Okanagan Girls.....hiking boots, headbands on top

Anna, clearly shovelling well from the look of the rock free trench

Hiding from the farmer to avoid any heavy lifting

Okanagan Angels?

We woke bright and early for our first day our willing workerness and were set loose on the squash field, we were told that we were to do 5 hours, Monday to Friday, and 2 and a half hours on Saturdays, which to be honest was quite a relief as we had learnt that the boys had to wake up a 6am and have been working 8-10 hour days, with very few days off. Our job was to weed the fields, and dig holes; it was blissful when looking back on it now. We spent 2 days in the the field, proudly digging our holes, laughing and joking and me playfully throwing soil at Anna. Well it wasn’t quite like that, I’m pretty sure Anna wasn’t really enjoying my soil flinging and it wasn’t exactly playful, it was accidental. Although I don’t really like to compare myself to a dog, my digging did somewhat resemble a mucky puppy flinging mud everywhere so as to dig a perfect hole for bone to be buried in, and Anna was just a victim of my mess, with flakes of soil being swept up into her mouth and up her nose.

Those two days really were wonderful, but I may just be suffering from a case of false nostalgic feelings? The next day we were taken away on the back of a truck, to a far, far land where the evil quad bike driving slave driver Craig controlled our work. In actual fact we were taken up the neighbouring hill, where Craig the beer-bellied farmer got us to help with the construction of the vineyard. Anyone who knows Anna and I, should fully well know we are not very strong, Craig, clearly did not know this, and set us and the Taiwanese girls about moving HEAVY pipes, in and out of 4 foot deep trenches and shovelling boulders. My shovel very quickly for taken from me, and I was told to use my hands as I ‘clearly wasn’t getting anywhere with it’. No longer were we finishing at 2, and no longer were we blissful, but surprisingly our moaning was quite minimal (lies) , especially as we are English, and moaning is what we do. We were never returned to the squash field, and although we felt we were being overworked we ended up having a great time.

A fellow English girl joined our troop of wwoofers, Emma. She had come from doing a study abroad in Edmonton, and being amongst North Americans for such a long time, who don’t quite get the loveable British sarcastic humour, she unleashed a reign of sarcastic snippets which made our working days much more amusing. It was either her being very funny, or the fact that we were breathing in industrial grade primer and glue but we became prone to laughing fits which prevented us from doing any job quickly and efficiently.

Being women of the 20^th century, we all felt we should keep up every effort to keep up with the boys, but in honest fact we A. could not be bothered, and B. even if we could be bothered, it wouldn’t matter because they are stronger than us. Wherever we rake and shovel, they rake and shovel better…this is a fact. If they are working behind us, the parts that we do are generally redone, jobs that require 1 boy, requires 3 girls, or even 4. We carry 2 pipes between 2 of us, the boys carry 4 alone. Our initial thoughts were, screw feminism, we want to go back to doing the girl jobs, send me to a kitchen to bake or sew or knit. But I have become quite strong (not as strong as the Taiwanese, who for such small girls could lift a crazy amount), and I now understand plumbing and irrigation systems for vineyards, I will go far in life and Emma even had a few drives of the insanely massive, clearly built for the manliest of men, monster truck. It was quite alarming, and we will probably still leave that to the boys… but empowering all the same.

The whole wwoofing experience ended with us slowly doing less and less work, with Anna doing no work as she was bed ridden with infected glands ( which the doctor informed her was a child illness, not usually found in 23 year old girls). The less work we did, the more enjoyable it became with our last days ending up in as a production of a Katy Perry Parody of California Girls; Okanagan Girls, coming to youtube soon.

Sneak Peak:

You can travel the world, but nothing comes close to the sleeping lady,
Once you irrigate with us you’ll be really pissed offffff

Okanagan Girls, we’re unforgettable,
Hiking Boots, headbands on top
Dirt-tanned skin, so hot will melt your lightsaber (ohhhhhhh)

Okanagan Girls we’re undeniable
English, French, German we’re so hot.
BC interior represent, now put your rakes up (ohhhhhhh)

A ticket to 'Osoossoausagesyoossooos' please?

