DID you have a penpal when you were little? Do you remember the anticipation of listening for the flap of the letterbox and then rushing to see whether a handwritten note from a far away friend had plopped through?

Mostly the letterbox haul would reveal manila envelopes to make your parents groan, but sometimes, a colourful envelope adorned with spidery childlike writing bearing your name would appear. And it wasn’t even your birthday!

The excitement was palpable; brothers and sisters would want to help you open it, parents would want to read it but all you wanted to do was hide and enjoy your letter in peace – even if it would be filled with the banality and minutiae of a child’s life. Went to school, went to the cinema, had fish and chips for a treat…

Regardless of the content, the joy was derived in the receiving.

Alex has made some great potential penpals on holidays, one we’ve met every year in Cornwall on the same beach during the same school holiday for the past four years.

And he made some lovely friends in France before Christmas. The penpal letters of yesteryear seem to be forgotten in our digital age.

‘Send me your email address’, ‘I’ll add you on Facebook’, or ‘text me’ are the parting words, and a foregone conclusion for the children of today. No one asks for an address any more or says they’ll write.

ABOUT those children in France. Two belonged to the owners of a lovely, family friendly chalet where we stayed in Morzine – a pretty skiing area an hour from Geneva, plus an Australian family of boys who were guests in the same chalet with us before Christmas.

Other children are the barometer for how successful a holiday we are going to have. Being an only child, Alex loves the company of other kids, and this chalet was geared up for families, meaning that potential playmates would be in abundance.

Chalet Morzine is run by Yorkshire-born Lindsey, who met and then married her French ski instructor, Thierry, while working as a ski manager in Morzine-Avoriaz and the rest, as they say, is history.

Lindsey has years of experience in the ski travel industry and little touches around the place show she knows what makes an excellent family holiday.

Delicious food, comfortable rooms, early kids’ suppers, mammoth games room with English movies and TV, books, games consoles and lovely playmates in her two daughters are a brilliant start. The close proximity to the ski lifts and the relaxed easy-going nature of the staff are a winning combination.

We loved that at breakfast the family joined the guests and ski instructor Thierry could read the weather conditions on the mountains from the panoramic dining room windows.

There are two simples tips to saving money on a ski trip: don’t book a package and don’t go for a week.

Booking bargain flights and arranging your own accommodation really saves the pennies, and if you add in four or five days of accommodation, ski rental, lift passes (rather than 7) the savings are huge.

Staying at a chalet means you only need to budget for lunches out, so there are no big food bills and a chalet is so much better than a hotel.

Chalet Morzine is perfect, so much so they are fully booked for the 2012 season so get in quick if you fancy it for next season. Go towww.chaletmorzine.com.