Zero dark thirty

The big day has arrived. We are going skiing. But at 1.45am I didn't feel like doing back flips. It was cold and dark and despite my going to be at 9 and getting four and a half hours sleep I felt really tired. We crept out into the night (to avoid waking the one who isn't going skiing) , loaded up the car and headed for Birmingham. It was a bit worrying to see the flashing message 'M42 closed junction 4'    But after a bit of faffing with map books and phones we found out that wasn't on our bit, and we arrived at the airport at 3.30am. The man took my car away after noting down all the dents and bashes and we checked in and headed through security. I wonder if all the workers at Birmingham airport have been having customer satisfaction training as they were all really pleasant, even while searching people. I was a bit worried when they took my iPad away to be 'swabbed', but it came back negative for whatever. Straight to wetherspoons then for a full English. We felt a little like Quakers as everyone else was downing pints, and all we had was coffee. The plane loaded, departed and arrived well on time, the flight was only and hour and a half and we had some fantastic views of the Alps and lake Geneva as we came down. Straight onto a bus and we were off to Morzine, no hanging about. As we entered the town we could see the slopes and lifts and even I was getting a bit excited. They dumped us off the bus and showed us the way to the gondola, saying someone would meet us at the top with a skidoo for the luggage, and they were. At the top the snow was fantastic and the slopes really quiet for a Saturday. We crossed the short distance to the hotel and checked in, only 11.45 and our rooms were ready. Great service. We checked out the rooms, not bad for a ski hotel with an amazing view down the slopes into the town. We can look out of the window and witness all the spills and thrills of other peoples day on the slopes. We decided to take a trip down the gondola into Morzine itself for some lunch and found a lovely little cafe where the girls had galette sand the boys had burgers and Ian and I shared a carafe of really nice vino. After lunch a heavy philosophical discussion ensued as is usual in the Walters household then we mosied on back up to the hotel where Vicky and I got our skis and boots. We had a good look out of the window in order to plan our campaign for tomorrow, I.e. Ian found a really steep slope he wanted us to try and I said over my dead body and chose a lovely gentle looking one, so that is first on the agenda for tomorrow. Dinner was an Italian buffet, really nice food and we all ate far too much. Then into the bar to watch England stuff those frenchies at rugby, half a partisan crowd was delighted when they scored a last minute try, I wasn't too bothered though as I was still buzzing over the 'Alex Ravell, 90+5' score line that had come through earlier. And so to bed as we had all been up since before 2am and were almost asleep on our feet. Guess what? Snow is forecast for tomorrow.