‘So, we get up, have this huge breakfast, then hit the slopes. And we’re out there all day. We’re, like, texting each other so we could meet for lunch, and I skied with my brother and sister-in-law for a few hours – we found these awesome trails.

‘And it gets towards the end of the day – dusk – and we’re texting each other to meet up in a particular bar at the end of the last run. And I get there with my brother and his wife, and my mum’s with her sister and my cousin – and she’s frantic. She looks at us and says, “It’s your father …”’

It was the most I’d ever heard Hannah share in one go – and we were all on the edge of her seats wanting to know what happened to her dad while she took a sip of her martini.

‘What happened?’ Josh expressed aloud what I could see in the faces of the others.

‘Oh, nothing bad,’ she dismissed our concern and in return we let out a collective sigh.

‘But he had accidentally taken the wrong run when he got off the ski lift, and had skied into Italy. Any other time of the day – no problem. You take the lift to the top and ski back into France. But it was the last run of the day. The lifts were closed until the next morning at nine. And his phone was out of battery.’

When the penny dropped, the rest of us laughed out loud and Hannah joined in.

‘That’s hysterical,’ said Marie. ‘What did he do?’

‘Well, he went into the nearest hotel and asked to use the phone, and then he called the bar where the rest of us were and asked for my mum. And then, when we knew he was safe – and just stupid – he headed to the bar.’

That brought more laughter.

‘That’s what I would do,’ Duncan added. Gary nodded in agreement.

‘So, he had about thirty euros in cash – not enough for a room, but certainly enough for a couple of drinks – and don’t forget, this whole time he has his ski gear on – including his boots – ’cause he didn’t have anything else.’

By this stage, I was laughing so hard I had ceased making any noise. I could picture the whole scene and for some reason, in my head, her dad looked like John Cleese.

‘And then he struck up a conversation with this Austrian family who took pity on him. Turned out they had a three-room apartment in the hotel, and they ended up feeding him and giving him a place to sleep that night.’

Gary actually applauded. ‘I love that he did that. That’s the kind of sixty-year-old I plan to be – adventurous, gregarious, resourceful.’