REGRETTABLY, I WAS A LATECOMER to snow holidays and their affiliated joys. While I’d always longed to frolic in water’s crystalline form, circumstance and a northern coastal upbringing kept me away until my mid-twenties. By then, film-fuelled notions of knitted Fair Isle jumpers, mulled wine sipped by log fires and pine-hemmed gingerbread houses dusted in sugary snow were hard-set in my mind as benchmarks for wintry beauty.
So, when in the early bloom of a new relationship, my then-boyfriend (spoiler: now husband) took me to Thredbo, expectations were high. This must be true love and surely will unlock new levels of romance. There will be cute beanies, mountaintop embraces and I will, of course, be fabulous at snowboarding, impressing with my obvious agility.
I was unprepared for