We left Fernie about a week ago on a 11 hour greyhound towards Osoyoos…pronounced oh-SOY-oose, not ‘osoossoausagesyoossooo’ which is only met with confusion from greyhound ticket sellers, and results in you having to write your destination down so it can be understood what on earth your trying to say. Osoyoos is in the Okanagan valley, and is considered to be Canada’s answer to California, only about 300 km inland and, I can only assume this, a distinctly lower population of celebrities, probably zero.

The Okanagan is wine country, acres of rolling hills covered in orchards and vineyards, the perfect location to partake in a bit of wwoofing (willing workings on organic farms) after a long cold winter season. Anna, at first was not so keen, but I depicted a wonderful scene to her where we were merrily painting fences and picking grapes by day, and casually sipping wine at night, and on our days off we would cycle around vineyards, and row boats down rivers, all whilst lapping in the ‘Californian’-like sunshine, two weeks of such a relaxing lifestyle? How could she refuse?

We contacted two places, both told us to come along, but we chose Sleeping Lady Farm, named after the mountain shadowing the valley. Anna was quite happy with this decision, as in her mind, sleeping lady meant that a large part of us being here would mean she could BE a sleeping lady. Angie our host came to pick us up from the greyhound stop with 3 very small people, all under the age of six. Clearly taking advantage of the fact that she had grownups in the car, us, she took the opportunity to run a quick errand leaving us alone with the children, one of which burst into loud wails as soon as his mother left, with no amounts of our complementary remarks about his transformer trainers able to stifle his cries, exactly what we wanted to deal with after our long and sleepless greyhound journey.

On our way to the farm we learnt a bit about origins of the sleeping lady. Angie informed us that the mountains was named this because the ridge looked like a naked lady lying on her back asleep, with the highest peak being her nipple. Although the nipple part of this apparent sleeping lady is quite obvious, the rest of her isn’t… I saw no face, I saw no torso, and when I questioned where her legs were, I was told they were under a blanket, of course! Silly me. The rest of this ‘sleeping lady’ was just imagined up, because, the only distinguishable characteristic of the mountain was the breast part, and it was probably thought inappropriate to name it breast mountain, or nipple peak.

Once at the farm we were shown our new home for the next couple of weeks, a cosy little caravan for two, closely located to the outhouse, with its fly-away-expose-a-peeing-person-doors, and two other buildings which had a shower, other wwoofers rooms, a kitchen and a games room.

Three girls from Taiwan had also arrived earlier that day, Sarah, Jamie, and Vera, although it is questionable whether these are their real names. Together we had an explore around the farm, we cooed over the dogs, Anna, following the pug around with continued yells of ‘hello pug’ and petted the horses in the neighbouring farm. We quickly regretted the horse petting as the male, and somewhat aroused horse demonstrated the phrase ‘hung like a horse’ to us, lady horse seemed just as alarmed as we were, as whenever he came near her she would give him an aggressive bite. An added bit of wildlife was the dead ground hog, which I mistook first for a beaver, and then for a flying squirrel, and we have also been informed that there is a dead bear down the road if we fancied a gander. Ahhhh the Okanagan, dead animals, and horny horses, what a dream.

We spent the rest of our night meeting the other wwoofers, 4 guys, a German, a French, and 2 Québécois, and settled down for a good night sleep. Unfortunately we didn’t realise there was a heater in the caravan, and instead had to make do with a cold and shivery night’s sleep before our first day’s work.

So Long, Farewell...

Fernie, view from Lost Boys Cafe

Birthday creation for Annas Birthday

Anna having a casual swing in the playground, infront of Mt Fernie

Anna, the typical struggle down the trail to get to town walk.

Spring has come… which would mean an entire season has passed… and that I have pretty much not ‘blogged’ the entire season….oops. Karmali has issued me with complaints for this terrible behaviour, and challenged me to write another update… although his challenge was weeks ago… again oops. Our last few months haven’t really needed an update as we… I say we, but really I mean I slipped into a pattern of drinking (too much) working (too much) and skiing/snowboarding (not enough),Anna’s routine was more along the lines of sleeping, playing boggle, skiing and working….and sleeping. Life has been wonderful; our biggest decisions have pretty much been whether to buy a 6 pack or a 12 pack or which side of the mountain we feel like being on, old side or new side?

