of his way. He offers me a hand up, which I accept after checking that he’s strong. Hopefully, his back’s ok now. Still, I comfort myself by finding a Carrefour and bulk buying Chipsters, possibly the best crisps in the world.

On day three I decide it will be marvelous to not ski at all and go up the mountain to read my book instead. Looking round the deckchairs, I see that three other women have all got the same idea – and if I hadn’t been reading, I wouldn’t have got to witness the surreal sight and sound of pipers on the mountain, either. I send a whiney message to one of my friends, saying that everything hurts. The tough love comes back. “Pain is a state of mind,” they say (I worry that they may have been reading mindfulness books). “Get back on that mountain.”

On day four, I crack it. It’s fabulous, I’m over the moon and my friends are brilliant as we laugh our way down the mountain, or at least the bit of it I can do – (they didn’t have to stay with me, and they did), – and everyone gets out of our way because they can hear us singing.

We end our trip in an airport lounge in Geneva, being impressed by a fellow traveller who is already on the fizz at 8.00am – and agreeing that Les Gets 2016 was indeed the (very) best of times.

So thank you to J, P and H for your patience, personal shopping qualities and for putting up with me on the chair lifts – same time next year?

 

 

Wisdom on Postcards – and Hoping for the Best

Rescue Me
Sometimes, life can be puzzling. Looking back whilst tucking my tiny violin under my chin, it was never part of the plan to be single until I was thirty six (and counting), living alone and with a career change on the go. I thought that by now I would be married, taking time out from my career, yes, but because the ankle biters would have descended on me and I would be simultaneously folding baby Boden and laughing at dinner parties with other couples whilst complimenting the hostess on her lovely home and choice of Farrow & Ball wall colours.

The reality is somewhat different. Unfortunately, Mr Right has not yet appeared in the same jurisdiction as me for more than 24 hours, and I don’t know why, because my Lalique crystal ball smashed during the house move…..And I am getting impatient. There are, after all, only so many books, baths, walks and ready meals you can enjoy by yourself when your friends are all out caressing antiques and eating biscotti (although I HATE biscotti) with their other halves. Ditto sitting outside cafés with a newspaper, or going to the cinema.

So what’s a girl to do? I have a feeling that’s another blog entirely, but if one more person tells me that it will happen when I least expect it or that there is “someone out there for everyone” (cue squeeze of arm), then I might scream, or perhaps better still ask for a pound every time someone else asks if I have “met anyone nice yet”. Believe me, if I had and I could keep him interested for more than a few witty emails, then you would hear the sound of the Red Arrows rushing past in thrilling formation before I descended from the sky in a parachute painted with the words “You can all stop worrying, I HAVE MET SOMEONE AND HE WANTS TO SEE ME AGAIN”. The tariff will rise if the question extends to whether I want children. And anyway, whether I have met anyone nice yet isn’t the point. The million dollar question is “Does he want to see you again – and if so, what’s he doing about it?”

Rescue mission

Of course, the whole rescue mission concept is not without its downfalls. As well as making half of you really hate me, by raising it it has also made me think about how women also feel they need to rescue potential partners for whom, quite frankly, the relationships life boat should just sail on by. In short, it has made me think about what I don’t want anymore and I’m just telling you now so no one else has to spend most of their adult life wondering.

Do not attempt to engage (either in conversation or indeed if a small velvet box with a ring glinting in it) with the following if you want a half decent relationship. Ladies, I have tried and tested the lot (and don’t think my life has been that exciting. If it was, this would be a much more fun blog to write).

NB The thing that all these men have in common is that all your friends knew that they were NO GOOD for you. And, like your mum, they were right. All along.

1. Mr You are Going to Change. Do you recognise any of these lines? “You have such a pretty face, if only you lost a few pounds, you could look amazing”. A man (no, a boy) said these words to me some years ago at university and rather than kicking him in the nuts, I thought he was right! At the time, I certainly was not a heifer. I look back at photos of that time and think how stupid I was in not walking away sooner. Instead, I thought he was right and for about two days, thought I should eat less. But then I got bored and I’ve never been one for eating disorders (The waste!) so I eventually got over him (and myself) and left it there.

2. “Sorry, I’m gay”. No messing with that one, girls. Best to move on and save him for shopping trips.

3. “Make it all better, Mummy”. If there is attention seeking to be done, then at least have the decency to make me laugh whilst you’re doing it. I don’t need to hear about your minor medical mishaps (always dressed up to sound more serious than they are), your constipation, piles or, as you describe it “my contact dermatitis” (ie your arms itch a bit because, God forbid, the cleaner at work has wiped your desk down). So gentlemen, if the most lengthy thing about you if your list of ailments and your tubigrip bandage, pack it in and take some pain killers.

4. The indecisive one. Ladies, you may know how to make a fabulous dinner, look hot, be funny, get on with his mother and friends and mix a great drink, but if you are going out with one of those people who always truly believe there is someone better around the corner, you may have to move on. This is heart-breaking, but so is wasting your entire thirties on someone who is always waiting for Claudia Schiffer to walk into the room and take him away from all this. In other words, he likes you but just can’t commit, a bit like me and signing up to a broadband and phone package for more than 18 months.

5. The one who uses sport to conceal all human emotion. I wasted my time with one of these, once. When we got into double figures – ten WHOLE MONTHS of going out with each other!!!, he became almost breathless with commitment phobia and ended it. Looking back, this was someone who ran marathons, swam all the time and was constantly on his bike, as it were. That’s all lovely, but in the end you have to ask yourself: “ What is he running away from?” The answer is likely to be: “Any form of meaningful relationship with me.”

