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Day 1:
My girlfriend Joyce and I are in Pal Arinsal in Andorra on our first ever ski-trip. Our first day we join the absolute, absolute beginner’s class. There are 13 in our group plus our teacher – she introduces herself as ‘Ronnie’ saying we’d have too much difficulty with her full name. I’m a little surprised and not a little offended when I find out her full name is ‘Veronica’ but soon realise the wisdom of the abbreviation when I first have to scream “What the fuck do I do now – Ronnie?” whilst plummeting down the slope. I start to call her ‘Ron’.

The first lessons involve standing in a line down a slight hill and then taking it in turns to ski down this hill. To ski down you have to point the skis into an upside down ‘V’ widening the ‘V’ as you go to slow yourself down. This is known as the ‘Snow-Plough’. Skiing with the skis parallel (known as ‘Parallel Skiing’) only makes you go faster so in order to slow down to a stop you have to keep widening the snow plough. Simple. Oh yes and you must lean forward as much as possible. Easy. Oh yeah and bend your knees slightly and forward. Okay. And put all your weight onto your downward ski. Eh…. And we’re off. And off. And off. Without exception every-one of us falls over on our first attempt. Without exception every-one of us finds the experience absolutely hilarious with Joyce threatening to bring on an avalanche. Falling over is a marvellously simple way of stopping and you don’t get hurt (mostly). Basically you abandon all hope and crash to your side into the snow and providing you’re wearing the appropriate covering – i.e. clothes – you should be fine.

The afternoon lesson is different and a lot more nerve-wracking. This time we learn how to turn. This simply involves doing exactly what we did before but this time as you ski down, turning your head (and only your head) to the right you will ski to the right and vice versa to the left. We all dismiss this with ridicule and a communal laugh that sees four of us on the ground.

Anyway amazingly this works – at least for a couple of seconds after which shocked at the sudden change of direction I forget to keep using the snow plough, then forget to going back to using it, then forget to even stop and go sailing on into the ‘Orange Netting’. Well not quite, seeing the orange netting my panic escalates into a reaction and I – fall sideways. It is some time before I climb back up to the others – but they seem to have carried happily on without me.

DAY 2:
Before long I get a reputation as a “Some-one who will crash into you.” The only solution is for me to go first each time but this of course proves no problem to me as I promptly plough into a completely different group who are just lining up for their instructions. I manage to take four or five with me before I hit the ground – quite a good tally I think. I don’t really know if they do as they all appear to be Italian and their excited yells and yelps could be shrieks of laughter or phrases ending in ‘… your mother!!’. I take my leave – and my skis.

DAY 3:
Ronnie assembles us all in a line and tells us that now she wants us to make a perfect descent. We are to go one after another in a line following exactly the turns of the skier in front until we reach the bottom in a perfect line.

We take off. That’s when I see another absolute, absolute beginner heading straight for me with his instructor roaring at him to stop. Luckily he does and I ski on comfortably but the instructor then turns to me and shouts ‘You’re supposed to look before you head out!’ - now obviously the right and proper way to deal with such uncalled-for abuse is to simply toss one’s head, smile sardonically, and calmly cry – “Oh go fuck yourself you fuck you!” – alas I manage only to toss the head and utter a plaintive ‘Wha’?” before I lose control completely and go thundering down the mountain skis as parallel as the length I am leaning back is long. I do hear Ronnie shouting ‘Snow-plough’ ; ‘Snow-plough!’; ‘Wider!’ but I suspect these are the cries of yesterday as I have now well passed the speed of sound and giving light a good run for his money. The ‘Orange netting’ beckons and at its very familiarity I calm down and manage to effect a slight turn, a small snow-plough before ploughing straight into it.

DAY 4:
You have to bear in mind we are at a very high altitude with the air being very thin – and I’m a man who likes his air. Also as we go higher up the slopes the air becomes thinner and the need for deep breaths becomes greater. So you can imagine my shock and horror when I realise that today we are going way, way up the mountain in chair-lifts to a huge height with the idea being to ski back down.

