Just finished breakfast. Waiting for the bus. The Salibas arrived last night and settled in after their odyssey. Roisin is all wound and ready to ski! The shuttle will arrive shortly to bring us to the ski shop. There we will get our gear and get the bubble up to Pleney where the classes start.
Looking up to Pleney from Morzine, Uploaded by M+MD.
12.00 noon
Up on Pleney at the end of the first day of lessons. It was a nightmare start. We waited in class 2 since we did beginners last year. Then our teacher from last year arrived - Marie-Helene - great, we thought, she is teaching class 2. So we head off and in order to test our ability they immediately get us all to parallel ski down a fairly steep slope. Myself and Mags were the last 2 in the group to go down the slope. Mags made it about a third of the way of the way down before she fell. Then I followed I got about half way before I fell the first time. I got up again but didn't get very far before I fell again. This time it was harder to get up. In the meantime the instructor was going back up to Mags.
Pleney - Top of the Bubble, Uploaded by M+MD.
I was told to take off my skis and walk down. I was then told to make my way down to the Mouilles lift and find a lower group. There was no sign of Mags. I made my way back with my tail between my legs! I couldn't find anyone at first so after waiting 10 minutes to see if Mags would follow I did the Nabor run just to settle myself and see if I could find anyone.
On the second circuit I found Mags. She was in an advanced beginners with an instructor called Joseph. He let us join a little reluctantly. "Stay with uz for now but I will find you a new class for to-morrow." I guess we were just happy to have a home. Mags had had an even worse experience than me down that first test slope - when the instructor reached her he told her to take off her skis and walk back to the meeting point and find another class. On top of that her boots were too tight and she had no real feeling in her feet. So we just tagged along - Joseph was in the middle of learning every body's name, but as we were leaving he explained that his brain was too full and he didn't need to learn our names as we were not going to be with him to-morrow. "So I will just call you Man and Lady". Just what we needed to boost our already low self-esteem.
The lesson ended and Joseph passed us over to Francine. "My class is very full but ok, I will see you to-morrow." We were suitably humbled but at least we had got through the first day and we remembered quite a bit even if we were probably not even Class 1 level. We rang Deirdre and arranged to meet up.
2.30 pm La Chamade, Restaurant
We had excellent pizza cooked in a wood burning pizza oven and in fact ate too much - Ronan our chef was cooking Chicken in Tarragon tonight, where were we going to put it all! After food we headed back up the bubble for a private easy lesson with Deirdre and Chris.
"The Bubble" Uploaded by M+MD.
3.00 pm Back on Pleney
Chris took Senan Lisa and Katy with Roisin and Katie down Piste B and Mags Deirdre and I followed after. Dee have is some useful guidance on Snow plough turns - "look down the mountain". Plus put pressure on the uphill ski, soon to be downhill ski, hand on knee (shifting weight) and across. (Easy isn't it!) Mags got it with just a few falls but every time I looked down the mountain I got completely spooked and leaned back - which has the effect of increasing the speed and losing control followed by complete panic and a fall. A complete wipe out as Deirdre would call it. I tried again a few times but now I was getting tired and the trick of looking down the mountain before you make a turn was just a little too hard. I was also feeling tired and remembering that the last day I skied I badly pulled a muscle in my leg which finished my skiing for the last few days. Anything vaguely steep on this Blue run now looked Black to me..
In the end I did the only sensible thing - I took off my skis and walked down the mountain. At the next flat bit I skied again. But as soon as it got "steep" (all in my head) the skis were off. I told Mags and Dee to go on ahead and that I would see them at the bottom. It was a long run and a long trudge down dragging skis and poles. Eventually it looked ok enough to try again and I managed to ski the last mile or so home.Relief was great when I could see Mags and Dee waiting patiently at the bottom. At least I got back up again and to-morrow is another day. As the song goes "he who fights and runs away will live to fight again". Chris and the kids had no problems and were gone up to come down again.
4.30 bottom of the mountain
We headed home. The hot-tub and sauna did the trick and by dinner-time I was feeling human again. We ended up the night with another bottle of wine and a game of Charades - the adults against the kids - it was a draw! Shattered and with weary legs we went to bed.
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