I went for lunch with my brother for his birthday. He was just back from his skiing holiday so I asked how it went. Himself and a bunch of guys from school plus one random Dubliner had gone together. A great time was had by all. Loads of snow. His friend W (with whom he shared a room in their accommodation) had insisted on a fancy hotel and my brother dwelt for some time on the waste of this when they would only be using it for sleeping. He’s not a big believer in a luxury hotel.
He hurt his knee on the last day (taken out by one of the more inexperienced skiers in the group who the other lads had taken on a black run, no one but himself to blame – though when he clarified that the injury was acquired by the guy skiing into him when getting off the chair lift I was v mildly sympathetic). Anyway you will be pleased to hear that it is much better now.
We chatted some more. We consumed lunch. Then he said, “You know your friend J from school?” Obviously I do. “Well her brother was on the trip.” “He was in the resort with his family and you saw him?” I asked. “No, he was on the trip with us, he was the year ahead of me in school and one of the guys in my year was friends with him.” I exclaimed over the amazing coincidence. “Did you talk about me and J at all?” “No,” said he. Fine. Pause. “I asked him whether he’d ever been over to Vermont (where she lives) to ski with her?” Fine.
We left the restaurant to walk back to our offices. He was limp free so my knee sympathy had entirely expired. “How did you find sharing a room with W anyway?” I asked just before we went our separate ways (I am a grown-up I no longer share rooms with my friends when we go away and I like it). “Oh well, it wasn’t for long, he got wiped out on the first day, broke his collar bone, went to the hospital and had two pins put in. I thought he’d stay on but he went home.” Was he stretchered down the mountain? He was. As he was being trussed up, my brother, the Job’s comforter, remembered an article I had read him from the local paper when I visited him in France a couple of years ago. This article was about a skier who had an accident on the slopes and was being skied back to safety by someone pushing a stretcher; as he was being taken down the mountain a skier took out the guy pushing the stretcher and the stretcher went flying down the mountain where it was finally stopped by some trees but having started with a simple broken leg the skier had much more serious injuries after this. And obviously trussed up like a chicken there was absolutely nothing he could do in his stretcher to halt its breakneck progress. Some people might have thought this wasn’t a great story to tell a friend about to be taken down the mountain to hospital in the exact same way but not my brother. I suppose they have been friends for well over 40 years so this won’t be the end of it but surely W was sorely tried.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that maybe a great time was not had by absolutely everyone.
A memorable trip, if not a completely enjoyable one. I’d be curious to know if J ever did go to Vermont to visit his sister and ski and if so, how he found the skiing. I suspect it was quite different from that found in Europe. I learned to ski in Vermont as a child and didn’t enjoy it much for the first couple of seasons (while I was learning and falling down a lot) because the slopes tend to be icy and landing on them is painful. It wasn’t until I was in college that I went to ski in Colorado and discovered the joys of deep powder. Now I live in Virginia, with no worthwhile slopes nearby, and am married to a man who grew up in Florida waterskiing but not snow skiing.