Joyeux Noel/The Art of War

“No plan,” wrote Sun Tzu, “survives engagement with the enemy.”

Snowboarding on Christmas Day.
Is that Jesus' light shining on me?

In this case the enemy takes the form of a French youth wearing a baggy patterned ski jacket that would have embarrassed the cast of Miami Vice. He’s skiing backward, doing a jump – a not-quite-in-control jump – off a crest, heading towards Emma. She catches him in the corner of her eye, loses concentration, her lower ski accelerates away and back up the slope, and the result is a twisting crash she doesn’t get up from.

The youth? The youth skis on.

That evening is spent yo-yoing between the Cabinet Médicale and the X-ray clinic, finally to find that the doctor can’t get the X-ray results up on screen. He hands back our €70 and asks Emma to ring him tomorrow morning – which is Christmas Day – at 9.00, by when he’ll have worked out the problem.

Emma, meantime, is determined that injury is no reason to abandon glamour, and encamps on the sofa wearing her favourite Audrey Hepburn sunglasses.

Roll the clock forward 24 hours. Diagnosis: a strain or possible tear to the knee ligaments. A brace and crutches initially, walk a bit each day, should be walking around fine in 10 days. Skiing again? A month. Sounds bad, but we have good friends with worse health worries at the moment.

The next day, I see someone from last week's Christmas drinks party being stretchered down from the exact-same spot where Emma crashed. Her friends are in the pharmacy on Boxing Day: torn calf muscles, a dislocated shoulder, and a broken collarbone.

Today, the New Year crowds have descended in earnest, and the snow's thinned out by about the same degree.

There’s only one run open at Seignus, and it looks a bit like the Tamworth Snowdome on its busiest night of the year. The slopes are crowded with men who make the drunken-English-stockbroker, let’s-go-straight-downhill Val d’Isere crowd look like models of consideration and caution. 

I decide discretion is the better part of valour, and stick my nose into The Singapore Grip.

First snow

Hard snow on Thursday and Friday buries the van, and lets the pisties start to get down a good bed. That and the fact that every night since we arrived, I’ve fallen asleep to the sound of snow cannon across the valley. The mutt likes it, the hard crust in the morning reminds her of the snowy mouse hunts of her younger days.

La Foux opens; Emma and I take off like a couple of newbies, loaded down with brand-spanking kit. “No, really, I have been before, it’s just that my old stuff was worn out. Honest.” Accurate, but not believable. I even have on a jacket that’s less than a year old, for God’s sake. Only my trousers are true – bought 18 years ago from Blades on Broadway in Manhattan.

Cue the fast rush from the cabin/chalet/apartment, keen to get out there because the snow looks so good. Nope, forget it. Snow chains, whatever their qualities, aren’t designed for installation speed. Ours aren’t anyway, and judging from the number of French youths standing beside sideways Saxos, looking in astonishment at the brand-new chains dangling from their hands, neither are anyone else’s.

I always get the same feeling standing at the top of the slope, feet strapped to the board for the first time that winter. How do I do this? Made worse this year by the new-boots-and-binding-ness under my feet. For a moment the whole project seems impossible. Then the board starts to slide, knees bend on autopilot, the hips drop forward, arms go gibbon and – whoo! – I can still do it. Toe edge turn. How to get on the other edge? Feel your way round, Luke, like a Jedi slide sensei. I don’t know how it happens, but it does.

[Brief gear-freak interjection]

The new Burton Ruler boots and Can’t-remember bindings (with a toe cup) seem great. This is based on approximately 4 runs, and may be subject to revision, but at least I didn’t hate them from the get-go. They’re screwed to a Burton Custom board old enough to be taking GCSEs next summer, shorter than I’m used to (159?): it feels sweet under my feet. Is short the new long?

We don’t, in truth, do much actual snow sliding. We stand in a lift queue (in Allos? But it’s the first day, and only two lifts are open), get stuck on a chair in a biting wind, join an M25-style line for hot drinks, chase a blown-away glove into a snowdrift (thanks, Emma), and put in a few turns to make sure they still work. Plus, I get to try out my new bike-crash beard on an unsuspecting public; one woman in line ahead of me does faint, but I think it’s because she’s seen the price of the Spaghetti Bolognaise, not my chin.

