Pole Dancing

An eventful day on the slopes. In the morning, Harry took a series of tumbles - but he was negotiating the most difficult black slope on the mountain at the time. A plate of chips saw him right again.

Maxine was ski-ing with Sinead and myself on the more sensible blue-graded terrain. All seemed to be going to plan when suddenly she lost control, span, and crashed through a blue wooden piste marker and backwards over the edge of the run, losing both skis and poles before landing flat-out in the snow. Rather spectacular and alarming.

In due course, she recovered her poise. The piste marker pole, however, was smashed to pieces and scattered over a wide area.

Meanwhile, in the afternoon, Roger was involved in a tragic accident. He was perfectly OK after returning to the chalet for a good rest, but the tragedy was that he crashed before he'd actually done any ski-ing for the day !

It all sounds a bit dangerous, but for really high-danger action look no further than some simple tobogganing. As we discovered, a 40kg-boy on a 1kg bit of plastic on a 200-meter hill goes extremely fast. Add in a dozen others hurtling down with limited control in the near darkness, and it all seems rather hazardous, but no one came to any harm. According to Harry, in fact, crashing and falling out of the toboggan is the best bit.