Arinsal

Andorra

Christmas 1984

After years of wanting to go skiing, I hit sixteen and got a £16.50 a week part-time job to raise the £160 to fund a 27 hour coach trip to Andorra for my first week of skiing with Kev, Phil & John.

We were picked up in Watford and headed for Dover to leave dear old Blighty for a trip across the length of France to Andorra...

Leaving Dover

Sunset over the English Channel...

Sunset over the Channel

The first round...

Ferry good fun

Christmas tree in a town near Toulouse...

Toulouse

The first tantalising glimpse of snow through the coach window...

First sight of snow

Crossing the border into Andorra...

Border

Phil settles in...

Phil

Phil later that day after some time in the bar next door... the blurredness may be due to the photographer having had a few too...

Later that evening

The reps...

Reps

The ski class - I'm second on the left trying desperately to look cool decked from head to foot in C&A Rodeo finery, but pity poor Kev (far left), who had already seen how bad my jacket looked and went out and bought the same one. If my memory serves me rightly he was wearing his sister's sallopettes too... girl!

Our first ever lift up a mountain on day one of ski school. Kev & I had been told to meet the ski school class at the bottom as we were both beginners; we had other ideas with a "how hard can it be?" notion...

First lift

...we soon found out when we got to the top of the lift and crashed in an ungainly heap and were placed back on the same lift for the download of shame to the waiting class below...

Download of shame

We eventually got the hang of the snowplough... now where are those reds and blacks...

Styling

Kev in ski school snowplough convoy...

Kev

There was a Scandinavian themed bar next to our hotel (Rossell)...

It had real Scandinavians in it too..

Visibly impressed with our sophisticated ribaldry...

Back to the slopes... as the week progressed, we made it to the top...

Top

John at the top...

John

Looking across to the Andorran borders with Spain and France whose boundaries all meet at a single point...

Spain

Looking down to the midstation where Kev & I had been deposited in a heap on the first day...

midstation

About the steepest slope we tackled that week... though there was some talk that Kev had bashed some 'mongols' elsewhere on the mountain...

Phil, John & Kev on another elegant soiree (I can't remember the curly haired guy's name)...

Phil & John...

Some of the rest of the group...

Kev in the room...

The end of ski school race day... obviously I was travelling so fast and impressively that the professional photographer focused on a bloke walking up the hill instead of me...

Ski pass mugshot...

Ski Pass

Piste map... showing the aptly named La Tosa button Poma lift; if I close my eyes I can still feel the discomfort of it now...ouch!

Piste map

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