Jumping for joy

The first day's skiing anywhere is always a bit of an adventure - finding the right place to buy ski passes, gasping in amazement at how expensive they are, then trying to work out which sets of ski runs will be in sunshine at any point of the day.

Today there was the added administration of finding the kids' ski school. To cut a long story of queues, explaining six times that I had forgotten the print out but here is the email on my iPhone, eventually the kids were enrolled... in the wrong school. So the British instructors went to sort it out.

For this first day, the kids had short lessons in the morning and afternoon, which didn't leave me and Mr B long to get out and about on the hills. Also, the weather was not quite the promised balmy sunshine, so we were a bit chilly. A few quick runs warmed us up a bit, then back to pick up the kids. Conor arrived with his class - all beaming from ear to ear. He said quite earnestly: "I think this is my favourite kind of school". Katherine's group appeared, wobbling down the nursery slope - but no Katherine who, it turned out, had a sore stomach and had retired to the creche. Back down the gondola to the apartment for lunch and to ascertain what was up with Katherine. I figured it was dehydration, but she couldn't ski in the afternoon so Mr B - who'd twisted his ankle the previous day anyway - volunteered to stay back with her while I took Conor to his lesson.

The half-pipe and jumps were pretty close to the ski school, so I wandered up there to find a good vantage point. This was as close as I dared go. There were higher jumpers, but this guy was my favourite - spinning around and usually landing backwards, before flicking around and skiing off. And all done with such nonchalance.