Jolly holiday

Les Arcs 1800, March 2019

There has been a hiatus for the usual reason - I've been away. Skiing, as it happens, just once this year because my forward planning was slightly haphazard and also because of my other big upcoming trip, which I might have mentioned already but can't be bothered to check. If I haven't mentioned it you'll just have to wait.

Skiing was with a group of friends I hadn't been with before - they all knew each other while I knew just three from badminton club #2. The group has expanded and contracted - from what I can gather it started with a group of GPs, most of whom have now stopped coming, but grew with the addition of badminton players, relatives, neighbours, friends, and two people who happened to be staying in the same chalet one year and subsequently latched onto the group. This year we were thirteen, and took over a whole chalet in the resort of Les Arcs 1800.

The standard of skiing was variable, but we generally split into three groups - the fast group, the improvers and people who have got too old for the fast group, and the beginners. I started in the improvers group for the first day, where two of the three people I already knew were skiing. After that I joined the fast group and was by no means the slowest.

We were on a regime of half board at the chalet although the two chalet staff had two days off out of the six we stayed. They were not the best cooks, and the company policy seemed to call for an ambition for meals that they were really not capable of. They would have been better off producing vats of bolognaise or chilli rather than the gritty pea and spinach risotto or the dry fish in filo parcels. They did manage a splendid pea and bacon soup though, and their puddings weren't bad, although in the interest of weight management I declined the pudding most days, but not the cake that awaited us at four o'clock (on the days that the staff were there).

Joining the large group was rather overwhelming for me at first, but it improved once I got to know who was who, and I'd be happy to join them again next year. If they ask me.