6. The one who asks you out for dinner then doesn’t call. Yes, sadly these are still around. Just manage my expectations, love. If you don’t want to ask me out again (and believe me there is no obligation to take me to a Thai restaurant for the early bird special so you can save a few quid), then don’t! Just use the time honoured phrase: “It was lovely to meet you”, and then in equally time honoured tradition, exit stage left and lock yourself in the loo to text your mates after the date, like the rest of us do.

Back to the Office…..back to yours

I turn now to numbers 5 and 6, the office crush and the married man. Adding 5 + 6 = fatal. Admit it girls, if there’s someone in the office who makes your heart beat faster (and as my friend Mandy calls it, “tugs your coital rope”), work can actually be a fun place to be.

Offices are funny places. Sometimes, the air conditioning, long hours and staring at your computer screen can really get to you and suddenly (in the manner of Stockholm syndrome when a captive finds themselves oddly drawn to their kidnapper), you may have succumbed to someone who you would never normally look twice at. But, beware. If it’s your boss, they certainly won’t be the one getting their P45 if you go beyond the course of your job description with them. All of a sudden, the forbidden fruit of the boardroom can become a barrel of rotten apples that may leads you to the exit with your things in a document box.

The upside of the office crush is that it gives you a bit more incentive to crack open a new packet of tights and look half decent every day. It could also provide no end of entertainment for your co-workers. Colleagues may admire your sharpened dressing up skills, although they may get a bit sick of seeing the skirt that Andy from Accounts once said he liked you in (and in all probability, out of) on an almost daily basis.

Business trips

So, it’s finally happened – you and your office crush get to go away on a business trip and you’re in a bubble of excitement with a capsule wardrobe (this will include a knock them out dress for the last night party when the stakes are high). Add in a business class flight with its fun goodies AND real cutlery, a bit of sleep deprivation to drinks in the hotel bar and being walked to your hotel room, and there is temptation – if all the men aren’t in a “private” club of course, watching “contemporary dance” and assisting the local economy by stuffing dollar bills into a lucky lady’s red lace underwear set – to have a roll on the 500 Egyptian cotton thread count bedding if you’re staying somewhere decent, or to kick the Premier Inn purple velour runner to the ground with your lusty colleague if you’re not.

Who hasn’t heard about at least one business trip where those pre dinner drinks lead to dinner, then lead to digestifs, with a few life stories being chucked in for good measure, then culminate in a 2.30 am knock on your bedroom door with a “colleague” asking if you have a phone charger / toothpaste / adapter they can borrow. Doubtless this is to facilitate the post bonk phone call home to their wife after you have shown them that room service doesn’t just mean a BLT and chips that cost £25.00.

Wish You Were Here?

Speaking of travel, do I look like I want to sit in seat 58 B? No? Exactly. And sorry but I don’t have the exact change to pay for the “meal deal” cup of tea and chocolate bar of my choice for £3.65. However, I would be fascinated to see the exclusively available on-board perfume coffret and interchangeable necklace and earring set.
Holidays

I heart skiing

I do love a ski holiday, particularly when it doesn’t contain an awful lot of skiing! When I tell people that I went skiing for a week in Chamonix last year, technically this is true. What is also true is that I only ever ski for three hours a day, because life is too short to be cold and miserable, especially when there is a decent Tartiflette on the menu. The one exception to this is on day three, which is generally my best day as by that time I can’t feel my lower legs in my ski boots and I have got used to falling over.

Mini break

Maldives magic and misery

Have you ever been to the Maldives? If you are in any doubt, I can save you the money. Just lock yourself in a sauna for a couple of weeks with a bowl of warm washing up water and make sure you have sex every day to justify the money you have spent on being there. You can then save the other £2,000 you would have spent on fun things.

Good things about the Maldives = the weather, the coconut outside your door that says DO NOT DISTURB (it might as well say “we are busy bonking to get value for money from the four poster bed”), and the astonishing sunsets.

Bad things = other couples (usually all on honeymoon, check out the girls wearing bikini bottoms that say “Mrs Smith/Jones/Whatever” in diamante) and the fact that you just can’t get away from imposed romance. From a towel twisted into the shape of a swan on your bed to the rose petals strewn on the sheets, love is in the air…..and in the Jacuzzi Beach Villa.

At this stage, I should perhaps mention that most JBVs (as they are known to those who have stayed in one), is that they have no back wall on the bathroom. I suddenly realised that this could mean that your other half (how I hate that term) could see you using the loo, not to mention the curious gecko and other tropical creatures who inhabit the Islands.

So, between the risk of being seen using the facilities whilst staring at the hot tub in which you will be honour-bound to do more in later than enjoy the bubbles, to seeing other guests filming the nightly buffet (It really does take all sorts to make a world and admire a carved watermelon), you can understand what is supposed to be the Holiday of a Lifetime can sometimes turn into the Holiday that Feels Like a Lifetime, topped of beautifully when your entire flight back is blighted by a mad man who was drunk when he got on the plane, and shows no sign of stopping.

Speaking of holidays, what would they be without a postcard or two? It seems sad to say it, but I have developed a love of anything that sums up affairs of the heart in a few succinct words and postcards are no exception.

Nothing makes life seem more manageable than a meaningful phrase, so I shall leave you with the 80 pence worth of wisdom I picked up in Cards Galore when last in London (nothing cheers me up more than card shops) – “Take every chance in life, because some things happen only once.” As our mothers would say: “Think on!”