Joyce has completely overcome her fear of heights by this time so to compensate I have acquired it wholesale. We stand in a line like skittles waiting for the chair to swing around behind us, scoop us up and into the air. As soon as it does I fall back into the seat and we shoot up into the sky. Within seconds we are six feet off the ground and I want to get off. The bar comes down over our head, Joyce grabs it and pulls it down over our laps and I want to get off. 10 feet off the ground. Total panic takes over, I gasp for air and more air. I clutch on tightly to the bar, taking deep breath after deep breath, this is absolutely hellish and the air is getting thinner.

Finally we get to our starting point and I look around to take in the scenery. I take a good hard look, because I know I will never be up here again! Everywhere on the slopes, indeed in Andorra, the scenery is stunning, but up here it is simply spectacular. Although the area is crowded and filled with the noise of the ski-lifts arriving, turning and leaving, you can still hear the silence and peace of the place. All around is white – it’s like being in a snow cave. Still I can’t wait to get back down.

This is where all that Ronnie has been teaching us is to come into play. Particularly the fine art of turning. The fine art that I have not remotely mastered. Every time I take a turn to the left I start to veer off at phenomenal speed and the only way to stop that is to turn to the right at which point I start to veer off at phenomenal speed, albeit in a different direction

Eventually we’re there, we come to a hill which thankfully slopes up at the end and we stop and I can see just over the hill the roof of the main ski-clubhouse. I am surprised, that wasn’t so bad and very quick too. ‘God! We must be nearly half-way!” says some-one. I laugh and say “Jesus don’t frighten me!” Ronnie laughs as well – “No! – We are not even a third!” – What?!!! “Hokay – off we go!” And off we do, over the hill to see a completely different building from the main club-house on the other side and a long, long descent ahead of us! Oh dear God in Heaven.

The rest of the way down is up and down physically and emotionally. Some-times I’m doing fine and start to enjoy it, brimming with confidence and then some very skilled and proficient skier will come flying down the mountain and fly past me with withering contempt and I am all over the place again.

Finally it ends. After an hour or so we reach the real club-house – the ‘Orange Netting’ waving happily in welcome. Ronnie then informs us that the afternoon lesson will be the same again but this time much faster! No ma’am. Before we take a break she gives us a quick lesson in parallel skiing. This involves – well the obvious plus standing up in our boots on our toes then turning to the right sinking slowly down, into a widening slow-plough and coming to a perfect stop.

When my turn comes I do the first bit perfectly (Ronnie shouts ‘Ex-Cell-Ent!’) but then I have long since mastered the art of going forward very, very fast. The problem comes when I turn, firstly it’s slightly too early and I turn and find myself facing the rest of the group in a line. The shock of this makes me forget to do everything else and I continue to parallel, stand bolt upright on my toes then add to the effect by – leaning back. I don’t know quite which two of the group I plunge through (in their terror all faces look the same) I only know they don’t stop me and I bomb on ahead. In front I can see a mother and child sitting upon the snow laughing and playing – oh no. That’s it, no more snow-plough, no more ‘wider, wider, wider’! time for Stop! TIMBER! – and I swing to the side and down – smash, bang on the ground. There is a silence then a cry of – ‘My-Kel? Are you all right?’ I look up from the ground in surprise. The others are all looking at me in. I’m fine, what is wrong with these people? Don’t they realise that of all the skills I have acquired in the past few days the one I have developed to an artistic high has been the ‘falling over sideways’ manoeuvre.

I am about to laugh and get up when I see my chance. I utter a low moan – ‘Ooh, ooh.’ And slowly climb to my feet. I resist the temptation to go “Ronnie I’m after fallin’” and instead hobble up to the others bravely. In short I have my excuse never to go up that damned mountain again.

DAY 5:
And so my skiing ends. The final day while the rest of the class tackle Everest again – I, the hobbling wounded, cheer them on from the bar in the Clubhouse. I’ve done my bit, I have conquered the mountain – well an honourable draw – and now I intend to conquer the bar, a much more attractive and feasible option. Maybe one day I will go skiing again, maybe one day I will tackle another mad mountain - and maybe one day, one day I WILL do a snow-plough.