Vacances d'Hiver

Les Squarking Princesses au Ski

School half term is upon us and the Princesses have a full fortnight in which to enjoy the rainy and inclement weather. We decided to begin on a high note; we went skiing. This entails driving for an hour and forty minutes up a mountain in third gear. It is impossible to get out of third gear the entire way but Princess 1 was driving and she wasn’t worried. Third gear is her favourite, she assured us, you know where you are with third.
Le Comte didn’t come, of course, he was busy repairing a ceiling in the new gite so it doesn’t fall down on the Happy Holidaymakers when they arrive in the summer. Four of us went altogether; the two squarking Princesses, a small friend called Gnoémie, and I. I am the least good at skiing out of all of us. Actually out of all the people at the ski station, but I don’t let it worry me. I descend with grace and style, sometimes on my bottom, sometimes on the skis, depending how I feel. I suffer from the same disadvantages, I maintain, as the British Olympic Ski team; we just weren’t born to it. Imagine being brought up in Switzerland where you probably have to ski everyday; ski to school, ski to milk your cow, ski to buy your cheese, cuckoo clocks and other Swiss essentials. Basically you would leap out of bed in the morning and onto your skis. You would spend your entire life hanging out on skis. On the other hand, those of us who grew up in Central Southern England never saw a pair of skis except on the telly. We hung out in swimming pools and bus shelters and to get there we either walked or cycled. No one skied to the bus shelter.
Little surprise then, that I am not a skiing expert. The princesses, it must be admitted, aren’t much better, but they have time on their side.

Following the relatively successful day of skiing, the Princesses took to their boudoirs to recover from the taxing six weeks they had just spent at school, descending to the Chateau kitchens late every afternoon to make a new batch of banana and coconut muffins. By Thursday morning le Comte was heard making choking noises which we took to indicate that he felt they were sufficiently rested and their presence in the Coldspot gardens would be appreciated. So it was that after a leisurely lunch, while I was busy moving a small mountain with my wheelbarrow and le Comte was doing complicated things with pipes and cement, they tied their hair into pony tails, pulled on their wellington boots and took themselves off to weed the raspberry patch. They were accompanied by Bubble the Cat, who is also usually found reclining in a boudoir.
The raspberry patch is large but the princesses persevered with rake and spade for just over an hour before Princess 2 was despatched back to the kitchens in search of refreshment. Le Comte spotted her squeezing through the back door carrying two serviettes full of buns; a picnic was obviously in order. Somewhat restored they continued for much longer than anyone expected and actually made significant progress. Le Comte and I attribute this un-princess-like behaviour to a genuine love of raspberries and even more genuine wish to be taken skiing again next week.