2nd November
I blame M. At 12.30 am (ie 30 minutes after midnight) we hatched a plan to go skiing. Later that day. There was only red wine involved, but quite a lot, though it was good.
Actually that’s not fair on M. I had work trips that would take me away for 3 weekends, so any skiing had to be done in the first two weekends. The weather looked like there was to be a break between two weather fronts that would allow some good skiing on the Sunday. It had snowed earlier in the week. So Saturday was always going to be decision day.
A few hours later we were off to Les Diablerets. A blue sky with high clouds in the plain gave way to a greyish sky in the Alps, and before buying a ticket we were warned that high winds on the glacier meant that the lifts could close at any moment. We had come too far, our hangovers had cleared and we were up for it.
Sort of.
This was like skiing in Scotland. A fierce wind that hardly allowed you to get out of first gear, all the new snow was blown off the slopes, and there were only 2 lifts working so the queues were huge.
When I started this endeavour I decided that I had to use ski lifts to get up a slope. The question was how many times. Once was not enough: neither was two. I wanted a days skiing. Four runs seemed about right. This is largely based upon my experience of skiing in Argentina which was on an horrendously windy day when I managed four runs. The experience left me feeling that I have skied properly in Argentina.
M and I did four runs. Only one was even half decent.
However, the restaurant was warm and cosy. I had forgotten the sensation when warmth returns to the face. In that sense alone it was worth it. It was good to catch up on the latest news on the climate change negotiations and M’s preparations for Poznan. (Note to self: I must look into offsetting this years emissions incurred through skiing every month).
I hear M was regalling dinner party audiences with this experience for some time afterwards. For me (a day out with M notwithstanding) it was the low point of the skiing year, but hey I’d had a pretty good track record to date.