The snow is deep and crisp and even, the sky bluer than blue, and beneath my Black Crow skis there’s the soft hiss of fresh powder. I’m rehearsing my excuses as I carve my wiggly way down a well-upholstered piste.

‘I’ve gone skiing by mistake,’ I try out on the pure mountain air.

I’m almost embarrassed by my own excess as this is my second ski break of the year, and to go twice before Easter during a war and an energy crisis is peak first-world indulgence.

The shocking entitlement of Huw Edwards

The Foremans can’t blame the UK for their imprisonment in Iran

There is nothing more embarrassing than a Davey-Starmer love-in

Still, as I like to say, I have not one but two Agas, ‘just not in the same house’, so what the heck. Here goes. My two ski trips in two months, then.

Last month, we rented a chalet for the annual Dawnay-Johnson family ski holiday. We played Perudo and ate hugely both on and off the mountain. The key words here: self-catering, group of 16, one week.

Anyway, when an invitation from Verbier Exclusive arrived I sort of parked it as I was already going skiing. Plus I knew when mid-March came round, I’d have only just come back from the Tarentaise (and Luxor and Paris, but nobody likes a show-off do they?).

But then, during a rare inbox hygiene session, I re-read........

© The Spectator