“Orange or banana?” said Jack. His wife Stacy, sitting in the passenger seat, went for the orange. The kids sat quietly in the back of the car eating KitKats while nursing their hot coffee in camping mugs, wet ski-suits dripping.
The wind had picked up and sleet was leaving horizontal trails on the windscreen as the family sat munching their lunch in the upper parking lot of the Cairngorm ski-area.
Down the hill in front of the car the slushy learner slope with its single T-bar tow could only just be seen through the mist. The tow added a distant buzzing sound as the car rocked slightly in the wind. Skis from the morning stood like fence posts staked into the snow bank.
Cocooned within the warm car Stacy said “What do you think about going up there again this afternoon?”
“Well we've paid for these lift tickets,” said Jack after a pause, “and it might be better at the top.”
It started to rain.
← Back to index