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!
