Ellmau, February Half-term

We are back home after a wonderful family holiday skiing with Jo’s parents in Ellmau, Austria.  It was a series of firsts: Elijah’s first (and second) time on a plane; Elijah’s first time in Ellmau, and Susannah and Noah’s first time there in winter; Jo and my first ski trip in fourteen years (too long!).  The kids loved ski school (on the whole).  We ate and drank, and went to bed early, exhausted, and ached in the mornings and the late afternoons.  On the last day of skiing, the kids all raced in a time-trial slalom, a field of around 23 beginner skiers, in which Elijah came second and was presented with a trophy on the podium (first trophy on the mantelpiece).  The snow was poor – it hadn’t snowed for a couple of weeks, so we were dependent on snow machines, and off-piste the slopes were more green than white – and by the afternoon the pistes were a choppy sea of sugarbanks, but we still managed to get plenty of skiing in.  And on the last afternoon, we all took the chairlift up higher and skied down behind Grandad, stopping halfway down at a mountain hut for gluhwein/hot chocolate.  I am so proud of our kids – great followers.