Still feeling sick to my stomach, I strapped on my skis and boarded the Solaise Express gondola with Ed. The sun was shining, the snow glittering and Val d’Isère positively fizzing with springtime energy. As we gained altitude and the mountains started to reveal themselves in their full glory, I received a message from Clare with a photograph of a slumbering Amalia and my nausea abated. By the time we had skied a couple of runs, I started to gulp down deep breaths of crisp air as the mountains peeled back layer upon layer of parental worries and mental load. Ed pointed out that this was the first time in nearly a year that the two of us were alone together and doing something other than sleeping, working or doing housework. I’m fortunate to have a husband who shows remarkable dedication to his family and this holiday has been as essential in restoring my own sense of self as it has been in reigniting our appreciation of each other. 

As with many mums, I have struggled with the loss of identity that can accompany motherhood. As a travel writer and keen skier, my sense of belonging has taken a further beating from the lack of being able to do what I love most during the pandemic. Here I was, at last, rediscovering who I am on the slopes. 

Physical hurdles

Knowing that a woman’s attitude to risk is fundamentally altered upon becoming a mother, which is recognised to impact our confidence on the slopes, returning to the mountains after having children was incredibly important to me. But, despite my best intentions, I failed entirely to find time in between caring for two sick children (our ski trip was postponed first when Mathilde got chickenpox and a second time when Amalia followed suit) to prepare myself physically for skiing.

The result was that I could barely move after two short days on the slopes. It’s a schoolgirl error that I was gently reprimanded for by my instructor, Charlotte Henry. “Returning to skiing after having a child is like coming back after an injury,” she told me. “Preparing physically for it is the most important thing you can do – not only will it maximise your enjoyment, it will also minimise your chance of injury.”

A mother of two girls herself, Charlotte is one of three female instructors with Val d’Isère’s most exclusive private ski school, Tetra. With 15 years’ experience teaching for the school, she estimates that at least a third of her clients are mothers seeking one-to-one tuition away from their husbands and children.

“Sometimes they just want to go slower or ski different terrain to the rest of the family. And sometimes it’s about just wanting time to do something for themselves.” 

Compassionate and supportive, Charlotte nonetheless worked me hard, picking out small but critical faults in my technique and working through them thoroughly. Our chairlift chats ranged from biomechanics and the technical intricacies of carving on the pistes to breastfeeding and the importance of a strong pelvic floor. I’ve certainly learned the latter while spending back-breaking mornings on the nursery slopes, scooping Mathilde up off the snow and skiing with her between my legs, taking equal delight in watching her discover her ski legs as I have taken in rediscovering my own.