MY SCARY START TO SPRING SKIING

MY INSTRUCTOR Christina is adamant. ‘Let’s go. It’s easy, I promise,’ she says, as I peer down what looks like a giant white cliff-face.

It’s my first day learning to ski. Christina’s definition of ‘easy’ does not match mine, and our relationship is on thin ice.

Being a non-skier has never bothered me, but I’ve had a niggling guilt that I was knocking the sport without trying it.

So here I am in Kirchberg, a charming, traditional resort in the Austrian Tirol. On the first morning, Christina and I pootle around the nursery slope.

I get to grips with the snow plough — pushing the skis into a triangle to break my speed — and changing direction. Then she suggests we head up t he mountain.

I hesitate. Christina assures me lunch is waiting at the top. We climb into the chairlift and rise above the most majestic landscape I’ve ever seen. Clusters of ghostly mountains, sprinkled with pine trees, stretch far into the distance.

But there’s no sign of any restaurant. Or people. I thought we were having lunch? ‘Yes. But to get there, we must ski down.’

So we set off. Within seconds I’m going so fast I can’t stop. I try to snow plough, but in my panic I forget how, and I’m getting faster and faster. Fortunately, my skis hit a mound of snow and I topple over. I feel the hot prickle of tears in my eyes. I just want my feet back.

‘Keep going!’ cries Christina, her voice a speck in the distance. I stubbornly position my skis perpendicular to the slope, and painstakingly step down, inch by inch, as a shoal of toddlers in woolly pom-poms and skis the size of lollipop sticks whizz past.

I collapse into a chair at the Gasthof Ochsalm restaurant and watch with envy as hungry skiers swagger in, bronzed faces, hair flopping over their goggles. I can’t believe how relaxed they look. Have we really just spent the morning doing the same sport?

Later, lying in the Rosengarten Hotel sauna, the worst of my mountain t rauma drifts from my memory, not l east because the hotel has great powers to soothe. Kirchberg is awfully pretty, dominated by a typical Tirol-style church and with plenty of friendly bars and restaurants. I might not be a natural skier, but I’m good at the night life.

On my second day, I insist on the baby slope again. Christina looks disappointed. ‘You’re free here,’ she says, pointing to my legs, ‘but not here’, tapping my forehead. So be it. I’m sure my brain will free up soon enough. The key, I think, to learning to ski is taking things at your own pace.

By the end of the week, even Christina seems impressed.