Now I don’t know what hurts worst – my shins or my pride. I know that they say the first day skiing is the most painful, but I didn’t remember exactly how mentally scarring it could be.


Beautiful but painful!

My history of skiing isn’t great. I come from a ski-buff family who are not only very capable of swishing on planks of wood (did I mention that we were always a very old school skiing family?) down snow covered slopes, but who are also very capable at it.

I, on the other hand, only launched into my first hesitant snowploughs when the crèche objected to my presence, arguing that their day care services weren’t provided for sulking teenagers.

Ok, ok, I’m just kidding, I wasn’t ever THAT bad. I can ski a bit now, it’s not a problem – but even still it had been about five years since I last “graced” the slopes and this old machine was decidedly rusty. Luckily (the sarcasm runs thick), my companions decided to “help me get my bearings” by taking me on all the most treacherously steep and icy routes, all in the name of a fun and basic orientation overview of the mountains.

Not that it helped. I saw nothing but the ground or my skies flying off in another direction… repeatedly. I did however manage to be able to differentiate between the degree of severities of the ice compaction, and I think as the to-be-bruises on my legs come of age, they’ll provide a comprehensively documented historical record of my falls. I can’t wait…

I’m a bit grumpy, so forgive me that my observations follow suite – but I think I’ve figured out the cause for the epic rift between skiers and snowboarders. It all comes down to footwear and a subconscious level of jealously masked by a possessive and fiercely guarded discomfiture. It seems to be this mark of endurance that leaves skiers with a reputation for being uptight, but honestly, who can relax with such intensely crippling shin pain?