With spring in the air and restrictions on après ski eased in Europe’s top ski resorts, there’s never been a better time to let your hair down after a day on the slopes and celebrate the long-awaited return of ski holidays.

Across the Alps the music is pumping, Schnapps is flowing and tables are once again creaking under the weight of ski-boot-wearing dancers. From St Anton’s Mooserwirt to Val d’Isere’s Folie Douce and Snowbombing Festival in Mayrhofen, après ski is back to its best – much to the delight of the thousands of Britons who flock to the mountains each winter to spend more time partying, rather than sliding.

But what if, despite the persuasive words of your resort rep and the cheers of delight from the bar’s terrace, you’re just not feeling the raucous après vibe anymore and instead yearn for an afternoon soaking in the hot tub, before an indulgent dinner? Well, truth be told, you might just be too old for après ski.

10 signs you’re too old for après ski

Helen Coffey reveals the moment she realised her days of frolicking at the Folie Douce were over.

As a fresh-faced 21-year-old on a ski season in the French Alps, I could literally have it all. Stumbling back from the local bar, once so notably sozzled that I was unable to find my shoebox apartment and had to spend the night on a bemused French couple’s floor (it turned out to be on the same corridor as my room), I would nevertheless be fairly confident in my ability to spring back the next day, ready for a full day’s skiing. And that confidence was rarely misplaced.

I have no idea how it worked on a physiological level – my best guess is some kind of beautiful magic, also bestowed upon my contemporaries, who shared this special ability to stay out till 4am and then hit the slopes for six straight hours the following day.

In fact, this miracle became so commonplace, so expected, that we all started to forget it was a miracle at all…

Cut to six years later, and I’m sat on a chairlift, bloodshot eyes blinking stupidly in the sunlight like early man emerging from the cave for the first time, head pounding with all the ferocity of what feels like a very small but very strong pixie bashing the inside of my skull with a very small but very real club. It is taking every ounce of my concentration and willpower to simply not be sick over the side of the chair.

The previous night’s “hilarious” antics, involving a bottle of tequila, some truly awful karaoke and a quickly-abandoned game of Ring of Fire, no longer seem quite so amusing this morning when looking down the barrel of an entire day of extreme exercise.

It is a rude awakening to the sad but inevitable truth – I can no longer handle the wild après AND the full-on skiing. No sir. Those days are done. And if you recognise any of the following symptoms, it may well be that the time has come for you, too, to trade in your party shoes for some “low-key fun” slippers – at least while on your only snowsports holiday of the year…

1. Sip not shot

Upon hearing the chant “Down it! Down it! Down it!”, your first impulse is to simply put your drink back down on the table.

2. Home sweet home

The very mention of leaving the chalet of an evening – the lovely, warm chalet with the lovely, free chalet wine – brings you out in a cold sweat so extreme, it prompts friends to comment that you’re “looking a bit peaky”.

3. Clock watching

When someone proposes one last pint at 11pm, you find yourself nervously looking at your watch and muttering “the thing is, if I’m going to get 10 hours sleep AND be up in time for first lift, I really should have been in bed 28 minutes ago…”

4. Ignorance is bliss

You offer to get the next three rounds in, simply so you can order a coke minus the vodka for yourself without having to endure relentless mockery from the rest of the group.