Whats that? You want to know how Anna and I, the girls with no snow skills what so ever before December have progressed in the snowy peaks of the Rocky Mountains? Well Anna, skiing pro, is shoooooop shooooop shoooopoing down black runs with the grace of a swan, and me? I am still tumbling down in typical Nish form, it was always going to be wasn’t it, clumsy on grass, clumsy on pavement, may as well add clumsy on snow to the list too… sad isn’t it. I am just not cut out to be a skier, in fact I gave up halfway through the season… skiing is stupid, the boots are uncomfortable, and my limbs seem to have the inability to act independently from each. I hope the thoughts of me giving up haven’t met you with shock and horror, I can hear you now ‘she gave up!? She spent $1500 on a pass WHAT WAS SHE THINKING” but no, this is not like when I joined the gym in second year and only managed go to about twice, my ski pass was still completely worthwhile, as I converted to the much cooler and badass sport of snowboarding (because you know I am much cooler and badass than Anna). My friend (Cat- bartender extraordinaire at Lizard Creek) took me on an epic powder day, and instead of starting me on the mighty moose... shoved me on the elk chair lift, for convenience sake as it was right outside Lizard Creek. It did take me 2 hours to get down, but only because I fell over in powder, in a direction Cat did not want me to go down…and then she refused to let me unstrap to clamber back up to her... instead a lot of rolling and crawling occurred, only to end with me tumbling down again, and a lot of deep snow with Anisha shaped imprints in step by step moving up the hill.. but I LOVED every minute of it. I think the fact that it was a power day was a key reason why I loved it, because falling does not hurt at all when you are falling in soft fluffy snow, I have since fallen on horrible ice, but seeing as I already love it this was not to detrimental, I am no pro though… but I will be.

Other key news from the season includes, our replacement housemates for Milly, Ollie, and Rob two Kiwi guys, who’s accents we enjoyed fully especially when we made them say ‘ there is 10 inches of snow my deck’, a number of stupid decisions involving alcohol, the loss of numerous clothes and accessories (due to alcohol), Anna’s birthday, with epic cake number 10 ( poor show at home guys clearly you need us there to keep the birthday creativity alive), hot dog day (80’s themed skiing day) a trip across the US for a spot of bowling, and to end the season a trip to the hot springs with a picnic to sooth our aching muscles from our world wind season.

And with that….see you later Fernie… greyhound out of here 4am 26^th April

I may be 23... but I can still tantrum like a 3 year old

It seems it has been a month since I last updated, and as I didn’t notice my neglect it must mean that I have been a bit of a busy bee. Babs has left, but Milly, Little Miss Popularity had yet more visitors, her parents… so technically she isn’t Little Miss Popularity as they have to love her…but with this news come sad times….today they left, and they took my curly haired pal with them, which means our Sheffield trio has been split, no longer are we Heuy, Dewey and Louie of Ducktales fame, we are just the red one and the green one, and so I dedicate my update to Milly, so her last month here isn’t forgotten from her memory....that is if I can remember it myself.

We came to Canada to experience the winter ski season, and so far my mention of skiing has been limited…in fact it’s been non-existent, but with the December snow, came the opening of the resort, and the development of some skiing action. All of our friends, including Babs, who had come completely ill-equipped for skiing and had to borrow our friends ski pants (which had been super-glued back together in the crotch region… and re-ripped within seconds of him putting them on) had the joy of experience the preview weekend at the resort, me and Anna however had to stay at home, our lack of free season pass was a major hindrance in joining the joy. As they all had fun and frolics in the snow…and babs froze his...ahem, rhymes with frolics off, me and Anna at least had each other for company, and spent our day with glitter glue and coloured paper crafting Christmas cards for our nearest and dearest…these were a fail, and our flatmate questioned whether infants had broken in and had a crafting session. So nearest and dearest don’t be expecting any of our crafted cards, the shame in our artistic ability pointed them straight to the bin.