Snowboarding’s great. Talk about a Ready-Brek glow.

[Second-day update]

Seignus opens, and I bundle on to a navette for a day of Boarding In Mourning for the Dear Leader. Super-fun to be able to walk and bus it to a ski slope. The one decent run open soon begins to pale, though, so I duck under an orange rope to have a spin on a nice-looking, if slightly scary-steep, powder field. Hear shouting behind: another boarder’s followed me and got his backpack tangled in the rope, and the liftie’s on his way towards us, waving his arms.

Slide away from conflict? No – I opt to take my licks. He won’t confiscate my lift pass, surely? Not on the first day.

It takes a minute, but I finally realise what the liftie’s saying: you can go and kill yourselves, that’s not my concern. Just don’t fuck up my rope by getting tangled in it. Je suis désolé, m’sieur. “Next time, go round!”

Don't look down

Beautiful day here in the Alps. The village is en fete for the Christmas market, the sun’s out and it’s a lovely warm afternoon. Looks like the steak restaurant’s going to open tonight – that and the pizza van? On the same night? Our cup runs over.

Set off on an after-lunch mountain bike ride. Swing down the curves from the cabin, enjoying the whir of knobbly tyres on tarmac, through the village and down past the Parc de Loisir to the trailhead. My borrowed bike shifts gear oddly: what would normally be down instead shifts up, and vice versa. I make the mistake of looking down, to see what’s going on below.

The bike slides away from me on a something, and my chest hits the thick nylon rope running diagonally alongside the trail. Just when that’s getting properly uncomfortable, I slip down a bit and my neck starts to scrape along the rope. Then, as I’m wondering if having your Adam’s apple removed by rope rub causes you to turn into a lady, my jawline takes a turn at being flayed.

I realize – just as the bike, forward motion undisturbed by rope obstacles, travels far enough ahead of me to spit me off backward – that the not-unpleasant smell of roast pork must be me, singeing. It’s the last thought I have before the back of my head hits the (thankfully soft) ground. I still hit hard enough to split my helmet, making me very glad to be wearing one.

After quite a lot of lying on the ground groaning, a bit of sitting up groaning, and a generous helping of standing up and groaning, I get myself back to the cabin. The look on Emma’s face tells me this may not be all that pretty. Until now I’ve been trying to ignore the blood dripping off the point of my strong, manly jawline, but it’s time to face the mirror. Ow.

In closing: doing it hurt. Washing it afterward hurt a lot more. And my head’s still filed with a vague ache now, two hours later. Never look down.

(Special message for Hammy: your bike’s fine (apart from having stupid gears). It ran off and parked itself in a nice soft patch of grass, like a sensible mountain bike should.)

Arrival of the lotus eaters

Sleeping in the back of a camper van doing 120 kph through the pouring, pouring rain – it’s an odd experience. I woke in the half-light of evening, to the noise of giant trucks being overtaken, sending waves of spray over the windscreen. Looking forward into the cab, I see the route finding being done by a combination of satnav and small fox terrier.

A full and frank exchange of views toward the end of the journey: “I’m not going over the Col d’Allos. It made Dawn cry.” But not going over the Col adds an hour and a half to an already endless journey. And you’ve never even seen it. “I don’t care. And it won’t be open anyway.” Finally, inevitably, we reroute the satnav via Digne. Long discussion of what each of us has to do as a forfeit if the Col later turns out to be open/closed.

Weird, hard-to-pin-down sense of dislocation on arrival: probably tiredness, but we’ve been on the move for a while – maybe this is just what it feels like to stop. The chalet looks amazing: like all buildings in long use, it had accumulated ill-defined stuff in its nooks and crannies, and Hammy and Emma must have worked unbelievably hard to get it this clear. Thank you, guys.

Our first full day is bright and sunny. Packing up and making arrangements to be out of the country for a while is incredibly laborious (though I bet it gets easier the more often you do it). The view from what’s going to be my desk feels like the start of the payback.

