THE CRESTA RUN

A friend of mine has just flown off to St Moritz to do the Cresta Run. I googled it. Holy shit. Why would anyone want to do that?

It looks terrifying. You are given a small toboggan. Kitted out with a helmet, knee, elbow and hand protectors and heavy boots with Bond-esque spikes sticking out of the top. You are then encouraged to launch yourself, head first down a man-made icy course at up to speeds of 80 miles an hour whilst attempting to negotiate 10 corners without flying off the edge and breaking your neck.  My legs would fall off in an attempt to use my toe spikes to stop me going any faster than 3.5 miles an hour.

No thanks. Skiing is bad enough. I’ve got some other friends who are skiing at the moment. I’ve texted her a couple of times and she’s miserable. She’s had to ski down moguls without crying. It’s made me rethink my attitude to skiing – I didn’t try the sport until I was 17. Hopeless. You have to learn whilst still in the womb to be any good at it.  You have to be good enough not to be scared to fall over. You have to love it enough to not mind being cold, not to mind being able to not see anything and not to mind queuing for hours.

There was an article in last week’s FT all about how it is possible to have a stress free skiing holiday with the children. I’m afraid I beg to differ.  There is no such thing as a stress free skiing holiday if you take the kids.  The writer suggested that if you spend in excess of 5K and employ a full time nanny for your children then all will be well. For a start, if I was to have to take out a second mortgage in order to take my children skiing and then not see them for a week I would already be stressed. Very stressed. In addition, skiing with my kids is the most terrifying thing I have ever done. My heart is literally in my mouth as I watch them career down the mountain nearly flying off the nearest edge and knowing that there is absolutely nothing I can do about it because I’m so rubbish myself that I can’t even stop when I need to. I spend the whole time snow plowing down the mountain looking like I’m sitting on the loo and leaning up the mountain with my shaking thighs literally about to set alight in an attempt to grip the mountainside.  Once, when one of my children was crying and I was trying to reassure him that all would be well and that he could do it he said “I’m crying because you’re making me follow you and you’re going across the mountain really slowly instead of straight down the mountain – it’s so boring”.  In addition, having taken my kids skiing several times since I’ve been divorced, with friends, I am the one who has to do everything.  Carry ski’s, remember goggles, hats, gloves, manage my youngest when he’s having a hysterical fit because he hates skiing and is too hot before he’s even left the building  It is such hard work.  No fun at all in fact.

I recognised a long time ago that I am a fair weather skier. I no longer let friends persuade me to follow them down a treachourous path because I end up sitting in the snow literally hyperventilating with fear.  I don’t like skiing when it is snowing or when there is limited visibility.  The sky has to be blue, the sun has to be shining and even then I find the pretty white stuff on the ground a little bit frustrating.  It’s too cold and too slippery.  I would prefer snow to be warm and powdery so that I don’t have to wear thick stupid clothes or get ice in my knickers when I fall over.  I would also prefer it if it was a bit more grippy – maybe even with steps or some sort of astro-turf effect so that I can come down the mountain gracefully preferably without bloody great sticks stuck to my ridiculously uncomfortable huge boots encasing incredibly sore feet at best, two broken shin bones at worst.

Give me a tropical island any day of the week.