Tuesday 22nd December – Sunday 27th December

Got up to yet again more rain, grabbed our ski stuff and caught the free bus up to the ski station. Had our first lesson with our instructor Oliver. Learnt the basics to get us started and more importantly stopping. After the lesson and a little practise we headed up to tackle our first green ski run (green being the easier runs, blue harder and red and black ones we won’t be touching for a long time!). We did fine if not very slow until the final part where the green run was closed and we had to go down a steep blue part. Well I went head over heals and a ski came off and I landed on my face! But never less I was now hooked on skiing.

The next day we got up early again and off to our second lesson in almost blizzard conditions, not much visibility on the slopes. We learnt some more including harder turning and did some more runs. Then headed back to motorhome very wet and cold.

Christmas eve we got up to heavier rain and aching limbs and decided to have a day off skiing and stay inside warm and dry.
Christmas day, woke up cold so heater and water on to boil. Well wouldn’t you believe it we run out of Gas! What a day to run out. So I wondered round the village in the vain hope we could get a bottle, a couple of shops were open but no gas. We knew the supermarkets etc that sold the bottles would be shut, but we headed back down from Gavarnie with the hope a Campsite we had seen would be open to sell us a bottle. Luckily they were up and open so a brand new bottle was bought, as they didn’t have the type we had for us to exchange our empty one. So at least now we could be warm for Christmas as well as being able to cook. But now the rush was on to get back to the Village and get some breakfast and catch the second and last bus to the ski station for our Christmas day skiing. After some very quickly eaten toast and tea, we managed just to the get the bus. When we got up to the ski station the sun was out and we could finally see the views of the mountains from the slopes. We had a few hours of good weather skiing, although the snow was rather icy, some chips and beer. Then we decided to do the high run, although still only a green, starting 2400 metres up. It was wonderful views and scenery coming down. Then back to the motorhome for wine and a lovely Christmas veg roast dinner Lorna managed to cook up on 2 hobs. The Skillet we purchased (two large pans that fit over each other creating a mini oven) has so far been a great investment. Then presents and more wine, good times.

Boxing day it was back up to the slopes for our third and last lesson with Oliver, this mainly due to the cost! The weather yet again was almost blizzard, but Oliver took us on some blue runs, to make sure we were turning well. Because of the weather and not being really able to see in front of us, we had a short day and back to the motorhome to do some Christmas over indulgence on food and wine, and even a film on the laptop.

Sunday was our last day skiing, as much as we were enjoying it, it’s not the cheapest. It was a lovely sunny day and there had been snow last night so the slopes were great to ski on. We did some more blue runs ourselves from the top and had a great day skiing, enjoying all the views. The time had now come though to return our Boot’s and ski’s. So we said goodbye to Gavarnie and headed back to the aire at Pierrefitte-Nestalas. We had really enjoyed the last day skiing, feeling like we were getting it right and able to actually ski, so hopefully this wont be our last time on the slopes.