Karen Koren: Sloping off for ski fun with Bill

I have just spent a lovely week in Cyprus skiing with Bill Bailey and a small entourage of his family and friends.

Who would have thought that there was snow in Cyprus? It’s around an hour’s drive from Limassol where we were staying to the Troodos mountain range.

The range stretches across most of the western side of Cyprus.

The highest peak is Mount Olympus at 1952 metres, the snow only appears after driving for 45 minutes and all of a sudden the landscape completely changes and it takes on an alpine feel and is much cooler.

Luckily the days we skied the weather was around 10 degrees with brilliant sunshine.

It was Bill’s idea for us to travel to Cyprus, as Kris, his wife doesn’t ski and she wanted to be able to have a half term break with their son Dax (13), without having to sit in a chalet on the alps without anything to do.

Dax is an accomplished skier, his best friend Maxim had never skied before and his younger sister, Nina, was also new to skiing. So I joined them on the nursery slopes with a Cypriot instructor.

Within three days we could ski moderately and spent the day going up the nursery slopes, skiing down and up again on a short ski lift.

I fell halfway up the ski-lift at one point and had to take my skiis off and crawl up the rest of the slope alongside the ski-lift.

Passers by asking if I was all right, Kris asked me later why I hadn’t walked back down to the lift and gone up that way, instead going through agony trying to get to the top.

Why I’m not sure, I managed it though, so felt proud of myself for my determination.

There are four ski slopes at the resort, Bill and Dax went up the higher slopes and the photos from the top of the mountain range were stunning.

The glimmering blinding snow on the mountains, took your breath away in the sunlight.

I would highly recommend a ski holiday in Cyprus at this time of year.