Nigel Grainger brings together a related set of skills that all fleets require, to greater or lesser
degrees, but which may not have the staffing or the skills to fulfil those needs.
Bringing his wealth of experience in all areas of fleet management he offers a bespoke service through his company Fleet Risk Consultants, providing you with a cost effective fleet that complies fully with your 'duty of care' requirements.How to do Skiing by Car
Accelerator down, the BMW leaves the driveway, as we head towards Dover on a lads weekend away. Andy, Paul and myself are going skiing.
I’m sitting on the back seat admiring the scenery as we speed down the motorways of southern England, to get the Dover ferry to Calais.
We’re heading to the French Alps for a bit of weekend skiing. Not something I have done before and as the next 36 hours will demonstrate, something I did learn, but the hard way.
Paul was the snowboarder, Andy the black run skier and yes you’ve guessed it, I was the novice. But hey, it was a weekend in France with some work colleagues, and I wanted to learn.
La Plagne, France was our final destination, which was about 12 hours from our start point. We left the outskirts of London at 6pm on a Friday night, having said goodbye to our wives that morning. Needless to say work was pointless that day, but we made ourselves busy for the duration.
The drive to Calais was pretty uneventful as the BMW 3 series chewed up the motorway, but the car came into its own as we drove through France heading for Lyon. The Beemer just kept on going and going and going. The only downside was that we had to endure Abba, the Stylistics and Mowtown whole journey with Andy trying to sing along. The up side was that Andy is tone deaf. Now that was funny.
Early morning, we arrive at La Plagne, check into our functional bunk room (to call it an apartment would be unfair to architects. It was more of a part of an apartment). By 8am we were on the slopes having had no sleep on the journey down, so that was a good combination on which to hit the slopes. No sleep, no skiing warm up and enough coffee to trip to the moon.
Up the hill on the lift, exit left and stare down the iciest, whitest, foggiest hill I can remember. ‘Come on let’s go’ Andy launches himself down the run, closely followed by Paul. Me, I balance and wait. For what I don’t know, but I wait…and wait…and wait.
Suddenly it’s dark. My legs are numb and I haven’t moved off the hill all day. But I have been watching the French at play with the Italians at war and the Swiss on parade. Every country is here today, and you can spot the Brits, they are the ones on the stretchers.
Joking aside it was a good days skiing and we hit the sack knackered. Sunday we are up before the Ski slope is awake and hit the slopes. We’re heading home today and want a couple of hours before we hit the autoroutes.
Again the journey home is painless, German technology combined with French road styling gets us home bruise free.
This holiday goes down as one of the better ones. My skiing, thanks to the tuition of my friends improved significantly, and the driving was a blast!
David Edwards