After more than a week and a half, our skis still haven’t arrived from France. Never mind that parcels from Hong Kong arrive at my doorstep four days after being posted.  No, in France, it seems, things take longer.  It took more than a week for my skis to make it 280km to the Export Centre, where they have sat for the last three days making no progress at all.

Once they make it over the border, I’m confident that the Swiss won’t waste a second assessing the duty and taxes on my skis, then sending a man around to collect the balance.  Nothing motivates the Swiss like collecting taxes.

So our plans to go skiing this weekend were put on hold, as I’ve found skiing is less fun when you’re simply wearing boots.

Instead, we headed off to Germany to do a little ice-skating.  Nice way to spend a cold winter’s day, and we had some snow outside to make it even better.  Finished the day off with a trip to the German supermarket (always fun, although I discovered that everything is a little picked-over if you wait until Saturday afternoon to do your shopping.  It’s like the beach chairs – the Germans get up early to ensure the best choice!)

We’re crossing our fingers that the skis turn up before next weekend.  We’re trying to squeeze in a day of skiing before I have to leave for India and Australia – we’ve got a week booked in Chamonix as soon as I get back, and I’d like a chance to get out on the skis once before we hit the big mountains.