Ski Trip 2024

Friday 22nd March 2024

Thursday 21st March: Day 6

Mrs Woodhead’s Blog

Last night’s entertainment really started at supper time where everyone had a different solution to the problem of how to eat a fajita politely, especially when it was served with the cheesy nachos on top of the tortilla wrap. Some people quickly dispensed with any attempt to be polite or avoid mess, while others decided that knife and fork was the only practical option.

A games night in the restaurant followed and much fun was had by all. The hair salon was very popular and even more people emerged with plaits. My hair proved a step too far for Molly and Roxi but many of the girls went to bed sporting beautiful styles. Imogen was so worried about ruining hers overnight that she improvised some granny-style headwear.

Back at games night, Uno proved very popular and highly competitive with several games running simultaneously. We adults struggled to keep up with the ever-changing rules; I have certainly never played where someone had to pick up 15! The children, however, seemed to have no such difficulty and the games got louder and more closely-fought at the evening progressed. In other parts of the room, Roy took ‘ Upwords’ to new heights as he stacked all the tiles in one pile. You would have a photo of that but, sadly, Leo arrived at the table before I did and the tower was short-lived! 

Mr Burrett was largely stuck in the bar, which is a much less attractive option than it sounds. He was supervising the many children who wanted to pop in for milkshakes or soft drinks. These treats were so popular that the bar staff ran out of 50 cent coins and had to reduce the prices to whole numbers of Euros. Oddly, none of the children complained.

After the quietest early morning yet, everyone (well the children at least) rose full of energy this morning, keen to get back on the slopes. It is slightly cooler today, making skiing a little more comfortable, especially on the lower runs. Even I managed to do something which might reasonably called skiing. We won’t mention that, in separate incidents, I fell off the lift, dropped my glasses and narrowly missed mowing down 3 French ladies trying to walk to the café. It is lucky that ‘ AAAAGH!’ makes sense in any language. 

Mr Burrett, meanwhile is making much better progress and is being exemplary in applying his language of learning: he has an appreciation of how hard it is to teach yourself skiing; curiosity to find out what you are actually supposed to do; empathy with other people that find it hard to master a new skill; initiative in working out which nursery slopes will be the quietest and therefore least embarrassing; positivity in counting the number of successful runs, rather than the falls; and resilience as he repeatedly faces the humiliation of lining up behind the toddlers to get on the lift and being overtaken by them on the way down the slope. He has also been reflective about just how terrified he was when attempting his first green run this afternoon.

The children have also been showing all of the above amazing qualities and with much more impressive results. Today, Lionel’s group skied the whole of the Casse de Boeuf (it was just a section yesterday – I was mis-informed, sorry and thank you to Harry for setting me straight). William’s group did some more blue runs today, went on their first chair lift and even did a tiny bit of a black run (well, crossed over it). Eric’s group spent today building their confidence ready for trying some harder runs tomorrow and possibly an ‘egg lift’. I have no idea what that is but it sounds uncomfortable.

Here are some highlights of the children’s adventures today. I should mention that no children, adults or passing animals were harmed during the making of this list.

  • April needed the loo so she fell off the drag lift and rolled down the hill.
  • James fell for the first time, with the assistance of Leo.
  • John fell off the chair lift and they had to stop the whole thing while he got up.
  • Mrs Coombs dropped her phone off the drag lift.
  • Alice took a corner too sharply and fell then Roxi crashed into her, losing both skis.
  • William the instructor got delayed coming up the lift and the group had nominated Flora their new leader before he got to the top.
  • Lionel’s group said ‘Bonjour’ to a person he identified as a gold medal-winning snowboarder.
  • Ashmitha did not fall over.

Mrs Coombs has had another tiring day trying to take photos and videos of each group, which will be posted later if they haven’t appeared already. She also took a photo of an instructor’s bottom but I promised I wouldn’t mention that.

The children are off to the field again now, where I understand another high budget film in the ‘Spooderman’ series is planned. After supper we are souvenir shopping so you parents can look forward to your hard-earned cash being spent on some really useful novelty items from the local shops.