It's The Skiing Season

Well, the snows have arrived. Thankfully not at our place yet but the white stuff is getting closer and we can now see it from the house (see picture). J has already started talking about getting our gear out and heading up into the hills to throw ourselves down the slopes in our garish clothes which we’d never wear at any other time. It took all my powers of persuasion to talk her out of it yesterday morning – I’m still convalescing after all!

We’re very lucky here in that we can be on the slopes, passes bought and at the top of the first run in about 40 minutes which is one of the reasons I chose this as my place to see out my days. J thinks it had something to do with her – silly girl.

I do admit though that spending a morning taking the rust off of the bottom of the skis and then having a long lunch at one of the two restaurants on the slopes is a great way to start the winter season. The fact that we can also see what sort of day it is before taking the decision is also a great bonus – no skiing in gales or annoying wintry snow for us – it has to be very sunny before we set off.

Once again though I’ll be skiing on very old bits of wood bought in Andorra some 12 years ago. I’m told that the ‘new’ carver skis would make me look even more professional on the slopes and allow me to miss the many trees which line the pistes, a skill at which I’m not very proficient as witnessed by my ruptured cruciate ligament several years ago. 

This accident was a disaster in more ways than one, happening as it did, on the very first run of the first day. J had gone off ahead whilst I foolishly (as it was my first run) headed for the trees which had quite a few challenging runs through them. How the tree jumped out in front of me I’ll never know but a shuddering exchange later, I was writhing in agony on the snow. I managed to crawl out onto the piste and some kindly souls called for the ‘blood wagon’ which arrived about 5 minutes later. I had always fancied travelling in a blood wagon but had never thought through the reasons why I would do so but there I was, having achieved my ambition and hurtling down the slopes with two paramedics trying to break some sort of downhill record. Unfortunately, they had neglected to strap me in properly and on one bend I disappeared out the side of the wagon whilst they continued on their merry way. It was a couple of hundred yards later that they decided the wagon was unusually light and stopped, wondering where their patient had gone.

I was re-strapped in and we got to the bottom of the slopes where a fancy ambulance was waiting, lights flashing. A crowd had gathered to see what sort of horrific injury they could witness and as I was lifted, flat out on a stretcher into the vehicle, the last thing I saw, before the doors were slammed shut was J and our other friends sitting in the open air bar, sipping champagne and totally oblivious to my predicament. I’m sure I saw my mate mouth the words, ‘here – that guy who’s just been loaded into the ambulance looked like Tom’. Indeed it was  and it was the start of a very frustrating week.