(Alternative title: I Finally Found the Cable For My Camera)
It started off grey. Low-lying clouds drifted up from the valley, seeping between the trees and into our bones. We moved carefully through the murky half-light, our bodies slowly remembering how to do this thing.
All was well, for the first two hours. Then came a phone call, tears, an ambulance. Sa clavicule, elle est cassée. Fin and I looked at each other and looked away, heartsick. Glad it wasn't us, guilty for our gladness.
We awoke on the third day to fat snowflakes fluttering down, filling the air like confetti. It fell, and it fell, and it fell. We bounced and tumbled and whooped through knee-deep snow. Our car got stuck. We retreated, gratefully, to the hot tub. I cannot overstate how good it was to sink, groaning, into that steaming pool at the end of the day. A drink didn't hurt, either.
Finally the clouds parted. The snow of the previous days had been bullied into submission and the pistes were all but empty. The only sound was the thrum of our skis trembling over the grooved surface. I swished and swooped from one run to the next. Even my mum took to the slopes, for the first time since she left France to come home and begin cancer treatment three years ago. She skied cautiously, carefully, but still - she skied.
Fin began skiing 8 years ago, under the questionable instruction of me and my dad. This year, for the first time, I caught glimpses of how it will be one day when he can effortlessly keep pace with me. I can't wait.
(No, I didn't help him. I was too busy laughing.)
French alpine food follows a basic pattern: meat, cheese, or meat + cheese. In an exciting twist on this theme, the meat above was served with a generous crumbling of salt, a token leaf or two, and a slab of butter. No bread, just... butter. Oh, France.
It was all going so well (broken collarbones and motoring mishaps aside).
And then it got cold. Very, very cold.
That's 9.30
in the morning, just to be clear. And it got colder. So cold that the very air around us seemed to freeze. Tiny particles shimmered in the sunlight like glitter. Every breath chilled me to the bone.
When we stopped at lunchtime - in a hilarious café where the electricity went off every time they used the
putain micro-onde (the "fucking microwave"), so that Fin had to continuously flick a switch in the fusebox above his head - it was so cold that the water in the toilet bowl had frozen. Yowza. When I took my glove off to try and take a picture, I lost all feeling in my hand within about ten seconds and didn't get it back for an hour.
This is me. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Hey, Kirsty, maybe you should have laid off on the cheese fondue". And you would be right. But as well as the thin layer of fromage that congealed around my body over the course of the week, I am also wearing:
A thermal vest
A thermal base layer
Another thermal base layer
A fleece
Another fleece
A ski jacket
Thermal long johns
Salopettes
A scarf
A hat
A balaclava
Goggles
A hood
A smile (you'll have to take my word for that, though.)
That's six layers just on my top half, and three on my head. Like I said. Very, very cold.
And very, very fun.
For those who are interested in these sorts of things, we stayed in the amazing Chalet La Giettaz in La Giettaz en Aravis, in Savoie, which I would recommend a million percent. We flew easyJet to Grenoble, hired a car and drove there in under a couple of hours. We skied in Megève, the Espace Diamant and Le Grand Bornand. Did I mention the HOT TUB?
{Images of Fin skiing and of me wearing everything I own by Kieran Burchell}
