My mother has always wanted to ski, and to my shame I've never taken her. I'd never been myself - put off by the thought of all the queuing: for the ski and boot hire, for the cable car, for the button and chairlifts, for lunch ... But with my mother, Patricia, turning 84 this year, and my daughter, Delilah, now five, just the right age to learn, I thought we'd better get a move on.
It may sound ambitious to attempt a dangerous sport for the first time in your 80s, but, although she would probably disagree, my mother isn't your typical eightysomething: she walks the dog, swims every day, and is fitter than most 60 year olds. She celebrated turning 80 in characteristic denial, by going on a three-hour horse ride with her grandchildren. It wasn't the skiing that was daunting; it was all the other bits: the journey, climbing in and out of moving cable cars, hopping on and off chairlifts, not to mention lugging all the equipment around and negotiating treacherous icy paths in heavy boots.
The only way to do it, we decided, was to minimise the hassle factors. First we chose a hotel that was easy to get to. The Jagdhof is 20 minutes from Innsbruck airport and another 20 minutes from the Stubai glacier, where you can ski practically year round. This is crucial: although we went in February, the coldest season, it would have been tragic to get that far, only to have global warming foil our plans.
The hotel has a huge spa, including a labyrinth of steam rooms, tepidariums, saunas, relaxation rooms and brilliant food and wine. So, if the skiing didn't work out, we could just spend the days detoxing and retoxing.
My mother refused to waste money on skiwear - and ended up with a strange, borrowed ensemble of various grandchildren's salopettes and goggles, my sister's jacket and an ancient woolly hat.
At Innsbruck we were met by one of the hotel drivers, and whisked to the Tyrolean village of Neustift through a backdrop of "hills are alive" mountains. Neustift is a cute little ski resort - all cuckoo-clock-style wooden houses and farms, ringed by the snow-topped Alps. The family-owned Jagdhof looks reassuringly Heidi-esque: a traditional chalet-style building with 70 pretty rooms and apartments.
They have an arrangement with the local ski shop, and drove us down to get measured up. You type relevant details - age, weight, height, proficiency - into a computer, and it selects the right gear. The age range only went up to 59, and the staff were thrown by having a customer more than 20 years over their limit. They eventually handed over the shortest, easiest-to-manage skis available, with the apprehensive air of someone giving a toddler a loaded gun.
I asked the hotel to book us a private instructor, Reinhardt, who turned out to be the most patient, helpful and empowering teacher imaginable. Despite admitting quietly that my mother was the oldest person he had taught, by a good two decades, he behaved from the outset as if the slopes were teeming with slaloming octogenarians. He turned up before the morning glacier shuttle, escorted us to the hotel ski locker room, eased boot-strapping struggles, and carried all the equipment, so we could concentrate on getting in and out of the moving cable car. If we'd had to carry our own skis and poles, I think we'd still be dangling, Bond-like, from the carriage.
We fell into a pleasant routine of swimming before breakfast; skiing till 3pm, and back to the hotel for tea and cakes. Before the nightly five-course gourmet dinners, we took riverside walks and sleigh rides around the village, and had moonlit swims with snow falling on our heads.
Delilah got her own instructor at the Micky Maus school (and was soon zipping around). I was given little manoeuvres to practise on my own (I made a blue run by day three), so Reinhardt could concentrate on my mother. By day two, she was negotiating tiny slopes in the nursery area, and on day three she had her first tumble. "I'm so pleased I've had a fall," she enthused. "It's such a relief to know it's nothing compared with falling off a bolting horse." On our fourth and final day, she managed to ski down a 100m slope unaided - and has the pictures to prove it.
She wants to re-book for November, and this time is going to invest in her own kit. Anyone have the number for Prada?
· GB Airways (0870 8509850, ba.com) flies Gatwick-Innsbruck from pounds 78 rtn inc tax. Hotel Jagdhof (0043 5226 2666, hotel-jagdhof.at) from euros 160pp pn half-board inc transfers, glacier shuttle service, use of spa, pool and kids' club. Skiing lessons (schischule-neustift.com) cost from euros 119 for three days for groups, to euros 46 per hour for a private instructor, Micky Maus club ski school (skiclub-mickymaus.com, +5226 8108) from euros 60 a day. Daily ski passes from euros 32 adults, from euros 25.60 over 60s, free for under 10s.
