October 1st, 2009 by mat
As the wait for the snow continues I have been reduced to reading Babar to start the ski education of 4 and a half month old Josh. He is not quite as animated as he is with the hungry caterpillar but I think the message is being slowly digested. Babar at one point does not listen to his dad, breaks a ski and ends up in his dads back pack. Hopefully I will be able to pick up his skis as soon as they are back in the shops, over the summer there was not a shop in Innsbruck that was stocking skis for sub-1 year old skiers. Komisch as they say in Tirol!
June 9th, 2009 by mat
Not a Photoshop edit, maybe a dream but genuine all the same – image © ineedsnow.com
Even in my wildly optimistic predictions my son is unlikely to join me glacier skiing this summer. At 37 days old, I am not 100% sure his balance is there yet; the heart and the head yes, but the finer, peripheral details might take a little longer. Equipment is certainly an issue – with my wife on the cusp of labour 38 / 39 days ago I detoured to the local ski shop in Innsbruck in search of skis. I left the shop with the smallest ski goggles you can imagine – the owner of the shop it seems was unable to kit out a child with skis (of indeterminate gender) who was approximately minus 2 days old ????? I left confused but clutching hope and the goggles.
But as of May 3rd 2009, I am now officially a family skier. For years I have offered the best advice I can to families, albeit without first hand knowledge. I always drew a mental picture of what a client and their family needed from a family ski holiday. No resort is perfect but generally ski buses, resort road traffic, après ski, tough slopes, long transfers, treeless slopes and language barriers are generally negatives. Over the past 30 or so years I have learnt to ski, have skied out of season, chased down après ski, taken on some tough skiing and gradually built up a reasonable knowledge base of the ski options that are dotted across the world. I would be mortified if I had ever wrongly sold a ski holiday but until now family skiing was always something based on consideration and judgement rather than experience. That is all set to change now, my next overnight ski holiday is sure to include a son and a wholly new set of values for me. Bring it on! But in many respects I am back to the basics on this one – 39 years old maybe and able to ski the range of terrain here in Innsbruck but in every family aspect I am an absolute novice – it seems I can’t even provide the right equipment. Maybe another trip to the specialist ski shop in Innsbruck is now in order at 37 days (positive) old?