Shell turns the big 30 in style, Tignes, Espace Killy, France

After a festive period of over indulgence we headed to France to perfect our snowboarding. Potatoes cooked in goose fat were a highlight of the festive season for both of us so we thought that post New Years something needed to be done to rectify the fattening side effects of these.

It was luck that the lovely Ainslie (a colleague of mine at GOSH) had very drunkenly at our house warming party invited us to Tinges in France for a week of snow adventures. I really didn't want to be at work for my birthday and Brock really wanted to get to the snow this winter so we jumped at the chance to get away with a bunch of her friends (detecting a theme here). In the end a few of my friends jumped on the band wagon as well so then there were 10 of us which made for a pretty good contingent. Out of 10 of us we had 6 radiographers and one radiologist, a research scientist who is trying to get into medicine and a token computer nerd and an accountant just to even things up a bit.

We made the interesting and in hindsight questionable money saving decision to catch the bus all the way from London Victoria bus station to Tignes. We departed after work on Friday and arrived at lunch time on Saturday. It would have been better if our seats actually reclined, the DVD played worked and if Tweedledum and Tweedledee our drivers could have sorted out the air conditioning. I won't complain too much as it was no where near comparable in length or painfulness to our Laos to China bus ordeal of 2008. In the end I was just thankful that the toilet stops actually involved real toilets and that there were no leeches. However we did spend more money at a service station on two sandwiches than we did the entire week were in Laos on all our food (slight exaggeration but it was pretty outrageously expensive).

So we made it to Tignes in one piece but quite tired. Tignes is in the wonderful part of the Southern Alps that is Espace Killy. There is a glacier there that you can ski/board on all year round and more runs than you could actually ski in a week. We stayed at the UCPA which was simple hostel style accommodation with rooms of four and a shared bathroom, so Kylie and Sheida were lucky to get a glance of Brock in his underwear at least 2 times a day. The UCPA was pretty simple but proved to be excellent value as we had all our meals, lift tickets, a whole week of lessons and accommodation included. The food was a sensation considering they were catering for 250 people. I shudder to think what we would have been served up in the equivalent place in the UK. We all embraced the fresh baguettes, pommes frites, drinking our morning coffee out of a bowl and most of all the cheese. I think I might have actually been a chance of loosing my Christmas lard if it wasn't for all the cheese!

We took ourselves out boarding on the Sunday just to check and make sure that we hadn't over shot the mark by telling them that we could actually snowboard green runs and the odd blue run. We had plenty of tumbles but nothing too spectacular and managed to sort ourselves out so that we didn't look too foolish in our first lesson. We were pretty amazed at how fast Ainslie and Pete could get themselves down the mountain on their boards, we could only hope and dream that we would be that good by the end of the week!

Monday saw the start of our lessons and we were in the improver group, as we certainly needed some improvement. There were two improver groups so we all headed out together bright and early to sort out the boys from the men. I basically fell over a lot and couldn't keep up with half the people in the group. That wasn't really a problem as Brock's self taught technique was so bad that he got put in the boys group with me along with our travelling companion Rick, who embarrassingly for us has taught himself to snowboard the day before. We also had Helen a lovely young English girl in our group and Fred the French guy who got sick of our English speaking and didn't make the lessons after Wednesday!

Once we got put into the easy group Denis, our French hero of an instructor, took us up the mountain to "slide" and rectify all our bad habits. Our lessons weren't really very much like lessons at all, it was more like having a French mountain guide take us to where he thought the snow and conditions were the best and then we would "slide" and then "keep sliding" while he would give us pointers on how not to fall over so much, go faster and look cool as well.

Ainslie demoted herself from her advanced boarding group after getting a dose of "the fear" on the glacier and decided to join our crew. She was far better than any of us in our group but it was great to have four of us all in the same group and it was much easier for me to try to keep up with her than the boys!

So the week went on, our days consisted of "sliding" from 9am till 12pm, lunch from 12-1.45pm and then we were back on the piste for some more "sliding" until the lifts closed, we were too tired to move or we had concussion.

Thursday was my 30th birthday so I got to chose what we would do for the day. I chose for us to spend the day at Val d'Isere which was next door to Tignes and also part of Espace Killy. I had also requested for it to snow so that we would have fresh powder and my request was granted. We headed off in the morning up the lifts and down the piste until we made it across to the Val d'Isere area where the snow was brilliant. Denis found a fantastic area to hone our off piste skills and we did a few runs down the mountain in powder that was so light and deep that you couldn't see your board. We all boarded like heroes mainly due to the fact that when you fell in the fresh powder it didn't hurt nearly as much as on the groomed runs, and we had now been boarding for five days we were actually getting good at it!

We made it to Val d'Isere for lunch in a small restaurant, Denis produced birthday candles from the pocket of his ski jacket for my dessert (that Brock ate) and I had happy birthday sung to me, it was nice. We had a long lunch and Denis produced some of his homemade digestive (spirit concoction made of pure alcohol with flowers soaked in it) from another one of the pockets of his ski jacket and we had a bit of a tipple before hitting the slopes again to make our way all the way back across to Tignes. I have to say again that I was pretty chuffed to get birthday candles even if there were only three and not 30 of them!

By the time we made it back to the UCPA we were all extremely tired but we managed to down a few bottles of champagne (the real stuff of course) and head out for a quiet drink after dinner. I have to say it was one of the best birthdays that I have ever had. I got to spend it with my lovely husband, my friends, a very cool snowboarding instructor and the snow and scenery was phenomenal.

I have to admit (sadly) that by the end of the week I was pretty much broken (don't worry my dodgy knee was fine), snowboarding is pretty hard on the old body especially when its 30! I had a massive bruise on my derriere which would make for a very uncomfortable bus ride home, bruises all over my legs, an eggy on my forehead from headbutting the piste and a nice gash across both my shins from Helen and I stacking it up together. We did accomplish a lot though, we could both go really fast, ride switch (Brock was far better than me though) and Brock even managed to pull off a few freestyle moves until he fell and tore a muscle in his shoulder! Never fear though dear reader we both made it back to London in one piece and if the pound wasn't so pathetic compared to the Euro we would be back at the snow right now.