More payback: that afternoon I ride up the Col on the old road bike that lives out here, hanging from the wall. It was open, just, with ice over the road for the last 100 metres or so. Last time I rode up here it was in summer, on a Saturday when the roads were closed. The road and the Col itself were busy with riders. Today I have both to myself, but 5 minutes taking photos at the top and my teeth are chattering.

It’s so cold on the way down that my fingers keep slipping off the brake levers, which makes for a nerve-shredding descent. I don’t finally warm up until I’m in the shower.

New shoes!

Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh. New shoes.

Well, new snowboard boots and bindings.

I've spent the last decade as the only person in the world using Burton's old step-in system. This may not be true, actually – there could be Amish communities still using them – but I can honestly say I've never seen another pair in action. Sadly, after countless repairs using a teeny little drill bit, leather needles and wax thread, mine have finally gone to the great kicker in the sky.

So, yesterday evening was obviously spent in the traditional I've-got-new-stuff manner, putting it all together and trying it on in front of the telly. Snowboard gear is designed to be used in challenging conditions, and it's a good job: the series finale (I use the word advisedly) of Downton Abbey was on. Get between the screen and its most avid viewer during that, and tantrums ensue.

(Incidentally, Bates' wife was killed by Sir Richard's agents, to stop her selling her story to a rival paper or something; this will be discovered in series three, meaning Lady Mary won't have to marry him after all; she'll be consoled by Matthew and marry him; then Meltyface will turn up and challenge the inheritance. Betchya. I could write that rubbish, if only I chose to lower myself. And/or someone offered me loads of money.)

Anyway, in the tricky conditions of my living room, the Burton Ruler boot and Cartel binding worked extremely well together. Whether they'll be any good in snow, God knows.

Dues paid... in full

Sometimes the runes just don’t fall for you. Surfers call it paying your dues.

South Coast Surf Championships on the Island last weekend. That’s not me in the photo; the only wave I caught in my 15-minute heat, I dropped in on one of the other surfers, which explains my third place in a heat of three.

Early that morning I’d surfed the Bay. So much water moving out there on a big swell, the waves are thick and heavy and dark. As I pulled on my wetsuit someone else came in and sat on the kerb just staring ahead. As I walked by I noticed his snapped board lying on the pavement.

You never know how serious it is until you’re in it. First duck dive, driven back about 5 metres. Second wave, bailed and tried to dive under it. Dragged back 5 metres. Just scratched over the top of the next one. Another set swings in: got to get into one of these before I get the yips. Paddle paddle paddle. It pitches me, and I come up gasping halfway down the Bay. Suddenly aware there’s no one else out. Paddle for an inside wave, scramble to my feet, bottom turn, hit a bump and I’m off. Again.

This time I’m under a while, and the surface is a long time reappearing. First it’s dark, then the water goes light; I start thinking I’m up, but there’s another 10 seconds before I break the surface. 10 seconds that feel like 30.

Catch the white water in, by which time I’m a quarter mile down from my start point and it’s next stop the rocks.

Punch my ticket. I’m going home.

On balance

Long weekend in North Wales mountain biking with my friend Hammy. Saturday’s ride through beautiful Welsh mountains, fluffy clouds scudding across a pale-blue sky, is balanced by a hellish descent on Sunday morning. Brambles sprung from triffid stock lash us along the trail, and make the wet slate under our tyres invisible. On a bike, wet slate feels like ice (though I don’t think ice rinks usually come lined with thorny bushes).

Then the sun comes out, we huff and puff steeply up out of Betws and over into the Conway Valley, home in time for Tour crashes that make our bramble scabs look tame, and a foothill of cake.

Not much beats the tired-but-happy feeling of a long day’s mountain biking.

Ow!

Already suffering from the weekend’s Mountain Mayhem 24-hour race, out for a ride with American Cousin Greg today. Bike etiquette dictates I loan him my geared road bike, so I’m on the fixed-wheel.

70km’s a long way on a fixed wheel. Lance’s old coach used to say you got twice the benefit, because your legs never stop moving. My legs did stop moving, several times, as I ground to an uphill halt.

Very nice pub somewhere out in the West Sussex countryside for lunch, but unfortunately can’t remember what it was called or where it is. I’msotired.....