First Day Skiing, Val Thorens

I slept terribly on our first night in France.

I couldn’t get to sleep for hours, I couldn’t switch off, then I’d wake every few hours.

Just hoping it would be morning already!

Morning, so we could get wrapped up, clip on our skis and get going…

…take our bellies filled with butterflies up on that first chair lift.

Get to the top and see the world stretch out before us.

Freshly groomed snow beneath our boots and the slopes almost to ourselves.

The jittery excitement of that first run!

When you can’t help but smile until your cheeks ache and your teeth hurt from the cold!

Blue.

Shades of blue for as far as the eye can see.

We hired a guide for the first morning, someone to show us the ropes, the best slopes and the very best bars!

Toasty in hers ‘n’ hers ski suits.

White onesie // Black onesie (also here with same day delivery)

Star print poloneck

Mirror goggles

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Val Thorens is not the cutest of ski resorts.

It’s not a quaint little spot where skiiers have lived for a hundred years, there’s no Louis Vuitton or Hermes. No row of sumptuous restaurants or glamour pusses rolling in G Wagons.

What it does have is height.

The highest ski resort in Europe, it’s really the only place with guaranteed snow at this time of year.

Which means it’s almost exclusively visited by people who love to ski or board. They’re not there to pose, to show off their diamonds in the mountain light, or to meet rich dates.

Which in turn means that the slopes are almost deserted before Christmas, particularly in the mornings.

Leaving just you.

You and that vast, mind blowing view.

Utter silence and a cool crisp breeze.

It’s quite an experience!

After a morning of hard & fast skiing, we gave our jelly legs a rest over lunch.

At Chalet de la Marine.

The prettiest restaurant in VT.

Taking a table on the terrace, overlooking the town.

Warming up with vin chaud; sweet, spiced and spiked.

Oversized aviators (with changeable lenses) // Nail polish

Oysters on snow.

Baked Mont D’Or with baby potatoes and charcuterie.

Refuelled, warm and raring to go… we hopped on another lift.

Flying up and down slope after slope.

Racing, laughing, joking, singing and chattering away as we went.

If you’re wondering how we got such great skiing snaps this year, well I have a new toy.

A little Lumix, courtesy of Panasonic who sponsored me to try out this pocket rocket.

I’d been looking for a new compact camera for a while. I love my SLR but it’s not the easiest thing to transport never mind whip out in the middle of the action!

I was worried about taking a big camera on the slopes, I didn’t want to damage it and I didn’t want to damage myself if I fell on it.

I wanted something portable (I wear this one around my neck and slipped inside my ski suit) and something fast enough to capture those unmissable moments.

“Fast” doesn’t quite cut it with this bad boy! We shot the ski pics in “4k burst” which records super high quality video and then breaks it down frame by frame for you to choose your best snaps.

You can save them on the go, wifi them over to your phone and share before you even leave the slopes!

It’s cute, too.