Apres ski

We are home.

It has been a short, but nevertheless memorable adventure.

You might remember that today was the day set aside for the children’s skiing lesson. They have not skied before, and Oliver needed some practice before his approaching holiday, so we booked them a beginners’ day at Manchester’s indoor ski slope, and set off in the camper van after work last night.

Of course the children put on their pyjamas, hopped in to bed and slept all the way down. Mark drove, and I navigated inaccurately, and we listened to our Game Of Thrones CD until we had to switch it off in order to concentrate on which way to go in order to avoid extensive middle-of-the-night road closures.

In the end, since the motorway was unexpectedly shut, we arrived in Manchester at four in the morning. Note to other itinerant gypsy vagabonds, you can camp in the car park of the Chill Factor, there isn’t a height limit or a grumpy bloke with a walkie talkie anywhere to be seen, or at least there wasn’t at four o’clock this morning.

I am not really sure that it actually counted as camping, though, it might really just have been parking, because the alarm went off again at half past six. This was because the children had got to be there for eight, and we thought we would need coffee in order to fortify ourselves first.

We drank coffee and then staggered around organising gloves and emergency tuck and jackets. We had borrowed some kit from Elspeth, but since she is skiing herself this week there was not much of it to be appropriated, and we finished up hiring things at the ski centre.

It all proved to be fairly straightforward really. They stood on a machine which gave them a ticket for the right skis, and we buckled them in to their boots. After a bit of hanging about, and faffing about, a world-weary instructor chap collected them, along with a small horde of other non-skiers, and they disappeared into the Snow Zone.

We dashed upstairs to go and stand on the balcony to watch. It was jolly cold. The children were shown how to walk about with just one ski to start off with, putting the second one on is Lesson Two. We were bored then, and went back to the camper van to sleep.

The weather was awful. I mean really awful. The camper van had swayed all night in the high winds and rattled under the onslaught of hailstones. Now it was morning the hail had turned to heavy rain, and the car park was awash.

We picked our way through and collapsed back into bed, emerging as promised at lunchtime to join the children for a progress report. They were enjoying themselves, but were longing to pick up speed and hurtle off without being taught any further cautionary activities, like stopping, and avoiding other skiers. Lucy said that it was basically the same as ice skating, but with planks, and Oliver nodded and agreed that it was ace.

We left them and returned to our sleep, and when we came back they were on the big slope and flying down it with aplomb. I was secretly a bit envious, never having learned to ski, but Mark said that one day we would do it, and a lady that we talked to said that she had started the day learning but had given up because it was too tiring. I thought it looked ace, I have never even seen anybody actually skiing before, apart from occasionally on other people’s televisions, but never in real life.

We had some dinner in the Trafford Centre, which is wonderful. Mark said that it was a modern-day cathedral, built for retail gods, but I didn’t mind at all, and loved the fountains and the statues and the palm trees and the big hall like the deck of an ocean liner. I know that it is supposed to persuade you to spend money that you haven’t got, but I am always doing that anyway, so to have beautiful things to look at whilst I do it seems like a splendid bonus.

We did not go shopping, because there isn’t anything that we want, although I shut my eyes as we passed Waterstones. We had pasta and another sleep in the car park, and set off for home.

I have not had chance to do any exercise today, and to my utter astonishment I do not like the feeling at all.

I had not expected to feel like this, and am longing to stretch and move properly again.

I am really looking forward to my walk in the morning.

The top picture is Lucy, in the foreground. The bottom one is Oliver, who is the chap in the orange trousers. They have had an ace day.