I wrote nothing on Monday because I did nothing! We woke up to snow and a temperature of 0 degrees F - that's more than -17 degrees C. I decided not to take my recovering bronchitis out in that, so I stayed indoors all day. The snow stopped after lunch and it did warm up a bit, but I didn't go out. The weather report said that Tuesday would be sunny, so my skiing was postponed until today.
Today was lovely and sunny, so I put on all the gear including the big knee braces. Then I tried to put on my boots, and that was a disaster. Paul persuaded me to buy boots two years ago when we were last here, on the grounds that buying was cheaper than hiring every year. At the end of our holiday, I bought a pair that were exactly the same as the rental boots I had been wearing for two weeks, and they were very comfortable. However, we didn't ski last year because of Paul rupturing his Achilles Tendon, so they have never been used. This year, my feet and legs are a completely different shape, and the boots were really painful. I clearly couldn't wear them to ski, the left one was agony and I couldn't do up the right one at all!
So, we took them back to the shop where we had bought them, to see if they could help. They didn't sell boots any more; however, they adjusted the position of the buckles so that they weren't so tight, but the boots were still uncomfortable. So I tried on umpteen rental boots, and they were all uncomfortable. They sent us to another shop to try a different make of rental boot, and I managed to find something there that I could bear to have on my foot. They said they would think about whether anything might be done with my own boots, so we left them there, and i took the rental boots to try out. It was by then 12.30, so we went back to have something to eat and collect our skis and poles. When we got back just after 2 with my skis, they adjusted the skis for the rental boots and we set off. I found it really hard to walk in the heavy ski boots, and had to stop to breathe every 10 steps or so, so we made very slow progress to the bus stop to catch a bus the rest of the way to the snow.
I found the afternoon snow very sticky, and started to dislike the skis Paul had bought for me. He says I have to give them a chance on better snow. I started on the beginners button lift, just to see if I could remember what to do. It was slow going at first, I found turning difficult, in spite of the fact the new skis are short. After a few goes on the beginners slope, I felt ready to tackle something else, and we skied down to the Quicksilver chair, a 6 man chair, where I managed not to fall over, either getting on or getting off. The snow higher up was slightly less sticky, but still made my turns difficult. I did manage to stop to take some pictures.
That is the slope I am just about to ski down, that is my shadow you can see, and Paul waiting for me a bit further down the slope. My shadow looks quite a strange shape because my ski jacket is open - it was really quite hot in the afternoon. The sun was quite low by then, so photographs were difficult.
You can see that this run wasn't crowded - most people had gone home already. When my legs became tired, I thought I'd better call it a day too, and we went to catch the bus back to the village so I could go back to the shop to see if they had been able to do anything with the unsatisfactory boots.
Once again, I found walking in the ski boots really difficult, and went very slowly. The shop expert had no suggestions to make about my boots - he said they were too big for my feet, which seemed strange when my problem was that they hurt my ankles. So I put my hiking boots back on, and we went off to try to catch the very last bus back to the Inn. Unfortunately, we missed it, so we had to walk home. This took a very long time as far as I was concerned, since I was out of breath all the time, and had to keep stopping to rest. While I was resting, I took some photos in French Street, where there are some historic buildings. I don't know if this one is really old, but it certainly looks a though it is
I was extremely short of breath and had to sit with the oxygen on when I got back, hoping to feel a bit better before too long.
The irritating thing is that the problem still isn't solved, and we have to go out again tomorrow to see if we can get a boot fitter to manipulate the interior parts of the boots to make them fit without hurting. This will undoubtedly mean more walking about with huge heavy ski boots on, and getting exhausted and out of breath again.
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