The first day of skiing, my aching legs said to me ...

"What the dickens are you trying to do to me?"

The pandemonium of last night continued this morning. Getting our ski passes, finding and enrolling children in ski schools and finally getting rid of them. Kim managed to get Sage to the school in time but Kirsten and Carl weren't so lucky and handed Megan and Alistair over to a ski instructor to pass the children over to the correct class. Needless to say that this didn't happen and Megan and Alistair spent the morning being passed from one instructor to the next, even between ski schools which resulted in much unhappiness and comments about how the kids did not enjoy the ski schools here.

During the morning I went with Kim and Caron to do some green slopes so that both of them could remember what they have previously learnt at Afri-ski. We had only just finished "La Violette" and it was after 12:00 already so we headed down to fetch the children and go for lunch.

I was feeling really under the weather so I missed most of lunch, i.e. I was there and present, I just can't remember anything and it was a touch and go as to whether I went skiing in the afternoon or not. I think I was not entirely over the fever of a couple of days ago and I was quite worried that this may be a sign of what the rest of the holiday might be like which wasn't greatly encouraging.

I decided to go out skiing because I really didn't feel like spending it in bed which is where Caron would have ensured that I ended up if I had stayed at home. Happily this turned out to be a good decision and I had a great afternoon skiing with the van der Riets, starting to explore the three valleys ski domain. It is quite different to Avoriaz in that the runs are generally longer and wider and I think the runs here are a bit more severe for the same grade but that is a really subjective assessment of the grading system. By the time we finally headed back to the apartment I was finished and could barely keep my eyes open through supper. My heart sank when, at the end of supper, I realised that it was only 18:30. I had to stay awake for at least another 3 hours and all my body and eyes wanted to do was shut down for the night. Fortunately I had some episodes of "The Big Bang Theory" to help and then I started reading a Vince Flynn book even though it really annoys me the way that he writes about american extrajudicial murders as acceptable because, well, they're american therefore that have to be justifiable. I shouldn't get annoyed because it is just a novel after all but I have a sneaking suspicion that the truth is quite close to fiction in this case. I think the annoyance worked and before I knew it, it was 21:30, time for beddie byes.

I forgot to mention my spectacular wipe-out on a green slope, the shame, where I had enough time in the air to finish the thought "This is really going to hurt!" before I became a snow plough for about 30m. There is now a roland's nose shaped furrow down a section of "La Violette" so I resolved there and then to take it much easier for a few days so I could get my skiing legs back and prevent the early onset of concussion.

Carl came up with the chirp of the day which, I think, is going to stick to Sage. he described her as a "woodchipper" because whatever she has to eat in her hands gets spread out in her general vicinity.