I might be getting a little old for this skiing lark

Just back from our skiing holiday in Saint-Martin-de-Belleville in the Three Valleys. It's a pretty village, transformed into a winter wonderland by fresh snowfall in the three days leading up to our holiday week, and we had a fantastic ski lodge, basically the penthouse apartment of a three-storey block just yards from the bottom of the cable car.

The holiday wasn't without its problems. For Sam, it was a nightmare journey of cancelled ferries, hastily arranged flights, hire cars and snow chains. For me it was a series of painful crashes that meant I came back from holiday with a few bruises and stiff limbs. Perhaps I am getting too old (or too unfit) for skiing?

The first problem was that Condor Ferries cancelled the Friday night sailing from St Helier to St Malo – the high wind and resultant sea conditions meant it was too extreme for the catamaran ferry that they run. The next sailing would be Sunday, which meant Sam would miss two days of his holiday. He cancelled the ferry, booked a flight to Geneva and hired a car for the week.

Condor seem a pretty useless bunch. The ferry from the UK was cancelled numerous times during the summer (mainly due to engine problems) and they really need to get some boats that are reliable and can cope with a bit of rough weather. After hearing of this, we were ready for a rough ride across the Channel on Saturday morning, but it was as smooth as silk. I know P&O run bigger ships with stabilisers, but even so ...

Our drive was 170 miles to Dover and then 600 miles in France. We do the autoroutes, which are fast but expensive, and we can do it in under nine hours with two stops. The BMW, for all its faults, is a great car for gobbling up the miles. You can set the cruise control at 80mph and it will cover 600 miles before it needs filling up.

The weather forecast said it would snow heavily the week before we were due, but Saturday would be sunny. It was actually snowing quite heavily in northern France and again just after Dijon, but we made good time until we came to the small road up the valley to Saint-Martin from Moutiers. Sam, who was a little ahead of us, had warned that he'd had to stop to put on his snow chains and lots of cars were struggling on the snow-covered, steep road. I was doing fine and I guessed that the cars pulled up at the side of the road fitting chains and snow socks were running standard tyres. There was a bus in front of me that was running without chains and I guessed my winter tyres would grip for longer than his. Margaret was very keen for me to stop and fit the snow socks, but my traction control hadn't kicked in once, so I was getting good grip. The biggest problem was traffic and those with chains on that were limited to 20mph. Once we reached Saint-Martin, we turned off the road and drove up through the village, where the snow was much thicker, but made it very picturesque. The BMW was fine; if everyone fitted winter tyres, we'd had few problems in the UK.

The chalet (Le Cochet) had underground parking where it was about -3C and -15C outside. There was a lift up to the third floor and we had three rooms en-suite, a mezzanine with other beds and a large kitchen, dining room and lounge – all open-plan.

Sam's hire car had standard tyres and snow chains for emergency. He'd had to fit them half-way up the hill from Moutiers and had a real struggle to get them on. His hands were freezing and he was glad that another chap had given him a hand.

On Sunday, Sam was out early to get the ski passes and then we set up the skis in the garage (I'd slackened the springs on the bindings during storage and they needed re-setting. I was using Lucy's old Rossignol skis and they needed adjusting for my bigger boot size.

On the ridge above Saint-Martin - that's Mont Blanc next to Sam

Saint-Martin is served by a gondola, which you can take up and enjoy a fairly easy blue down. There's just one run down into the village, but from the top of the gondola, you can take a chair lift which offers a blue/red back down to the top of the gondola or a run into Les Menuires (the next resort up the valley). If you take a third lift, you reach the ridge and can ski down into Meribel in the next valley or further up our valley to Val Thorens.

We got the gondola and I skied the blue down to get used to the skis. It was a bit steep (for me) in places but lovely fresh snow, really good conditions – cold, but beautifully sunny. Next we got the gondola back up, then the chair-lift (St Martin Express), then another chair lift (Granges). On way down a blue run called Grand Lac (which is very steep) I had a crash, caught an edge and face planted. I got bashed on the face, my goggles pushed the contact lens out of my right eye, I cut my nose and bashed my shoulder and arm. With Sam's help, I was able to fish out the contact lens from my lower lid and ski gingerly down with one eye shut. I had another crash on hard ice at the bottom and bashed my hip. I looked a bit of a mess, so called it a day for skiing and had a wander around town, found the supermarket and shops, plus a Huit a 8. I got some provisions and some sympathy from the lady in the supermarket.

Ouch! Feeling pretty sore.

On the second day, there was no way I'd get a contact lens into my right eye, which was half shut, so I got the cable car up and tried a test ski with goggles and insert. I'd tried this before and hadn't liked it, but this time it seemed OK. It took me a while to get my act together (and one small fall), but then we went up the second lift and skied across to Le Menuires via Gros Tougne, La Violette and Bettex. Les Menuires is not as pretty as Saint-Martin but you can ski both sides of the valley and there are lots of runs and lifts. It has a couple of the steepest greens I've ever seen. If I was in ski school trying to snowplough down those I would have been bricking it!