Although Anna and I missed the preview weekend we have managed to rustle up the cash for our season pass. My first attempt to buy my pass was met with the rejection of my card, as apparently I have a limit to how much I can spend in one day, and trying to spend $1523 was met with a massive REJECT on the debit machine. I had to head to the bank and go through the painful experience of handing it all over a massive wad of cash instead, oh it was a hard thing to watch, but it got exchanged for my nice shiny season pass card, and as it was my birthday AND I was the hundredth customer at the bank, I got given a free cookie and a letter opener, so all in all excellent day.

Having no skiing ability what so ever, and venturing to the slopes with no supervision from our friends, we thought it best to have a lesson, so off we trotted to the bunny slopes kitted out with our boots skis and poles. Our lesson took place on the MINI Moose…this is a slope lower than a green run… it is less steep than the hill we have to walk up to our flat, to put it in mathematical perspective it is probably round a 10 degree angle, and even on this minor angle… I was rubbish. My problem was stopping…..yes I could not stop on this essential flat plain of land. Anna however was a natural, and was being sent higher and higher on the mini-Moose where the angles were progressing to larger degrees of acuteness. Most people progress in the 2hours lesson from the mini-Moose to the Might Moose, a short green run for beginner skiers, Anna with her natural flair for turning and stopping should have, but as I later found out the instructor thought it would ‘knock my moral’ if Anna was sent to more challenging terrain than the baby-baby slope. After our lesson we transferred ourselves to the Mighty Moose. The distance of the Mighty Moose does not merit a chair lift, it is instead a T-bar thing which you shove between your legs and let it slide you upwards and then offload at the flattened part at the top. Anna went in front of me…so I followed her lead, bear that in mind…..the sign at the top of the MM says OFFLOAD HERE….Anna seeing this sign….offloaded…while still on the upward slope…in her skis…this resulted in a slight ski backward panic and Anna falling face first into the snow…I apparently thought this was the norm…and followed suit…I blame myself for the my ungraceful fall, it serves me right for being a sheep. Once at the top, the problem was how to get down again, the obvious answer would be to ski down, so we tried…Anna’s stopping skills had decreased, and the afternoon was spent with us sliding down the hill, half on our bums and half on our skis, our poles flying in the air, and the sounds of our screams as we hurtled down the hill not coping well with our momentum.

Since this initial experience we have improved, Anna more so than me, and we have even become ski and ski boot owners…not poles as we feel the hinder more than help, we have progressed the longer slopes of the Deer even though my heart will always belong with the Moose. I have had one minor hiccup on my ways to developing skills, which involved me being a complete unreasonable crazy person. I basically had a tantrum within 10 minutes of having my boots on (after the 20 it took me to put them on). We got to the top of the MM I had a hissy fit flung myself on the ground and refused to move, stating I was going home….yes at 23 years of age I am massive brat. My friends left me there to sulk and ski patrol came and offered me a lift down to the bottom….remember this wasn’t even a long slope, no chair lift, I was literally around 200 yards from the bottom, and I was being offered a lift down because of grumpiness, bad day, I obviously refused.

Other than skiing, the rest of my time is filled with work, and going out, my weeks are pretty much flying by where I never know the time or the day at any given moment. I am fully enjoying my job, I make excellent money through tips, and the people I work with are all very fun, and as the first few weeks haven’t been that busy, I have literally just been hanging out. I however am unsure if I made the best first impression on all my new lovely work friends, as before I worked any shifts I went to the work Christmas party. I personally had a ball of the time… I was quite nervous about going as I hadn’t met anyone, but the open bar seemed to work wonders on my friendliness, and that combined with the fact it was my birthday the next day and the owner was handing out tequila shots at an alarming rate, resulted in me having no recollection of the end party and no idea how I got off the mountain. My last snippet of memory from the party was lying on the ground in a sumo suite unable to get up as my tiny limbs didn’t reach the end of the arms or legs… imagine upturned turtle lying on a beach, or better yet a beached whale.

I am fully aware that it is now 2011, and I have missed out Christmas and New Year tales… but I started this quite a while ago… so you can wait for that in my next instalment.

Happy New Year!