Can you believe it is 5 years since we last went skiing…. I’ll see how my legs feel tomorrow and then I’ll tell you if I can believe it. Terrifyingly it is also 25 years since we last went skiing without our children and 35 since we first went….

No more direct Eurostar service, no more Ashford departure point but we wanted to go by train..

First we get a GWR train to Paddington… then we have to fight our way with luggage across the London underground. We’ve always said this would be a bad idea and we are right…. how any disabled people cope with the impossible to find and wholly inadequate lifts is beyond me. Stay in a Premier Inn for the night after a wildly overpriced haddock and chips…

Next we get up at 4AM to check in t Eurostar, painless as anything can be at that time in the morning but then we have to fight our way across Paris…
This is also a bad idea, but not quite a bad as the London one and would be easier without the industrial action, protests and a rugby match thrown in but we make it to a TGV…

And manage to achieve a lifelong ambition of sitting upstairs! The views are much better and I had forgotten just how good they are doing this by train.

So we arrive at Moutier on time…. and then the fun starts. So we are booked on the 16:10 bus but as we are on time the 15:30 bus has not gone yet so we ask if there are spare seats…. well maybe…. until it turns out there are not even enough for the people with a 15:30 booking… oooh this could get interesting. A few of the people with 15:30 tickets are put on a Les Menuire bus, still a few left some getting a little tense… then someone appears shouting “anyone for Val Thorens?” We get herded to another coach, which I think had just appeared from Geneva. They let us on that one for some reason and we left on who knows what coach, that left a bit before the one we had booked! Hopefully the 16:10 is not still waiting for us.

Made it to Val Thoren’s in one piece. The place is a complete maze and it turns out the wheels on our bags don’t go so well on snow but we made it.