My Duret Free 180 is waxed and some minor damage to the tail of one of my Volkl P30s has been repaired, all again thanks to the good people at Caribou Sport. The laundry is done and dry. The phone line has been secured. The packing will soon be finished, and then the big tidy-up can get properly underway.

I’ve treated Holly and Chris to pizza for lunch: I didn’t want to do any more washing up. I’ve got plenty of fridge and bathroom to clean as it is.

Today was the last day of skiing so back to Avoriaz to take it easy. Sjek has taken to the sport like a duck to water, and suddenly went tearing down Combe des Crêtes with me on the monoski barely able to catch up. I could see the adrenaline flush on her face when she stopped: terrified but clearly loving it!

Over the ten days or so that I’ve used the monoski I feel that I’ve really taken to it. My original reasons for buying one and trying it were:

“Salut, monoskieur!”

“Salut, monoskieur! Ça va?”

“Très bien! Et vous?”

“J’adore le monoski!”

Skiers and snowboarders alike seem to have a hate-hate relationship with button lifts. I understand why. Compared to the chair lift — in my mind the most sophisticated and comfortable way to get oneself up a mountainside, and certainly the most convenient as one doesn’t have to remove skis/boards and walk around like a stormtrooper or cyberman — the button lift is something of a brute.

As we headed up the chair lift to the top of Super-Morzine we began to feel a gentle breeze. Nothing particularly strong, and not continuous but more like breathing. Foehn! True to yesterday’s “joke” I took Sjek off-piste. Just a short way off Seraussaix which we could have walked, but it’s much easier to move in deep powder on skis than in shoes. A short distance from the Alpage de Seraussaix we planted our skis and Sjek prepared her kite.

Yesterday the conditions in Morzine, Les Gets and Avoriaz we awful: rain during the night had turned snow into slush, and packed snow into ice. The walk from the flat into town was treacherous, and the people I spoke to in the town had stories of their own small personal disasters from bad falls to car crashes. The pistes were carnage too: visibility was poor to non-existent thanks to the high humidity condensing on goggles and glasses; constantly falling snow, slush and rain made visibility even worse; leg-breaker snow jostled for prime positioning on the slopes with ice patches.