08/02/15
Today is Zak’s 21st birthday and what a way to celebrate, snowboarding in the French Alpes! The day began with a trip down to the hotel lobby to get wifi and upload yesterday’s blog post (we were meant to be able to get wifi in the rooms but apparently it doesn’t stretch as far as the fifth floor). We then went for breakfast overlooking the mountains that consisted of a croissant, a pan au chocolate and a pancake – not the healthiest of options but when in France…
We were
keen to get to the slopes so straight after brekkie we grabbed our gear and got
going. Richard has never snowboarded before so Dad took him under his wing to
teach him a few things before his lesson in the afternoon. We assessed the
nursery slope and the drag-lift and decided to ditch that and head straight up a
chairlift instead. Richie threw himself straight into snowboarding and picked
it up so quickly. Aimee was skiing really well too, only having skied once
before years ago but unfortunately, she fell ill and decided to give the
afternoon a miss and try to get better for the rest of the week. After a quick
lunch stop we headed back up the mountain and Richard went to his lesson. By
the time he had his lesson; he already knew all the basics they were teaching
(resulting in him ditching the last half of the class – the instructor didn’t
speak English very well which was just another reason to abandon that
idea).
During
the course of the day I managed to wind myself twice and had a few hard falls.
This just knocked my confidence and I struggled to get into the swing of things
for the next couple of runs. Zak on the other hand surprised us all. He had his face covered the whole time and was flying down the mountain, so we decided that it
wasn’t Zak under the mask, it must have been the Guernsey Stig. He was a
natural and picked it up like the last time he’d been snowboarding was last
week (not 6 years ago!).
We
all had a few prangs, barr mum who was skiing and was very graceful. When we
got back to the hotel I assessed the damage - my arse looked like it belonged
to a baboon and my knees are now black and blue. After a warm shower and a few
drinks in Marc and Marie’s room we headed to a restaurant across the road to
celebrate Zak’s 21st – we managed to persuade him to try a
strawberry daiquiri and some vodka & lemonade but he wasn’t keen, spitting
in back out into the glass (nasty).
Overall
the day was brilliant, we all had a great time on the slopes and Aimee was
feeling a bit better toward the end of the night. I can’t wait to throw myself
back into snowboarding tomorrow and really try to build my confidence. If I wipe out a few times at least it gives the other skiers, watching from the ski
lifts above, something to giggle at. It’s all just fun and games.
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| The view from our balcony this morning before the ski lifts opened |
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| The birthday Stig and I |
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| Zak's reaction to his first alcoholic beverage a strawberry daiquiri |
Bye
for now x
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