Two myths exploded

So far in my as yet short driving career, I'd hadn't really been able to see myself being involved in an accident. Not from arrogance, just a sense that it is statistically unlikely, coupled with the fact that driving a car sensibly isn't all that hard. Accelerating out of a bend past Dalwhinnie early on Sunday morning, I came to realise how it can all go badly wrong very quickly. Hitting a patch of frozen slush, the back end came round suddenly before the car performed a graceful double pirouette. Fortunately the trajectory of this ice dance was straight down the middle of the road and we came to rest in the snowy embankment. Cue nervous giggling all round.

The object of the day was a trip to ski at Nevis Range with Grant and Adam, and here I had a second new insight... Based on an experience of a day at Glenshee a few years back, I'd decided that Scottish skiing is crap - an expensive waste of time and not worth the effort. On this day, the busy pistes were reminiscent of the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan as bodies lurched and limbs flailed, with skiers competing to fall down the metres wide strip of brown snow in the worst possible style. So it was a pleasant surprise to have a really enjoyable day at Nevis Range. Of course the weather was awful, with rain all day, but on the plus side it seemed the forecast had deterred the crowds. The thaw conditions had left the snow waterlogged, but there was enough of it on the ground and the pistes were all well put together. Once the quad chair opened, solving Ad's problems with riding the drag on his board, we got some good turns in, doing laps on a piste of floury wind-packed powder.