Although I had decided to stay off the planks for my week in Austria, it seems that I was open to persuasion on this matter. Wandering into the hotel bar on Sunday evening following a very pleasant excursion in Salzburg with The Tour Operator, I was summoned for an audience with The Woodman. He had a suggestion for me that involved sticking the planks on for one day and before I had time to say that Franz Klammer was king of the planks when I was a nipper, I had agreed to resurrect my skiing career.

And so it came to pass on Wednesday morning that I found myself donning some borrowed apparel, boarding the ski bus to the slopes, hiring some very comfy boots and heading on up the hill. It felt good to click the planks back on. Following a wee tactical chat with The Woodman a few tentative forward movements were made. Memories of previous excursions soon returned and before too long I was shifting my weight at appropriate times and even had some beautiful spells of feeling balanced and in control. We only did 4 or 5 runs before calling it quits as the snow was, by that time, starting to get soft. Skiing in soft snow is not much fun so we stopped off for a bit of nosh.

It had been a lovely days skiing and my thanks must go to The Woodman. He’s a good lad.