On Christmas Day it became obvious that I was getting a slight cold. No biggie I thought, especially as the Ball & Chain had taken responsibility for the cooking. By the end of the day I wasn't feeling quite so cavalier about the whole thing, and the following morning I couldn't lift my head off the pillow. Seems I had a cold and a raging sinus infection to boot. If you've never had sinus issues, let's just say it's a good job we're not into guns otherwise I would gladly have put an end to my suffering.
Bed for almost three days, which then caused my back to play up. I have some lower back
The other bit of drama involved the youngest's ski boots. We had rented them in Chicago as it saves us a LOT of money; renting skis and boots at a resort is usually an eye-watering experience. Unfortunately, if anything goes wrong, well, we're a thousand miles away from anyone who can do anything about it. This time,his feet seemed to have grown in the three weeks since we'd had the boots fitted and he was almost crying with the discomfort. After two days of us telling him he'd be fine etc. etc. he clearly wasn't falling prey to our not-so subliminal messaging, so we decided there was nothing else to be done - we had to rent another set of boots from one of the rental stores in the ski resort. (The phrase "Penny wise, Pound foolish" was beginning to ring in my ears at this point.)
A few days after pain-free skiing for the 12 year old, the Ball & Chain suddenly realized that he'd left the original Chicago rental boots in the ski resort shop. Sure enough, when we went to collect them they were nowhere to be found. The idiots have only gone and rented them out, despite the stickers on each boot announcing that they are the property of an entirely different ski rental company!
The Ball & Chain is taking full responsibility for the blunder but I'm having none of that. The day after we made the discovery. I went into the resort shop, went full on Margaret Thatcher with a hint of Mary Poppins, and said I was "just making sure" they had our contact details because since they'd rented them out, it was obviously their responsibility to retrieve them. Given that most people ski for a week or less here, the boots must surely come back to the rental shop?
I got a profuse apology and a promise that they'd take care of it. Mind you,. there's a reason we call it "Mountain Air" - what they say they're going to do and what actually happens are usually two entirely different things. We'll see.
