What did i do?

Mary, (see various comments, her web site being temporarily compromised and unsafe to link to) writes from Canada informing me that a three-day holiday period, organised around Victoria Day, has just come to a close.

Conveniently so because Queen Victoria (of England) died in 1902 and is largely forgotten at home except for the fact that one of Central London’s main railway stations is named after her and that ‘she would not be amused’.

As a kid I lived outside London in the suburbs and only went up to town twice a year – once to see the Christmas Lights and once to go to Victoria Station.

A trip to a railway terminus was not, in itself, seen as an exciting day out for those marooned in suburbia, but was an occasion for my family to get together with Fred and Mary ( a different one).

Fred and Mary lived “up north” – I had no idea where that was exactly, but it was certainly some way from Orpington – and every year they went skiing, and although ‘north’ suggests snow and ice I have a feeling it was Preston and likely as much to be raining.

So they travelled south and headed for Alps or Pyrenees or whatever those other ones are called (I’m not a skier) and this meant getting to Victoria station, which, at the time was a gateway to the Continent.

I didn’t know anyone who skied but once a year in Victoria Station there was at least a train full of bobble-hatted enthusiasts, all carrying planks of wood over one shoulder, and among them Fred and Mary.

The station’s forecourt was an exotic place; apart from the dangerous men and women preparing to hurtle down foreign ice there were the names on the destination board: Budapest, Paris, Vienna – I was used to ‘Chislehurst, Petts Wood and Orpington, The Orpington and Sevenoaks train is now at platform three.”

Budapest – it still sounds exotic today and by train would be the only, romantic, way to go.

It’s funny thinking back, it is impossible that all we ever did was meet them at the station and then say goodbye until the next year, but I have no memory of them coming to stay or us going out for dinner together.

If my memory is anything to go by perhaps everyone else did, leaving me standing there, staring at the departures board. They must have returned hours later after wining and dinning, to take me home.

Given a choice between Skiing and travelling to Budapest I would choose the potential of playing chess, naked, in a hot bath with overweight Hungarians over having wet snow dropped down my shirt by an uncooperative ski slope any day.

The last time I went skiing, thankfully a few years ago now followed the same pattern as every year: Arrival at ski station, parting of ways with a lot of money, saying goodbye to my son who disappears to the top of Everest and joining a long queue of beginners on the pre-natal slopes.

After a few hours of carefully negotiating every hillock and demonstrating complete inability to control a descent I venture to the next level and sit on the button lift that takes me to the nursery slope.

Half way up I remember that this is a mistake, close my eyes and pray; I don’t have any one god in mind – any that are listening will do, and then I let go, fall over and walk sideways all the way down.

The last time, out of frustration, I returned the skis and hired a snowboard. I like trying to learn new things and it is that initial battle of wits over element that I can enjoy.

I asked a very cool looking snow- babe to give me a few quick hints – pad your bum - and then set off for a corner to practice.
It took me an hour to work out how to go up a button lift on only one piece of wood and then I set off.

I don’t get it.

One moment I’m facing DOWN the slope the next I’m facing UP the slope. But the piece of wood is still travelling downwards.

What did I do?

And what do I do next?