The white stuff

Despite his holiday diet of hot chocolate, crepe and pizza, Jonah looked like a concentration camp victim as he vomited into a bucket, baggy stomach voiding, scurrying back to the toilet to empty his bowels, all bony limbs, jutting hipbones and heaving rib cage. This is no sugar overdose. The boy’s sick.

We got a call from the doctors yesterday saying the sample I’d biked over on the way to work last week had grown bacteria. Ava’s stomach cramping and sickness was indicative of a water infection for which the doctor had left a prescription of antibiotics back at the surgery. Fat lot of good that is now we’re in the French Alps, but thanks, NHS, for sticking on the phone despite the international dial tone to let us know.  She spent her first night here vomiting too, but at least that probably was too much ice cream after our celebratory first night meal, as much as the inevitable bug that’s been going round school.

She has woken today bright and perky, only the faintest traces of the purple undereyes she’s sported for much the start of our half term break. But Tom and I, woken by a panicking, vomiting boy, now have our own facial badges of an early wake up call. Luckily I’ve been collapsing by half nine most nights. The mountain air, sunshine and recovery from the sodden British winter, replete with a host of bugs of my own have all but wiped me out. That and the baguette-and-French-butter binge I’ve been on since I got here.

All that notwithstanding, we’re having a nice time. Tom’s worked his socks off one way or another, finding the pretty little French mountain village he went to once as a teenager, and booking a bargain basement apartment, that for all it cheapness has pretty carved wooden shutters and an open fire that he’s made up with logs and kindling. He performed his usual pre-holiday heroism, keeping me calm through the packing, carting suitcases down three flights of stairs, getting us to the airport with plenty of time, to allow for the inevitable hurdles: this time, twenty minutes of queries because Ava’s passport has just a month to run. Yet the journey was relatively hassle-free. I was the only one who really suffered up the winding mountain roads, arriving faint and green round the gills to the apartment building flanked by walls of snow with a path hollowed out through the middle. But at least, the next day, we were rewarded with sunshine.

It’s always hard work for the first day or two, sorting out ski boots that don’t rub, carting round heavy equipment for kids who just want to build snowmen and sledge having not seen snow since the year before. But after the usual tumbles and grumbles, yesterday was idyllic: golden sun reflecting off snow-capped peaks backed by cornflower blue skies.  Tom and I sat in desckchairs up the quiet mountains drinking beer with sun-warmed arms, despite the snow. Even bandy shinned Jonah found his ski legs and managed a few green runs, getting the honour of being moved up a group in his ski class. Poor Ava though, still puffy from her night of sickness struggled through it, preferring to be carted around by the tanned and golden ski instructors than practise her snow plough. I can hardly blame her.

Tom and the kids spent the afternoon sledging while I sat in the Tourist Information Centre, writing an article I meant to send before we left, but after late afternoon beers in the fading sun, we headed home for pizza and to allow a hot chocolate-frenzied boy wipe the board with us in Monopoly while the fire crackled in the background, and I grew drowsy on red wine.

Jonah’s sleeping now although the morning’s wearing on, so whether he’ll be well enough to go into his advanced ski group is anyone’s guess. It’s a shame, as it was so nice to see him grow in confidence doing something physical and spend a whole day where the iPad barely got a look in. Perhaps the easy answer is to try and keep him off holiday fare of chips and chocolate crepes. But then, persuading Jonah to do what’s good him has never been all that easy.