Occasinally I will be introduced to someone and less than a moment after they have told me their name I will completely forget it. This was the case with my ski instructor, I shall refer to him as Gerald. I must have stood out like a sore thumb as I waited at the rendezvous point.A hopeless looking English guy wearing too many layers struggling to walk in hired ski boots whilst carrying skis in perhaps the most awkward way. “You must be Alan” Gerald said. We walked around the corner to the plan adds ski slope, Around the corner was the ultimate in beginner ski slopes, with a short button chair lift and a slope of maybe 4% tops. “Have you skied before?” Gerald asked… “Well not really, I spent an hour on a dry ski slope mostly falling over.” Followed by a classic French laugh. But after a short while I was receiving many praises from Gerald as I efficiently snowploughed my way down the baby slope, quickly picking up the snow plough turn and soon started to nail the parrellell turns too. “Right” Gerald said lets go on the big slope… Gerald had clearly overestimated my ability to retain information. In my head, (as I just about clung to the slightly faster ‘big’slope chairlift) I was running through the technique; lean forward, apply pressure on downhill ski, standup, apply pressure, complete turn and straighten up… Easy. By the time I had arrived at the second tower and began to ski this information had left my brain, so I spent the next half hour falling on my side. Fortunately Gerald came up with a plan, after telling him I’m a little bit of a bicycle nut. So we simulated handlebars using a ski pole, this worked. Until the point Gerald took the pole away.

After a few more hours of falling over I had almost got it. Gerald said his au revoirs and I continued to practice. After my second  afternoon day swoosh swooshing down the slopes, I went to the pub, after the most amazing hot dog from the cool cats hot dog place (cannot recommend enough if you go to Chamonix!). Waiting for my mates to arrive I played pool with an Italian chap, again his name left me instantly so I shall call him Mario. Mario could not speak English, and I cannot speak Italian, but we could both speak very bad French, and thus we bonded, helped by many beers. Soon I realised the time and also realised my friends who had a crazy long over night drive were four hours late. Having found some English folks, I assumed the worst, so did what any good friend would do and had another beer. Fortunately my friends hadn’t crashed and arrived shortly after my 6th or 7th beer. We soon found ourselves in a new bar, with perhaps the greatest drinking game ever. Toss the Boss, roll a higher number on the dice than the bar and your drinks are free. However roll a lower number and you had to pay what I assumed was double the price. Our luck was good, so inevitably awoke with nasty hangovers. 

But, life is short so in the afternoon we went to the little slope and I showcased my skills, and realised that I was much much slower than my mates, but my ego got the best of me and tried my hardest to keep up, I think I may have been faster while sliding on my arse than whilst on the ski’s. Soon enough the next day came and I had my first experience of a proper ski lift. My god they are scary the first time, and foolishly I was wearing a bag, so felt as if I was going to fall off the face first, which was made worse when my mates (seasoned chairlifters) pulled the safety bar up super early. This caused panic which in turn caused me to bail as I departed the lift. Many runs later, I stopped celebrating each time I successfully exited the chair lift without falling over. I had also learnt after much shouting form the chairlift operator to wear my bag on the front. Many calamities later I was roaring down the greens, onto Courmayeur the following day. 

Courmayeur is awesome with the lack of significant snow, the best place within reach for us. Much tamer chairlifts with conveyor belts on, slow exits off, nets to catch you and best of all much longer runs. After 3 slow but successful runs on the 6blue we decided to explore the 15. However it turns out the 15 was closed. So as I have so often done in my life I became confused between my intentions and my abilities, ‘well if the only way down is on a red then let’s take on a red!’ Foolishly believing after the tentative blue runs that I had overnight become some sort of ski God, already planning my upcoming pro ski career. The red of course did not end well, having barely mastered turning on the steeper blue sections I proceeded to fall and slide most of the way down. But I did pick myself up after each fall, have a little word with myself each time and carry on falling. I’m sure many people on the adjacent ski lift were having a good chuckle at my expense. Battered and bruised it was back to the blues for the rest of the day