- Untitled
- The season begins
- Jan 2010
- Feb 2010
- March 2010
- April 2010
- May 2010
- Ski Pictures 2010
- June 2010
- July 2010
- August 2010
- September 2010
- October 2010
- Late October
- November
- December 2010
- January 2011
- February
- The European Youth Olympic Festival
- March 2011
- The season ends
- May and June 2011
- End of June
- July
- August in Yorkshire
- September 2011
- 28 October 2011
- November/December 2011
- Season 2012
- February 2012
- March and April
- June
- 'Summer' 2012
Feb 2010
The Shimmering Stars
Feb. 9th, 2010
My parents were not keen on organised sport at all. Both children of althetic and competitive fathers they went to great lengths to find their three daughters outdoor activities that did not involve any pressure or major commitment – and had us all safely back at home for Martinnis at six o’clock.
John and Eileen Rose never experienced the joys of hours in leisue centres eating bad food and waiting. They didn’t sit in bleachers or stand on touchlines or at freezing finish gates. My early memories are of nature walks, digging the garden, splashing around in an above ground pool. Holidays were important: more walks, rock pools in Cornwall, sand sandwiches on the beach in Wales and Suffolk. We were adventurous and could afford to be. Soon it was caravanning in France and then, not knowing the seed they were to plant, John and Eileen Rose decided that a ski-ing holiday might be fun.
Not ones to set off unprepared we started with a course of lessons at the indoor Slough Community Centre. It was 1968. The ski slope was a wooden structure covered with glorified door matting. You put on your lace up boots, were fastened into your cable bindings and side stepped up. By your sixth lesson you might have mastered the snow plough. The first thing we learnt was that it is better to wear trousers. I have vivid memories of the coach’s face as he took in my checked skirt with elasticaed waist, black polar neck and matching tights.
Snow was much more fun, but our holidays were as much about playing in it as ski-ing on it. I was eleven and on my third holiday before I ascended a ski lift and that was in Norway where there were only two: a chair and a rope. Eventually though we ascended the ranks of ski school – until we reached class three. That it seemed was where British children stayed. Each holiday started with a test run where all new arrivals were assessed on two turns and directed towards the appropriate lollipop. I would gaze longingly at the glimmering stars as I trudged off in my red bib.
When, aged 17, I threatened mutiny and voiced a strong preference for staying the UK where my boyfriend had a new motorbike our ski-ing holidays took a turn for the better with a Ski Club of Great Britain family party. The venue was one of those modern purpose built resorts that everyine loves to hate, Flaine. In the white bowl that surrounds the concrete jungle I discovered the thrill of ski-ing through trees and of tumbling in, then bouncing through powder. Four years later I was on the Rep’s course where I had my first taste of ski-ing through gates. What a waste, I thought, all those years spent in ski school class three.
Feb. 9th, 2010
My parents were not keen on organised sport at all. Both children of althetic and competitive fathers they went to great lengths to find their three daughters outdoor activities that did not involve any pressure or major commitment – and had us all safely back at home for Martinnis at six o’clock.
John and Eileen Rose never experienced the joys of hours in leisue centres eating bad food and waiting. They didn’t sit in bleachers or stand on touchlines or at freezing finish gates. My early memories are of nature walks, digging the garden, splashing around in an above ground pool. Holidays were important: more walks, rock pools in Cornwall, sand sandwiches on the beach in Wales and Suffolk. We were adventurous and could afford to be. Soon it was caravanning in France and then, not knowing the seed they were to plant, John and Eileen Rose decided that a ski-ing holiday might be fun.
Not ones to set off unprepared we started with a course of lessons at the indoor Slough Community Centre. It was 1968. The ski slope was a wooden structure covered with glorified door matting. You put on your lace up boots, were fastened into your cable bindings and side stepped up. By your sixth lesson you might have mastered the snow plough. The first thing we learnt was that it is better to wear trousers. I have vivid memories of the coach’s face as he took in my checked skirt with elasticaed waist, black polar neck and matching tights.
Snow was much more fun, but our holidays were as much about playing in it as ski-ing on it. I was eleven and on my third holiday before I ascended a ski lift and that was in Norway where there were only two: a chair and a rope. Eventually though we ascended the ranks of ski school – until we reached class three. That it seemed was where British children stayed. Each holiday started with a test run where all new arrivals were assessed on two turns and directed towards the appropriate lollipop. I would gaze longingly at the glimmering stars as I trudged off in my red bib.
When, aged 17, I threatened mutiny and voiced a strong preference for staying the UK where my boyfriend had a new motorbike our ski-ing holidays took a turn for the better with a Ski Club of Great Britain family party. The venue was one of those modern purpose built resorts that everyine loves to hate, Flaine. In the white bowl that surrounds the concrete jungle I discovered the thrill of ski-ing through trees and of tumbling in, then bouncing through powder. Four years later I was on the Rep’s course where I had my first taste of ski-ing through gates. What a waste, I thought, all those years spent in ski school class three.