Ski, Sun, Sushi & Shopping - The Perfect Sunday

Having not skied Brevent or Flegere for a few weeks I wasn't holding high hopes for conditions; they're both on the sunny side of the valley and by April are sometimes looking a little worse for wear. However, I was pleasantly surprised...

Heading up to Brevent bright and early I was expecting at least the first couple of runs to be bulletproof - the type of frozen corduroy that rattles your teeth and makes your ski tips flap frantically. However, they'd had a nice little coating of fresh snow overnight and once the piste-bashers had worked their magic they were perfect, smooth and not at all icy - maybe a bit too hard for comfort on a snowboard but on skis they were just right.

As the morning wore on a nice soft layer developed on top and by 10am we had hit the magic moment - when the pistes are still perfectly groomed but there is a just a couple of centimetres of soft snow on top. All the pistes were in great condition and almost completely empty - the Cornu is an absolute delight when you've got it to yourself and can swoop down the whole thing in big wide turns without crossing paths with another soul.

I did a few laps of the top bin and found the Bozon piste to be equally deserted - the few that were heading up there seemed mostly to be ski tourers setting off on a backcountry adventure, leaving me with a private playground.

After a couple of hours of zooming about with a daft grin on my face I headed back down to meet the girls for lunch at Satsuki, Chamonix's own Japanese sushi restaurant. They do a very good lunch deal here and the staff are always lovely. I opted for the tried-tested-tried-again ganmo, which is a kind of seasoned and fried bean curd that tastes a lot better than how I'm making it sound, and maki. It was excellent, as always, as was the variety of tempura seafood, chicken skewers, seaweed salad and various other delights that the girls tucked in to.

After lunch we went for a quick stroll round the "braderie"- a kind of open-air end of season sale, where all the local shops put their rails out on the streets and tempt you with discounts on all their unsold stock. We flocked around the brightly coloured goretex jackets, the mirrored sunnies, and the sparkly accessories like the magpies that we are. Then I looked up at the bright blue sky and reminded myself that there is skiing to be done.

It's only a mere couple of weeks until the end of the season and panic is setting in. Panic that I won't have skied enough, that I won't have got best use of my season pass, that it may never snow again and this might be my last ever season... So I legged it up to Flegere and did a few glorious runs in the afternoon sunshine.

I wasn't expecting much other than heavy snow and sore legs but, again, I was pleasantly surprised. The snow was soft, indeed, but not slushy or sticky as expected. Instead it had reached that bouncy stage where you have to work a bit but you're not getting bogged down or catching on rocks - it was just really good fun. A few laps of the Floria, which was in excellent condition, the Lachenal was fairly mogulled but completely empty so I could boing about all over the place without fear of collision, the Index was good at the top but a bit like mashed potato towards the bottom - but by 4pm you can't complain at that.

All in all, I had a lovely Sunday, I hope you did too!