Lesson Two

Yesterday I bit the bullet and bought some teach yourself French books. I got an Assimil course, which everyone at work says are amongst the best, and a little noddy book to fill gaps at airports etc. One of the things I like about the Assimil course is that you get a book, with the French on one page, and the English on the facing page, which accompany the audio CDs. This seems like a sensible approach, so we'll see. I will be enrolling on a course at the University at the end of March, but I missed the boat for the current 3 month course which started as I arrived in France. Trying to organise a course has been much harder than expected, because when I phoned a few up, I was greeted in French. I know enough to ask if they speak English or even if there's someone else there who does. Invariably there was no one. Not much bloody use for lanuguage schools methinks, and the guys at work were in hysterics as they took the phone receiver off me to bale me out. Anyhow, these DIY courses are really just to use the 2 months before the course starts to try and get my standard up a bit from the O-Level French I recall from years ago (which is more than I ever dreamed I would remember and is certainly more than most other O-levels I did).

Today I went skiing again, for my second time ever, this time at Le Mourtis. I tried to ignore any obvious Latin derivation as it was supposed to be a family resort and I doubt they would be getting away with killing infants on black runs. I thought I'd have started a bit better than I did too and was soon quite glad I'd opted for the insurance option for 2.50 euros. On my first run down, on a proper slope today and not the practice area, I think I invented a new stopping technique. It is loosely modelled on a fairly common one used when hurtling into the run off area with no chance of coming to a gracefull halt; after falling over as in the standard method, procede to rotate 180 degrees before sliding into the netting in a starfish pose head first. No damage done other than to the ego, but there were lots of beginners here and I wasn't the only one falling over, although I did seem to be the only one all over the place. The next few runs were much better, and in fact there was no more falling over after the first 20 minutes. I did about 8 0r 9 runs altogether, and although I wouldn't say they got progressivley better (the last was another shocker which I'll put down to tiredness) there has definitely been a big improvement. I reckon if I did a week solid I'd be flying, but I suspect it will be two steps forward and one back as a weekend skier. If only the job didn't get in the way of the real reason for being here! I'm even more convinced now that skiing was the right first choice over snowboarding. I've now got the hang of button lifts, which basically drag you up the slope by your arse, and this is actually not so difficult with one ski either side of the pole as you balance. The snowboarders seem to find this more awkard because they don't get to face forward up the slope and it's easier for them to get dragged over. It really does look much harder than skiing, although it definitely looks cooler too.