Yes, there was a time when you could be fully certified as a ski instructor after two weeks. And the outfits were amazing – I want a one piece ski school suit…

Yes, we decided to celebrate everything retro (for a definition of what Retro really means see our previous analysis of Chamonix), and to celebrate we chose the medium of Kenta.

Now, in the bad old days a trip out with the boys in one-pieces would have been a rather messy day indeed, but as a responsible father of two we down-graded today’s activities to some mogul skiing, a sensible lunch at Cabane Mont Fort and a couple of glasses of wine. Dole Blanche, of course.

An apology…

OK, to make sure we could surprise Kent we needed a cover story. So we put a lesson in the planning for a Mr Kamprad. The man who started IKEA. To Kent this was like skiing with Royalty so he spent the preceding weeks telling his friends, family, people in the street, his wife’s family. He was a very excited little boy.

On top of that minor white lie, his beautiful wife Sterling and their children have just got back from a trip to the States to see her family, so we would be taking Kent away from his family duties and leaving Sterling with two little jet-lagged daughters.

So we want to apologise to Sterling for the deceit, and Mr Kamprad for spreading rumours he was on holiday in Verbier…

The result:

Was a rather amusing day, as we delicately explained to Kent that there was no booking: “No, Kent, there is no client. Honestly. I lied. You are going to lunch with us. No, Kent, Mr Kamprad is not coming to lunch….”

Now, before you go through these photos it’s important we make one thing clear.

You see, we’ve all made fashion mistakes, and we all have a dodgy ski outfit lurking somewhere at the back of the cupboard. I had a particularly vile pair of tight purple race pants (with lime green flashes) that could induce nausea and epileptic attacks. And because we have all, at one time or another, owned something truly horrendous, we can spot someone else making that same mistake.

But when we went to Chamonix, France, we were looking for steep mountains, glaciers and everything we’ve seen in the movies. What we didn’t realise was that in Chamonix, the one-piece ski suit was not left in the nineteen eighties. It’s alive and well and usually day-glo… (By the way, the last one is probably the best).

And thanks to Dan, Donna, Sandy, Rich, Ben and Blaire for pretending to have their photo taken so we could discreetly capture the magic.

Yes, a stroll past La Channe this evening was a bit more Swiss than usual. But it was nice to see that a restaurant which was so obsessed with all things Swiss could (somehow) become even more Swiss for the evening… Anyway, we thought it was nice.