Climb Every Mountain

People I have never met were telling me to get up off my arse last week. 

For someone who is not good at taking instruction, that was hard. 

Not as hard as trying to lift 65kg of creaking bones up out of a snowdrift while skeeting sideways on gigantic skis, though. 
With non-existent abdominal muscles, a recently-injected rotator cuff tendinitis, and a big dose of Poor Me.
As well as the ignominy of seeing my nine-year-old scoot past me, snow spraying dramatically into my face as she skidded to a perfect halt at the end of the (teeny) slope, and said, "Did you fall again, Mummy?"

Once again, I am reminded of the wisdom of Homer (Simpson, not the other lad): If at first you don't succeed, give up. 
Nevertheless, she persisted.
And fell over, and fell over, and fell over. 

I could have helped myself, by taking all the advice (available in spades) and paying attention to the small details. 
Put on the boots right Day One.
Keep your knees bent (or is that straight?) Thud.
Look where you're going. Eh, duhh. Thud.
Plough. Pizza. Plough. Thud.

I may have got a bit cranky. I may not have expressed verbally how mind-blowing it was to be heading up an actual Alp, the fiery cold air in my lungs, the treetops poking out of the perfect white blanket, the wide-eyed astonishment of the young faces against the perspex of the it's-ok-it's-Swiss-so-it-must-be-safe Great Glass Elevator thingy whooshing us up and up and ear-poppingly up. 

I complained that any holiday that involved Lugging and Exhaustion and Wrecked and Worth It Though in its previews was destined to be a struggle. I whinged about the searing pain in my calves. "I thought I knew pain", I said (cos, like, cancer and that). "Torture", I said. 
But holy god it was lovely up there, snow-angelling away the muscle aches, watching the spreading joy of mastery in the quick-learning low-gravity-centred lucky sods around me. 

We returned the Calf-Torture Devices and went back up the mountain without them for one last hurrah. Hurrah! 
We have all the gear now, and we know all the tricks, so we'll be back. (No guarantee that the bargain basement stuff we bought will survive to next year, but then again, you could say the same for me).


Thank you, Spreadsheet Man. 


A closing thought on abbreviations.
CHF = Swiss Francs
CHF = Congestive Heart Failure
A coincidence? Not when you see the prices.