Skiing - kind of

We spent last week up in the French Alps, in a lovely little village called St Gervais les Bains. We went with some friends from Paris and rented a gite together.

The plan was laid out fairly carefully. Malik would go be at the creche, Kirin would go to ski school and Johanna and I would spend the mornings at least skiing.

Despite the story that is suggested by the photographs above, it didn't quite work out like that. Kirin didn't like ski school (he apparently cried for the duration of the first two hour lesson) and so we took him out of it and spent only one morning each doing any skiing ourselves.


I think we underestimated just how tough it must have been for Kirin. It was all in French, he didn't really know anyone and the French are – how shall I say it – a bit tougher on the kids. Parents are prohibited from hanging around and the teachers/instructors aren't too forgiving when it comes to a crying child.

Johanna saw another little bawling his eyes out saying, "Maman! Maman!". The instructor's reply was to rub his eyes to pretend to be crying, and sarcastically say, "Mais non, mais non!", in a mocking sort of way.

I'm sure it works for French kids who are used to this thing but it wasn't right for us or Kirin. I am already working on convincing Johanna that things are done differently in Canadian ski schools; friendly, smiling types who offer lots of hot chocolate and empathy. Can any of you Canucks back me up on that (Sara? Andrew?)?




In the end, we still had a good time being in the mountains with the boys. Kirin loved the snow and wearing a ski suit and sunglasses. Malik was as lovely as always, just pottering about walking, walking, walking. And some stunning sunshine and weather. You could literally ski in a T-shirt if you were crazy enough to want to do that.