(continued from yesterday)

The cable car ride down the mountain was uneventful, apart from the strange glances from French people who looked at me like they had never seen such a handsome man ashen-faced with pain. Maybe I was whimpering, I can not be sure, not without CCTV playback which the lazy French have yet to install on all cable cars (to provide tourists with mementos of their visits and the like).

At the bottom, I was greeted by an ambulance. This surprised me. I was sure there were people out there who needed an ambulance more than me, even some French people, but it would have been churlish to pass up a free lift after they had gone to the trouble of arranging it, so I allowed myself to be helped into the van.

Approximately one hundred and fifty yards later, the ambulance pulled up at the Val D’Isere Medical Centre. It is a distinct possibility that it simply crossed the street.

I was helped into the Medical Centre and was immediately seated by a pretty French nurse who proceeded to help me off with my jacket and my snowboard boots. I made a mental note to leave an extra pair of pants at home next year and pack odour eaters instead.

Then I remembered that she was French, and so quite used to body odours. I had showered that morning, so I was probably the freshest man she had ever encountered. This explained why she then took my t-shirt and thermal top off. Just so she could smell me better.

Of course, she then went the through the charade of taking some x-rays of my shoulder in order to justify getting me naked from the waist up, but I know she just wanted to breath me in and check out the guns. Or rather, the gun. My injured arm was looking pretty feeble.

Still topless, I was taken to a bed and asked to wait until the Doctor could see me.

“Sumfeeng for yur pain?” she asked, cutely.

“Oh no, I am fine, honestly. It is nothing. Just a bump” I replied wincing puffy-chestedly.

She wandered off, but it was only thirty seconds or so I before I shifted position, yelped in pain and instantly realised how rude I had been to refuse her offer of pain killers. “Hello? Hello! I’ll take those painkillers now please! The big ones!”, I called out to her, until she returned bearing drugs.

She gave me a couple of pills that began with a ‘T’ and the next hour or so was a bit of a blur. I do, however, vaguely remember paying about €550 in fees to get my snowboard back. That ambulance proved to be the most expensive 150 yard journey I have ever taken.

Thus ended my snowboarding adventures for another year.

No tags