In the evening, we needed some provisions that we weren't able to get in Saint-Martin, so Sam and I went to the supermarket in Moutiers. It was bitter cold and freezing, but the road down was much better than Saturday night and there was no problem with grip. Moutiers is not an attractive town; it sits deep in a valley so that it always seems to be in the shade (certainly so in winter) and the town is dominated by its main road. Sam sort-of remembered where the supermarket was and we found it quite easily. It was as drab and cold as the rest of the town, but it had cheap bottled beer, boxes of wine, some other healthier provisions and logs for the fire. As we were walking around, I kept hearing a tweeting, like birds. Then I saw a small house sparrow hopping around the aisles. I thought he'd come in and become trapped, but then there was more tweeting and I spotted a whole flock of them. I guess they live in the supermarket and in cold, inhospitable Moutiers, it makes a lot of sense.

On the third day, we decided to ski the other side of the valley at Les Menuires. I felt a bit stiff from my fall on the first day and wasn't skiing well. We planned to reach the Pointe de la Masse at 2800m and took Masse 1 cable car and then skied down Vallons to Masse 2, but it was very busy and we bailed out to go back to Les Menuires. There was a steep blue (Les Enverses) and the snow was quite banked and uncompacted. I took another sharp fall and cracked my left arm, broke my goggles and lost my inserts. This one really hurt and I thought I'd broken my upper arm. I was quite looking forward to a ride down in the the Mountain Rescue Ski-Doo, but then I came to my senses, the pain cleared and I realised I wasn't in for a free ride. My goggles strap had snapped open, my inserts were gone and so it was with blurred eyes that I managed to get down to Les Menuires for a hot chocolate (medicinal). I wasn't up for skiing back and so I took the bus back to Saint-Martin with my tail between my legs.

I don't know why I'm skiing so badly this year. It's two years since I skied and I have new skis, but I suspect the problem is my age, but mainly my weight and lack of fitness. I have put on half a stone in weight over Christmas and I'm now 15st 6lbs (216lbs). Before next year, I need to cycle, ski and skip. If I was two stones lighter, I'd bounce better. As it is, I'm feeling pretty sore!

Arthur's first taste of apres ski

When I got home, Margaret, Arthur and I had a walk around town, popped into the supermarket for bread and sympathy from the nice French lady and then went for apres ski at Dahlia cafe. This was Arthur's first apres ski, but no gluhwein for him. He was very happy to have a look around though.

The next day, I felt so beaten up and sore that I stayed in the chalet with Margaret and Arthur. It was nice to spend time with them and see some more of Arthur. Margaret has been playing the part of chalet maid and (on account of the cold and snow) hasn't been out of the chalet apart from with me. She has been enjoying her time with Arthur and, despite having a cold and cough, he is a very accommodating child, happy and content to play on his own for a while with his toys. He can sit up and roll over, also crawl on his hands and knees, but prefers to have things brought to him. To wave, he clenches and unclenches his fist or rolls his fingers and this is also an indication that he's about to do something “naughty” like crawl over and play with the logs. Margaret has been teaching him to throw a ball, which is a game he loves, but now he throws anything he has in his hand. She may have created some trouble!

It was Sam's birthday and I don't think he's entirely happy being 34. They skied across to Courchevel in the morning to do a run called 'Indiens' which is Lucy's favourite and were back for lunch at 1.30 with Margaret, Arthur and me. That's pretty good going as Courchevel is the furthest of the three valleys, so it's a lot of lifts and runs. Lucy was pretty pooped, but we ate at L'Alp restaurant – nice, but with the most minimal menu I've ever seen. You could have burger or plat de jour and one choice of pudding. I had plat de jour (Chinese chicken and noodles) and it was good but not in the Savoyard tradition. Arthur was getting a bit fractious by the end so we took him home and then Margaret and I went down into town, did some souvenir shopping, ordered a rotisserie chicken for dinner and got another bag of logs (the fire uses a lot of logs!).

On Thursday, I still felt too beaten about to fancy skiing. I really worried about falling again. Sam and Lucy went out in the morning and had tried to ski along to Val Thorens, but the first piste had been rough with lots of moguls and they'd decided it was no fun. After skiing in Les Menuires, they'd headed home after lunch. I went out in the afternoon for a ski on some blues above Saint-Martin and then we skied across to Les Menuires (down those scary greens) and had a beer in the sun. Sam skied back, but I was happy not to have fallen, so I hopped in the free ski bus.

It's amazing how quickly the week goes by. It's our last day and we decided to drive up to Val Thorens and ski there for the day. At 2400m, Val Thorens is 1000m higher than Saint-Martin and it was much colder when out of the sun. The snow is thicker, but has been blown off the higher points, so off-piste skiing is still not really practicable. We had a good morning's skiing, but I kept to very easy slopes and then we stopped for lunch. In the afternoon, the wind had really picked up and had blown soft powder snow over the pistes. It was bitter cold. Sam and Lucy had decided to ski back as it was the last day and I drove down happy to have had two days without crashing.

Getting home is always a slog. For Sam and Lucy and Arthur, it was a very early start to get back to Geneva, drop off the hire car and catch a 12.30pm flight back to Jersey. We set off about 7am. It was cold – as low as -15C after Albertville and a little foggy. But we made good time and once the sun was up it was a lovely day (although it remained below freezing pretty much the whole journey). We caught an earlier ferry (which was full of rough Scots on a coach home and Romanians heading for work in the UK). We got home at 9.30pm, so a pretty good run all in all.