Eric's Online Diary: Skiing holiday - ski school, dangerous Eric

There was a further blow on Sunday, apart my my injured leg, and that was discovering that my ski lessons would have to be in the morning, not the afternoon. I think there just weren't enough people to run morning and afternoon. It meant that we had to make an 8am start from the apartment to get down into Bourg and get the funicular up to Les Arcs.

I woke up in a positive frame mind and keen to have a go at ski school, even if I felt some considerable trepidation about it.

There was a whole new set of people at ski school in the morning. I recognised Josette and Devon Mike turned up sans Claire. I think there had been words and he'd stormed out of their hotel room saying: "that's a bloody waste of money for one day's skiing." Trouble was, in his anger, he'd picked up her helmet instead of his and felt a right Charley when he tried to put it on when he got to Ski School. The official story was that Claire was not very well. Actually I sympathise with her. Learning to ski once you're past 40 is much harder than it would be in your twenties. She and Mike were (I think) second partners and not yet married. You can see the pressure on her to be young and active to impress her new man - yes, let's go skiing that will be great fun, I've always wanted to. Then when she got the skis on, couldn't stand up and was terrified of the slope, it didn't seem such a good idea. Luc did his best on Sunday, even skiing down backwards in front of her holding the tips of her skis in the snowplough, but it was a hopeless case.

Anyway, I was pleased to have Mike to talk to, but it didn't last long - after one run down the learner slope, Luc handed me over to Guy (pronounced Gi) which was the more advanced group. Actually, I didn't mind as it looked as if Luc was going to have people just toiling up the slope and snowploughing down all morning and my leg wasn't feeling too bad. We headed up Combette, but instead of turning right onto the steep blue, we headed left on an unmarked green that snaked under the lift and down a couple of side runs through the forest where it was easy to snowplough all the way. We went back across the blue where I'd fallen the day before and there was a more gentle slope down to the lift.

Guy was an older chap and a bit of a grump. Half our group was French (all women) including one I should call Fagin (pronounced Fag-in) who sparked up every time there was a break of a few minutes. Her favourite trick was to get up the lift first so she could have a crafty puff at the top while everyone else got up there. Fagin must have been mid-forties, but was actually pretty good and there were about five French women in total. Most of them had some English and they were OK to chat to on a basic level. The rest of the group was two Irish women (again in their 40s) and a young English couple. The Irish women were with their husbands and children, who could all ski well enough, so they were in ski school to catch them up.

Guy was not a man to suffer fools. When the English girl fell and was trying to put her skis on facing down the slope he was yelling up at her in a garbled message; I knew what he was trying to say, but she was in a panic and he was getting crosser and crosser. "For god's sake, you tell her," he said to her boyfriend.

Later on, I was the target of Guy's grumpy temper. I'd been practising turns and I'd been leaning forward to keep my weight on the outside ski and he must have seen my head down a couple of times. "Why do you look down all ze time?" says Guy. "What iz you looking for down zer. Are you looking for zee mushrooms? I tell you what zer are no mushrooms, zey are under ze snow, you will not find any. Eric, you are dangerous, you must look where you are going, I do not want you to crash into me."

Dangerous Eric indeed! I knew exactly where I was going. Still, it was a good morning's work, but I was glad to finish and was waiting in the square at Arcs 1650 when Sam and Lucy joined me. It couldn't have been a different day than Sunday; the sun was weaker and the wind stronger. We sat in the arcade in a little circular seat to eat our sandwich, but it was cold; too cold to be comfortable, so we went inside a little bar and found the last seat. Lucy had a vin chaud and we had beers and a crepe - walnut and honey for me.

After lunch Sam and Lucy wanted to do a bit more skiing, but I was whacked. My leg had really stiffened up during lunch so that I could hardly move when I stood up. I headed down the furnicular and went back to the apartment to chill out with Maurice and a new dog, which I christened Meribel. I tried them with a few treats, which they weren't sure about, but eventually I discovered they quite liked bread. Gravel and Holly would kill for some cheese rind, but this pair showed no interest. Maurice was the top dog, but also a bully and wouldn't let Meribel come near me. She kept sneaking up and would then get bitten and chased. I told Maurice off and eventually got them both either side of me. Maurice was desperate to get around to bite Meribel, but when she moved I did the old "ah-ah" command, which seems to work for dogs in England and in France.

Sam and Lucy were not too late as it was quite cold and I ran down to the furnicular to pick them up mid afternoon.