I am writing this from Puy-St-Vincent, a ski resort in France – where I am on a family holiday courtesy of Snowbizz – the family ski specialists.

How we heard about this little resort

I met Wendy and Elodie from Snowbizz last year, when they signed up for a series of intensive digital marketing and social media sessions with me. They took to the new skills and habits so well, they are continuously praised and recognised for their Facebook and Blogging by ski journalists and their customers.

When Wendy offered me the chance to experience the Snowbizz ski holiday experience, I checked with my husband Anders (hardcore ski fanatic) and his sister Lena, her husband Janne and their two kids Hannah (12) and Theo (10) – did they want to do it? The answer was yes (of course!) – we had done one family ski trip to Austria last year, and it seems we want to make it an annual tradition!

With Wendy’s help (I have never had such great care and attention from any travel agent before!) we were booked in, with all travel details taken care of, and we all started to look forward to it.

And even in spite of my “health news” potentially throwing a spanner into our plans, I still wanted to go.  My oncologist said “no problem” and so we stuck with these dates.

The mountain air has done me good, and skiing is a good distraction!

Now, we have spent all week here at Puy-St-Vincent, skiing every day and enjoying the snow and the sunshine. Here are the things I have loved the most:

A combination of self catering plus restaurants

I love having the choice to go down to the “Sherpa” supermarket and buy groceries to make breakfast at home, or choose to eat in the restaurants here in the resort.

We are now fully absorbing the French foods. From the supermarket and local stores we get amazing cheese, sausages, baguettes and croissants. We have cooked dinner in the apartment a couple of times and had breakfast at the apartment most days. I like that!

At the restaurants we have strawberry flavoured Volvic, french fries, soup, ravioli, lasagna, and for the other adults, shots of (sometimes green) liqueor “Génépi” and “Vin Chaud” (warm wine).

Only one thing I wouldn’t order here anymore: cappuccino. They basically take coffee and stick whipped cream on it. Not really what I would call cappuccino! I will hold off on cappuccinos till I get back to London for that. Instead, hot chocolate is always a good bet!

My favourite mountain restaurant

I found a favourite place for lunch. The vegetable soup with grated cheese is delicious, along with a green salad and French mustard dressing. Loving this food and have had it 3 times this week.

Easy to find my way around

Even though Anders, Lena and Janne are experienced skiiers, I am not that comfortable finding  my way around. So having such a simple set of lifts and slopes means really it’s not possible to get lost, even for me!

The skiing

A really great selection of slopes which are wide enough to take turns, and some which are slightly steeper so I feel slightly challenged, and some which are nice and easy and make me feel like a pro skier, gliding down.

I have never edited a video before, which may surprise you all. But I put this video from a few Iphone videos together, and added some captions. If you don’t mind amateur videos and captions, this is your chance to see me skiing! I am wearing a green jacket. Theo, Hannah and Lena also feature in this movie.

Anders and his guide “Rodolphe”

With Michel’s help (he who also owns Snowbizz) Anders got booked in with a guide so they could go off-piste and ski in some steep deep powder snow and do some tree skiing. The second day they went I said to him “make sure you take pictures so we can include a picture for blog”. I haven’t met Rodolphe personally, but he has been working in this resort for 6 years and is apparently a really “cool dude.” So says Janne and Anders. And I just realised that the name Rodolphe is perfect for a guide. And we just heard through the grapevine that Rodolphe was super impressed with Anders’s skiing skills, saying he has never skiied with anyone better!

Torchlight Descent

The kids didn’t really want to sign up to too many of the kid’s activities, preferring to ski with us. But Theo (who is a ski fanatic and just wants to ski all the time!) did get signed up for the torchlight descent. It happened at around 6:30 in the evening, after sunset. All the participating kids got glow in the dark torches and went up on the lift. When all the kids descended, their torches lit the night sky, and the music playing, it really did look pretty. We filmed it but I don’t think phone cameras do it justice!

We found out about this on the Snowbizz blog – their “Top 10 Family ski recommendations”

A week where I truly did get to relax.

I am lucky my amazing team at Top Left Design (my design agency) held the fort so beautifully while I was away, allowing me to take a proper holiday. I think I “worked” only 30mins while away and that was simply replying to a few emails. So I really do feel rested and refreshed and ready to get back to London.

Thank you Snowbizz!

Thank you Wendy, Michel and Elodie, for giving me and my family such a fantastic ski vacation. We loved it and would recommend it to anyone wanting a relaxing ski break in this pretty little resort!