On the last day of our holiday we chose not to ski, but instead wandered around the resort and the technical college. There we bumped into other friends from home, including HW with a group of girlfriends; and S, N, A and C.

The latter group’s trip had not been a success. A had not wanted to book a package holiday. Instead he made reservations for everyone on a scheduled flight and hired a car to bring the party up to the resort. He had not counted on the dangers of driving on the fast icy Alpine roads, and his passengers’ holiday was almost ruined by the journey. Then they all discovered that they hated ski-ing.

N followed me into the technical college. Here I fell onto a trash conveyor belt in the basement. I was heading towards the enormous metal teeth of the crusher when I was rescued by a maintenance man and returned to the safety of N’s arms.

While I’d been in mortal danger, N had bought over-sized red lollipops for each of his four daughters.