Friday 19 March 2014

We don’t have half-term here. Instead, we have a two-week ‘vacances d’hiver’ (winter holiday) at the end of February or beginning of March. Holiday dates are staggered across France so the ski fields don’t get too crowded.

We made full use of this year’s winter holiday and spent a week in the mountains. Every morning, the children went to ski school, leaving us free to explore the slopes. And by the end of the week, they had passed their ‘flocon’ (snowflake) medal and could keep up with us anywhere.

I have been skiing four times in the last 20 years – twice 20 years ago, then last year and this year. But until last year, I had never had a ski lesson. Poor student status made that impossible. Last year and this I treated myself to a couple of private lessons and learned a whole host of techniques.

Armed with these techniques, I now understand what to do. But it hasn’t made me a better skier than the 20-year-old me – completely unskilled but fearless, childless and unaware of the damage it could do to my knees. Now, I am prone to try too hard and find it harder to just relax and go with it.

It is difficult to find a balance between effort and surrender – expressed beautifully in the Serenity Prayer:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

Religious or secular, there is no arguing with that.

Filed under: Happy Coulson

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