A week after returning from Les Arcs, the dust is settling on another fine holiday. There are remarkably few injuries to report, with Kirsty’s faceplant on the halfpipe remaining the most serious (witnessed) accident. She had a shiner for a while to show for her efforts, and I feel this made it all worthwhile for her.
In the first week, I came down a large percentage of the Refuge black run upside down gathering snow and ice in my nice new Christmas hat. Going back up to try again was born of stubbornness, but I was doubly rewarded by completing it successfully AND witnessing Tom falling on the moguls and sliding down on his belly, legs and skis up in the air behind him, rising and falling over the bumps in a manner vaguely reminiscent of someone floating on the ocean on a choppy day.
Not content with this crash, Tom then headed up the Aiguille Rouge in a cable car. With him were a group of doctors from Edinburgh, who regaled him with tales of two professional skiers who died skiing down some off-piste on the Aiguille Rouge. Unwittingly (he says), Tom headed straight down into the same area, had a fall, lost a ski, and slid for 150m. Somehow he retained his life, his limbs, and even had his ski recovered by the same Edinburgh doctors, who were following.
Mandy has been loudly pointing out to anyone who would listen, that I kept falling over. I keep protesting that I only fell over while attempting silly things, which is mostly true, but doesn’t shut her up. I did nearly clock a tree at one point, but managed to divert just in time. One of my skis came off in the avoidance manoeuvre and carried on to hit the poor tree.
Carol, our newbie snowboarder in the group, flounced out of her lesson with a petulant toss of her head only a few days after F… had done the same. *&?@#* snowboarders. I presume the instructors weren’t winsome enough for them.
The return to Edinburgh proved relatively uneventful, despite checking in only 15 minutes before the flight was due to take off. There were, inevitably, delays, although thankfully not due to Kirsty this time. She elected not to bring a penknife in her hand luggage on the return trip, perhaps because she no longer had one after it was confiscated by the nice security people in Edinburgh on the way out.
Back at our favourite harbour haunt on Friday night, Wiseman confided that he had been welcomed back to work with a six month ban on him even mentioning his coccyx.
“Apparently I went on about it a bit last year,” he explained ruefully.
While we were away, the gang have been in good form. Kenny D has been spotted going for a run, sometimes more than once a week. The times they are a-changing.
Nasty Jen was playing hockey when a girl in the opposing team swung her stick into Jen’s head, whereupon she crumpled to the ground in pain. She then realised that the stick had actually connected with the head of the girl beside her, and quickly scrambled back to her feet, hoping no-one had noticed.
DC was at an old friend’s for lunch today. His friend had just had a brand new bathroom fitted. For some reason DC decided to sit down on the toilet lid while putting some eyedrops in, and went straight through it. He has confirmed that he wasn’t even trying to get purchase at the time.
Plus ça change…