If pushed to choose between mountains and sea, others may go low but I go high – a preference I can trace back to my schooldays at the European School in Brussels.
Every winter, it relocated children en masse to the Alps for a fortnight. I cannot convey the excitement this tradition of classes de neige in Saas Fee roused in the breast of this stodgy, ill-favoured English girl.
Skiing in the morning, lessons in the afternoon, broken by the regular arrival of tartines – baguette stuffed with chunks of chocolate – to keep the wolf from the door.
The snow, the skiing, the sport all seemed to me the very peak of continental sophistication, glamour and excitement.
Fast-forward. Some years ago –
