Just a minor blog update – more to capture my thoughts rather than anything else I was brought up on skiing, and was very very lucky to have some family holidays in the Alps and in Scotland when I was a young boy. So young, but I don’t really remember learning to ski. Just happened. So, over the last 10 years, with a slightly heavy heart, I have struggled a bit to get the right situation for the family to all go on a skiing holiday.
I feel a little guilty that Lily has got to the age of 10 without skiing. In some ways, she will find it harder than people much younger than herself, But of course I fully realise that she is in a very lucky situation to be going at all. Elsie on the other hand is at a great age to learn. She will be younger than five when we go skiing and If her activity at school is anything to go by, she will be an absolute sponge for learning. I really hope that the two of them get the most out of it, it is a lovely skill to have, but as the last 10 years of my life has proven. It is something that you will have to work very very hard to sustain into adult life. It is a simple fact of life that a winter holiday will be significantly more costly than a summer holiday. This has been the main reason that we have not been able to go on such a trip for the last 10 years.
This year, through careful planning, we are very very excited to be off to the French Alps for a week over new year. Cheap flights are something that everybody else seems to get. I can only think of one occasion that we have managed to really benefit from cheap tickets -and then it was outside of school holidays and flying at an odd time.
So it is with a slightly heavy heart, that we will be buying a set of winter tires for the car, and driving for 13 or 14 hours. It’ll a be worth it, I have no doubt. When you think about the amount of force that it takes to get to an airport, pay for parking, arrive in good time for flights, arrange transfers (3 hrs in our case to La Plagne) You will have pretty much spent as much time and effort as driving. Will report back, anyway – it’s going to be an adventure.