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Much more fun than Ski Sunday
I'M sure there's a mathematical equation for it, but I reckon that for every year of a child's life the cost of raising him or her increases proportionately.
When they're babies they cost sod all. A few babygrows, a couple of vests, a pack of nappies every few days and a pram – job's a good un.
And if their mum breastfeeds, then even the grub's free.
Of course, you pay for it in spades in every other way imaginable – namely sleep, health, work and anything that resembled a life you used to recognise before you had kids. But when it comes to cold, hard cash you pretty much get away with it scot-free.
But when your kids are older and, more importantly, off school for a couple of weeks they demand to be entertained - and they demand to be entertained in places that cost.
Our daughters' Easter holidays itinerary could have been written by Enid Blyton or A.A. Milne. When we weren't spending time and money in animal parks and kid-friendly farms trying to distract them while mummy and daddy animals did what mummy and daddy animals do when they're stood round in the fresh air all day, feeling frisky with too much time on their hoofs, we were skiing, yeah, actually skiing on skis on snow and that.
I don't know about you, but I find watching winter sports on telly about as exciting as watching snow melt. The best description I ever read about the Winter Olympics is '25 different types of skidding'. Yawn.
You'd put your time to better use building a snowman than sliding around on your backside with as much dignity as a greyhound stood on lino in the back of a van being driven round Lancaster's one way system.
Or so I thought. On an otherwise grey and unremarkable Thursday last week I booked me and the kids an absolute, total and utter beginner's lesson at the gob-smackingly outstanding Chill Factore ski slope in Manchester.
Put it this way, we are such beginners that we had to have a man help us on with our ski boots. Then we had to get another man to help us off with our boots so we could put our waterproof trousers on, and then get another man to help us put our boots back on once we'd got our waterproofs on.
It took us so long that even though we'd arrived an hour before our lesson we ended up being five minutes late, scarlet-faced and boiling hot wearing three layers of clothes and a pair of rock solid, inflexible plastic ski boots that made us stomp gracelessly about like AT-AT walking machines in The Empire Strikes Back.
Once we were out on the very, very gentle nursery slope next to the jaw-dropping main slope and had been taught how to put on our skis (told you we were beginners) we slowly made our way 20 feet up the slope, were taught how to turn round and face the right way by our very patient instructor, we were away – actually skiing down an actual hill.
Then we did it again, doing a little jump halfway down. Then we did it again, doing heads, shoulders, knees and toes. And before we knew it the lesson was over.
And guess what. Our girls were brilliant at it, they were naturals. The only time they got a bit flustered was when I asked them to look at the camera for the 20th time so I could take a picture to show their mum, they got fed up with that very quickly I can tell you. But they looked so cute in their little red suits on their little skis with their little poles. Like Santa's little helpers, in Manchester, in April.
Okay, so our top speed was about 7mph. Okay, so we could only ski in the direction we were pointed at. Okay, so we all fell over on the cold, wet snow once in front of the rest of the class. But I guarantee it is impossible not to beam like a lunatic when you're skidding about on snow with two narrow planks strapped to your feet with just a couple of sticks in your hands to help you balance a bit.
It was difficult to tell who loved it more. I'm the one who hasn't stopped going on and on and on about it, but our young daughters were the ones who, after just 50 minutes, were sliding around like experts.
To be fair, it did cost me a few quid. But it was money well spent as far as I'm concerned because our kids had spent an afternoon with their old dad doing something they'll never forget.
And as soon as I've saved up a load more money we'll be going again because we've been bitten by the bug, and it has given us an exquisite itch that needs scratching.
For one thing, it's cheaper than going to watch football for an afternoon, and our kids get bored and start moaning after half an hour of doing that.
And as they get older and want to have less and less to do with to me at least we'll have some sort of reference point that we can actually talk about, even though we won't actually be talking about very much at all.
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Weather for Lancaster
Friday 10 February 2012
Today
Light rain
Temperature: -1 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 22 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 1 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: South east
