23rd February, 2007

23rd Feb 2007
Spent last week in Wengen, Switzerland. Even with limited snow it was not without its excitement. Do you know anyone who’s accident prone? I thought I was till this happened…..Felix, the 9 year old son of the friends we were skiing with, is a reasonably adventurous fellow. When he was 5 he was once found underneath his father’s Mercedes having got the jack out of the boot and used it to raise the car a foot and a half off the ground. Anyway, he survived that relatively unscathed even if the car didn’t, but attempting a 360 degree turn off a jump following my son and their instructor down a slope last week he pole-axed himself and had to be helicoptered off the mountain. He spent a night in Interlaken hospital, but happily was released the following afternoon having been found to have suffered “only” severe concussion. His father was given strict instructions by the doctor that there was to be no TV or computer use, absolutely no skiing and indeed no games of any sort for three weeks. Felix could remember nothing of the accident or, much to his regret, the helicopter trip. Quietly does it was the mantra. That evening we all wandered along to the Downhill Only Club where I collected my trophy for winning the Polytechnic Touring Cup giant slalom race ( thought I would slip that in….photos available at a price on request ), but it was a tedious affair really for two 9 year old boys and when my son Bob spotted that there was an ice-hockey game going on in the ice-rink just across the way they were given permission to go over and watch on the strict understanding, no running around….quietly quietly. Ten minutes later the door of the Downhill Only Club opened and in came Bob and Felix, the latter clutching his head and sobbing furiously. He’d been hit above the right eye, where an enormous throbbing bruise now stood, by a flying puck smacked with some force, presumably, by some brute of an ice-hockey player. How ridiculous is that? Felix, appropriately named, has used up quite a few of his nine lives.