It’s Monday and the slopes are noticeably more crowded – we got a nice soft start yesterday before the rest of the winter break crowd got here.

It’s Monday and ski school starts. Adrian and Ingrid have an hour and a half in the morning, and I have a similar period in the afternoon.

Adrian continues to practise skiing, but Ingrid is learning snowboarding this year, which involves a lot of falling down and getting back up. I think perhaps she was inspired by watching Eric – it looks so effortlessly cool when he comes down the slope with beautiful turns.

Meanwhile I am taking lessons to hone my parallel turns. Many Swedes grow up with skiing holidays and by the time they’re grown, they’re all comfortable and experienced on skis. (The majority of my ski school group are foreign tourists.) Estonia has no alpine skiing tradition at all. I first stood on a pair of alpine skis in high school. The few ski trips since then haven’t really been enough to achieve any kind of proficiency. But I enjoy it, and I enjoy getting better at it.

Yesterday was cold, and today was even colder: –17°C. We’re wearing gloves inside our mittens and still the hands get cold, especially in the wind. The platter lifts move at a stately 2 or 3 m/s, which seems like nothing but turns out to be more than enough to chill the face and hands.

Another unexpected cooling effect comes from ski poles. While skiing, you hold the handles, which are made of insulating plastic. On a lift you want the poles to be well above ground so you normally hold them somewhere in the middle, on the metal part, which is not insulated at all. In the cold wind the poles acted like giant heat sinks, instantly leeching warmth from my hands even through all the mittens and gloves.