I'm alive!

I’m not in the hospital! Nor I do not have a leg in traction! It seems that despite Friday’s blog eight years isn’t really that long ago and skiing is just like a riding a bike, you never forget. Well, ok, maybe not never, but a couple of runs on the nursery slope is all you need to remind you. We skied all day Saturday and I fell twice the whole day, and technically they shouldn’t really count. Once I was going to help Robert, who fell and I quite simply ran out of snow to ski on. The other was at the bottom of the hill, when I had all but stopped. I’m still not quite sure how I ended up on the ground but there I was. Had it not been for these two minor incidents I might have been rushed home to represent GB & NI in Turin in the giant slalom.

It was just a great weekend from start to finish. Straight after work (as in once I packed the car, went to the bank, drove back to the house to get the stuff I forgot the first time, ran back to the house to get something else) on Friday I left to drive up to Gatlinburg, about an hour or so away. Jose and the other girls (apart from me, not Jose!) had been skiing that day already and I met them at the ski place. Once they were done with their night skiing we went back to the apartment, got pizza and hung out (little Americanism there for you!). On Saturday morning we headed to the slopes despite the drizzle. By the time we had got our passes and skis, I think I could have thrown up I was so nervous. As it turned out, there were a few others who weren’t exactly pros either. I thought I was out of practice with only a week’s worth of skiing eight years ago, but Robert, dear love him, was hitting the slopes a day’s skiing 14 years ago! I hate to say it, but this fact alone boosted my confidence. We skied down the nursery slope and then hit the proper runs. I forgot the adrenaline rush you got hurtling down a snow covered mountain at high velocity! They should sell that in capsule form! The rain was more than annoying though. Especially for those people who wear glasses.


The good thing about the rain was that it made for a quiet day on the slopes! There really were more people skiing than this photo would make it appear but it was lunchtime!


Lindy (who was so good she looked like a ballerina on skis), Jose (he spent more time on his butt than me, but that's the way snowboarding is), Will (a novice but his inability to snow plough made him look so much more experienced), Megan (had the best fall of the entire day when she got a face full of snow) and Robert (fell more than anyone but had a brilliant hero run from the top, although there was a collision with a wall that time). Obviously not pictured is me (the real reason for my severe lack of falling is that I was just more cautious than anyone else).

After a long day whoosh whooshing, it was decided (and not by me I hasten to add) that the best thing to soothe bumps and sore muscles was to go to the apartment complex’s hot tub. It worked a treat, I never wanted to get out. But eventually I was convinced. There were plans afoot to go out into the town that night, but when it came to it, we just couldn’t be bothered. After showers and dinner we sat around playing games into the night. Now there’s a group of twenty-somethings in their prime! No kidding, I was in my jammies by 7.00pm!