As I sit here, pondering whether I'm going to make it to Whistler this year (the Man Who Looks At Spines chortled and said "Yeah, go skiing, more business for me when you get back...") I realised that there was another skiing story concerning myself and an American blessed with marginally less talent than me.
It starts on the ski lift. We are four abreast clunking up on the chair. There is me, a friend, a large female american and a large male american. The lift, as you might imagine, is a tad unbalanced.
We reach the summit and disembark. This is usually my opporunity to take someone out with a flailing pole or crossed ski, but this time I've made a perfect exit and turn to see my friend who has not been so lucky. He's face down in the snow making gurgling noises. The large female american skis unsteadily past me and says to her companion: "Gee, Bob, I think I stuck my ski pole up that guy's ass..."
And with that, she was gone. But her memory lives on.
But thats not the end of the story. Vengence was wreaked upon these people. Albeit accidentally.
I paused at the top of the slope and plotted a course that would get me down whilst avoiding obstacles such as trees, lift supports and fences. People tend to just get out of the way when they see me coming and so don't feature in the plan.
As usual, I push off from the top, as usual I attempt my first turn, as usual I'm out of control by the time the second turn comes up. And by the fourth turn I decide its time to stop - for this I adopt my usual method; falling over.
Unfortunately the slope is icy, so rather than my usual slide into a few inches of snow, I'm actually sliding down the slope and picking up speed. And there had to be a ski-school below me, didn't there? A flailing pole caught the leader as I slid past, and down they went like dominos. Including large male and female american.
The instructor skiied to where I'd come to a rest and handed me a pole and ski I'd left enroute. "Would you like lessons?" he enquired. "No," I said, "And how did you know I was English?" "Lucky guess" he replied, and went back to pick his class up out of the snow.
