How I fell for Lauren

John Cramer heeds the advice of his ski instructor, but just can't seem to master the snow business.

I HAD no idea what the French four-year-old was saying about me just before he zig-zagged down the nursery slope as gracefully as that guy in the old Cadbury's Milk Tray ad, but I suspect he was having a good laugh.

Which was fair enough. He'd been watching my lack of progress for almost an hour. All novice skiers look like they're drunk on the favoured tipple of mulled wine and judging by the way I fell out of the ski chair he must have thought I was really plastered.

It was day two of training school at Tignes, a small skiing village quietly tucked away 2,000 feet up into the French Alps. All around me seasoned snowboarders and skiers were slaloming with the greatest of ease, but I was still having difficulty just walking across the snow.

This sport demands you wear almost knee-high boots that are strapped into the skis to prevent you from breaking a leg. When you try to move at all it'll look like you're doing a drunken line-dance.

"My name is Lauren, I am going to teach you to ski," our instructor had confidently predicted the previous morning. Easy for him to say. After pulling my face out of the snow for the hundredth time that day he let it slip that he first went on the piste when he was just three years old.

Still, he seemed to know his stuff.

"Snowplough! Snowplough!" he bawled at his motley crew of English and Irish novices as we slid helplessly away from him at about five miles an hour.

'Snowplough' is the gentle art of turning the front of your skis inwards to keep you from reaching a speed which would seriously injure a passing deer.

In fairness to him, Lauren had us snowploughing without falling over all the way back to the hotel by lunchtime.

If you've never been on a skiing holiday, then go. Why? Well, firstly you'll come home and bore all your friends to death telling them what a unique, fun and invigorating experience it was. And secondly ... well, it's a unique, fun and invigorating experience.

Even lunch time has its perks. In Tignes, you can lounge around on the foyer balcony drinking beer and watching other wannabes make eejits of themselves on the slopes.

Ideally, your package holiday will be for one or two weeks, in which case you should really be off those basic nursery slopes by the time you're ready to fly home, but if you're on a three-day crash course then it's important to throw caution and reason to the wind.

In such circumstances a typical day out on the French Alps goes as follows:

8.00am: wake up for breakfast wondering why you've bruises from your ass to your elbow. Mentally prepare yourself for the likelihood that it'll be more of the same out there today.

8.15: eat EVERYTHING in front of you at the breakfast table. By 11am you'll be starving and Lauren, like the pro he is, will keep you going non-stop 'til lunchtime.

8.30: that foggy feeling from drinking too much Hoegarden beer starts to lift as you fall gratefully into the snow. Don't get up immediately. That way you'll be properly awake by 8.33.

12.30pm: trudge back to the hotel for lunch with the words "you're not listening to my instructions, Jean" ringing in your ears.

1.00: Lunch. This can be tough. Some of the experts are at the table, telling tales of life on the more treacherous Red and Blue slopes. Ask them are there really yetis up that high and they'll quieten down by dessert.

2.30: back on the slopes for more punishment, except this time it's a Lauren-free zone. You're on your own and can break as many rules as you like.

4.00: Stop trying to be a hero and head back to the hotel. This sport really does take a lot out of you and while it's refreshing, you'll be knackered by 7pm.

6.30: More food. Never mind the Atkins Diet. A day on the piste will give you an appetite that'll make you want to nibble on the locals' pet dogs.

9.30: Beer. Skiing is thirsty work. In Tignes it's got to be Hoegarden on draught. The bar staff put slices of lemon into the pints, but it still tastes very good.

10.30: More beer. Whose round is it anyway?

12.30: After debates where the problems of sectarianism, racism, world debt and Man United's defensive frailties are solved, it's time for bed.

12.40: You should be prepared, but it's never too late to fall in the snow even without skis.

Anyway, despite all the potential injuries, it's worth it. Even though you'll need a few lessons before looking vaguely cool on the slopes, it's far better than baking slowly on a beach in Ibiza.

The Tignes resort offers skiing, snowboarding, ice diving, ice-skating and snow shoe walks. The last one of those is probably for the more accident-prone, but there's also a nightclub if your legs are still up to it after a day of skiing. I'm definitely going back again if only to teach that French kid a lesson. He'll be five by then and representing France at the Winter Olympics, but if Lauren is willing to meet me half way, I might have a chance.