Down on the piste

We all, in our own ways, prepared for the skiing holiday to Switzerland. There were those who worked out a complex range of lunge exercises, to simulate as closely as possible the activity on the slopes.

There were the ones who dusted down the rollerblades and went for long skating sessions in the Phoenix Park. And there were others who stayed up the night before the holiday and learned all the two-letter Scrabble words off by heart. At least when lying on my back on the nursery slope, being laughed at by small children, I could take solace in knowing that ug, ky and ob would pass muster on the board later that night.

Out on the snow, as soon as I put on the torture shoes - sorry, ski boots - I knew the skiing part of the skiing holiday was never going to be successful. When the last clasps were fastened on the boots, and I snapped myself on to the skis, I was overcome by a need to get these yokes off me nowwwww . . . You know, when somebody drags their nails down a chalkboard, how irritating that is; wearing those boots was like that, but also like wearing leg irons at the same time and being kicked repeatedly in the shins.

Momentarily there dawned the realisation that I was unable to remove the boots myself. Eventually, my fellow novice skier figured out how to unleash me from the boots of doom, and I sat in my stockinged feet on the snow beside the cross-country skiing track, which seemed to mock me. I would go no further, I vowed.

I wasn't wearing waterproof trousers. And my bottom was rapidly going numb. So after a while there was nothing for it but to allow someone to strap me back into the contraptions and shuffle at an almost imperceptible speed towards the gently sloping hill.

Once at the nursery slope - ah, it's called a nursery slope because there are what look like actual live babies skiing expertly down here - we were propelled up a travelator, which kindly spat me out at the top, causing me to fall, which in turn triggered a messy pile-up of three-year-olds, who, before you could say Eddie the Eagle, dusted the snow off their snazzy outfits and swish-swished down the hill. I lay there on my back, like a ski-shod beetle, until I was rescued by a woman whom I immediately thanked by sliding in her direction and causing her to take a tumble. As I slid past her towards more infant Olympic athletes, I wondered whether it was cold enough for tears to form icicles, because that would have been the final indignity. Oh no: that would be the part where it took half an hour to get the boots off.

My first skiing experience wasn't helped by the fact that there were no lessons available in the whole of the resort. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Much as Michael Jackson declares to Paul McCartney, "I'm a lover, not a fighter" in the classic duet The Girl Is Mine, I've discovered I'm a sledder, not a skier. And it suits me fine.

I have distant memories of sledging down the Dublin Mountains, back in the days when we got actual snow instead of icy slush. We dragged our bright red plastic sleds as far as our little legs would take us and then sleighed down the rocky slopes at breakneck speed. Once, I was going so fast I sleighed right down to the car park and under a car, narrowly escaping being knocked out by an exhaust pipe. Happy, if not exactly safe, days.

So I feel what I am doing here is a public service for all those who have tried and hated skiing. Don't go skiing, is what I say, go sledding instead.

The benefits are endless. You get to go on the big chair lift, just like the skiers, but in an added bonus you get to not fear for your life when you fall out of the ski lift. Two legs good. Two legs trapped in boots and skis, very bad.

You get to walk through a pine forest, where everywhere you look, untouched snow sits like perfectly cooked meringue. You get to feel like you are five years old as you stand at the top of a hill, sit on your padded sleigh and let yourself go.

You get to experience the exhilaration of whizzing around tight corners, your feet acting like brakes, as you wonder whether this will be the corner when you finally go over the edge. You get to go over the edge, like James Bond, rolling over five times until you stop, still alive, pink with excitement and able to get up again without the help of a crane. Sledge don't ski. You know it makes sense.