Going to extremes

Judging by some of the comments on yesterday's blog entry, some of you feel my life here these days is becoming a bit unreasonably exciting.  To be honest, those readers that know me personally (so let's face it, I'm talking about most of you) could be forgiven for wondering Who is this all-skating/snowshoeing/skiing/outdoors-loving person, and what has she done with the real Albaniana?

Well, rest assured, the real me has stayed boringly at home today, and the most athletic thing I've done all day has been the ironing. 

While-sledding-off-the-roof extreme ironing, obviously...

Losing my grip

Sunday: ski day.  Both kids are doing really well now, going gung-ho down any terrain that faces them, be it bumps, forest paths or fast, steep slopes.  Falls don't phase them, they just scramble up and carry on.

In my group of adult learners we're generally more cautious and mindful of our relative lack of bouncebackability, so we're taking things a bit more slowly.  Even so, unfortunately today one of my classmates had a bad fall.  It wasn't her fault, someone skied in front of her and knocked her over.  She put her knee out (just a sprain, we all sincerely hope) and had to be sledded down by the Ski Patrol team.

Though it was sobering to witness this accident, after the lesson I still went ahead and tried out Joe's Special again.  All went well the first time, but on my second attempt I lost control and took a tumble myself, ending up some way downhill of a ski, a pole and my hat.  I managed to retrieve my equipment and make it down to the bottom safely, but then I suddenly felt the urgent call of a hot chocolate in the ski lodge.  I ended up staying inside while the rest of the family went up and down the mountain a half dozen more times.

I seem to be fine after my fall, apart from having hurt my thumb (pranged as I gripped the pole handle).  I shall no doubt be spending a couple of days reflecting on the usefulness of thumbs while I try to avoid using this one until it feels better.

We had an ice day

The kids and I kicked off the weekend with the annual celebration of International Ice Cream for Breakfast Day at our friends' house.  Ice cream + toppings = hyped-up kids...but as usual, to my surprise, the party went smoothly.

We headed home in time to grab a less sugary lunch before skating - we're now into the last session of lessons for the season.  For me the class was immediately followed by a snow-shoeing outing at Five Rivers, accompanying the Boy who'd been invited on a winter tracking birthday party.  It must be said, with a group of nine boys aged between eight and eleven there was never much chance of any serious tracking happening.  There was plenty of goofing around, however: snowballing, snow-eating, falling over, lying face-down in the snow to find out what that feels like etc etc.  As the instructor confided to me, "This is why I usually only take out Girl Scout groups."

Rather than the promised snow today, we've had light rain.  Innocuous-looking, but potentially deadly - it turns the freezing cold roads into skating rinks.  I had a close encounter with a snowbank on the way home from Five Rivers (no harm done, I was going very slowly), and the Man could barely stand upright on our black-iced driveway.  The rain may yet turn to snow overnight, to give us snow on top of ice - won't that be fun.

Mailboxed in

I wouldn't say the snow has caused us huge problems so far.  Drivng in it isn't much fun; and shovelling can be a bit of a chore, particularly when the snow is heavy with ice, but it's exercise I suppose.  However the more it stacks up (and we're told there's more on the way), the more I wonder where it's all going to go come the thaw. 

Meanwhile one minor inconvenience is getting at the mail.  I guess the mailman is high up enough in his little white van and can just lean across to pop the letters into our roadside box, but I find I have to half-scramble over a bank of snow to get them out again. 

But it could be worse - one set of neighbours has almost lost its mailbox altogether.

Happy Bunny Day

The Boy tells us it's Chinese New Year today - Happy Year of the Rabbit!

And it's his Dad's birthday.  There has been some happy gift-giving, cake-eating and Daddy-hugging this evening.

Also, we still have some snow knocking about - did I mention that before?

Snow big deal

Though we woke to four new inches of snow, and accumulated another couple over the morning, the much anticipated "mother of all snowstorms" was rather a non-event and had pretty much petered out before lunchtime.  In some ways we felt a bit short-changed, but on the other hand it was a relief not to have to deal with up to two extra feet of the white stuff in one day, as was being predicted by some forecasters yesterday. 

After all, it's really not as if we're short of snow as it is:

Snow much more to look forward to...

We woke up to about two inches of fresh snow, and more of the stuff steadily falling from the sky.  Yet school wasn't cancelled or delayed, so we had our normal morning routine, getting the Girl ready for the bus and the Boy ready for his morning walk (he really doesn't care for the bus these days).  In the time it took to trudge to school with him then come home again - about twenty minutes all round - another inch of snow had fallen.  And it kept on coming.

In the end, school was let out early - once everyone had put in enough hours so that it didn't count as a missed day.  Too many snow days and the time has to be made up over spring break, apparently. 

This latest photo of our deck was taken around 4pm - and still it went on snowing.  I reckon we've had six or seven inches altogether today - on top of what was still hanging around after previous falls, of course. 

But this is just the start.  The forecast says tomorrow is when it's really going to snow.

Watch this space...