Glowing...

Firstly a quick reminder that Sam Jackson's Secret Video Diary is now available for download here. Pay as much or as little as you like, and while you're about it, you can download Beyond Fiction, the documentary about the making of the mockumentary. As you are all my friends/family/aquaintances/randoms who read my blog I'm sure you want to support me and my friends by doing so! Thank you very much.

Secondly - and I can't believe it's taken me a week to tell you guys about this, given my natural urge to show off at any opportunity - but I have been voted Employee of the Week (Inside Category) here at Sunshine. Not bad for my first month, eh?! It stemmed from an incident involving two Senior Alpine Ski Clubbers who left their skis near our ticket windows and I found them and took them back to their hotel for them, so they could ski at another ski hill the following day. They were very grateful and I got a $10 tip! I'm not exactly sure who put nominations in the Employee of the Month box on my behalf (although I know one of them was Zander, who I roped in under duress to help me carry them to the hotel). Apparently they have a committee of Supervisors who take all the nominations throughout Sunshine (approx. 800 employees), as well as all the comments that come into our website, and vote on who they think deserves the title. Then the winners (there are several categories, Inside, Outside, Behind the Scenes etc.) get invited to a swanky dinner prepared by our head chef (apparently it's amazing food) and prizes, which consists (I think) of a trail sign with our name on it. Can't wait for the dinner, which is on Jan 4th - will post pictures natch.

Sick talk

Hanging out with teenagers and other young whippersnappers tends to have an effect on your outlook, social habits and, significantly, the language you use. However, you have to bear in mind that there are some phrases that you can really only get away with if you're 19, or Australian. Whilst I'm perfectly comfortable discussing the merits of 'shredding the gnar', 'stacking it' and shouting 'hell yeah!' every time someone asks me a question, the correct use of the word 'sick' still escapes me; it just sounds perfectly ridiculous in my little Surrey accent and actually manages to make me feel twice as old as I already am. Yesterday I went shopping with my flatmates (Boxing Day sales - I bought tons in Gap naturally) and when one of them came over to me wearing a black hoodie with skull motif he was thinking of buying, I tried it out by saying 'Man that's fully sick!', but then totally ruined the effect by following it up with '...and I mean that in a good way'.

My friends just suggested if I get a gangsta hoodie, wear a baseball cap and tone down the accent and I'll totally pull it off. I'm dubious.

O Come All Ye Beaver

Christmas Day began at 06.30 (okay, okay, I realise it actually begun at 00.00, but humour me) when I dragged my sorry arse out of bed to skype with the family back home, who were opening presents at Jenny's. I was amazed to discover the present I'd sent Liddi only just over a week before had made it back to England in time for Christmas - must be a bloody record for the Canadian post! Nice to speak to everyone back home. Back at the Beaver, despite the early hour, Christmas songs were being played loudly and much singing was to be heard. I was slipping into my red one-piece, which Kate had bought in a rummage sale, and with which I had fallen in love, both for it's retro-styley and its festive connotations. Laura, Kate, Ed & I took the early bus to Sunshine and more Carols were sung, enthusiasm as standard, in the gondola up to the village.

Ed & I had the breakfast buffet then joined Kate & Laura on the slopes, though somehow we managed to misplace Ed immediately and not see hide nor hair of him again till we got home. Expecting that, after over 2 weeks off, it would take me a bit of time to find my ski-legs, so I did my first run by myself to avoid embarrassment. On doing so, I discovered that Santa had somehow given me the ability to ski fast and without fear in my Christmas stocking! I bombed down and joined the girls, brimming with confidence. A few runs later, we found ourselves looking at a black run as we soared above it on the chair lift and decided, perhaps somewhat rashly, that it really didn't look too bad... We nailed it! Well, kinda. I did face-plant fairly hard on a giant mogul I didn't see coming and lay there for several minutes wondering if I did still have all my teeth (I did), but we all got down in one piece and had a ball doing so, which is, after all, the whole point.

In the afternoon, after picking up my newly commissioned trail sign, hilarously emblazoned with the moniker 'Massive Beaver', Laura & I headed back down in the gondola to get a head start on Christmas dinner. On the way down we passed a gondola operator sat in her little booth which had a sign in the window saying 'Christmas waves please!' Naturally Laura & I obliged enthusiastically and I then decided to hold my trail sign up to the window to try to get a laugh. I picked up the sign...and whacked Laura straight in the face with it. As I shouted 'Omigod I'm so sorry, I hit you in the face with my massive beaver!' we collapsed and laughed so hard that by the time we reached the bottom station, we could barely exit the gondola. Practically crawling and gasping for breath, I tried to explain to the gondola operator who was removing Laura's skis why we were laughing but just couldn't get the words out. He looked at me strangely and merely said 'Please exit to your left', leaving Laura & I in more fits.

Arrived back home to prepare food. My banoffi pie and my lime & ginger cheesecake had been made the previous evening but we still had 2 stuffed turkey breasts and a huge joint of beef to be cooked, yorkshire pudding to make, cauliflower cheese to prepare, potatoes to peel, parboil and roast, vegetables to steam and gravy to make. Phew! However, with a little help from my friends, we got it all done and proceeded to eat ourselves into a stupor, whilst watching A Muppets' Christmas Carol. The Secret Santa followed - my present was a floating penis bath plug (how did they know?) - and we all played with our new toys for a bit. My puddings went down a treat as usual (not wishing to blow my own trumpet of course*) and by 11pm, we were all falling asleep in post-gastronomic bliss, not a crumb of food left. So much for my Boxing Day bubble & squeak plans, but the whole day was so awesome; I'm certainly not complaining...

Full photos here.

*Toot toot!

T-6

So the big countdown commences. Not to Christmas (though that's coming up at some point too, or so I'm led to believe). No, the countdown to the big release of Sam Jackson's Secret Video Diary. This was the last film I made with some friends of mine and if you don't remember me telling you the story behind the film being made, I suggest you check out the website (particularly 'The True Story' page) for the whole strange tale. The director Guy Ritchie - oops sorry Rowland - is writing a blog about the release (he's reality media-crazy!) so you can check that out here.

On Friday 28th December, the film, alongside a documentary detailing the back story, will be available for download from the website in a pay-as-much-as-you-like-Radiohead-styley (who's fabulous High & Dry is featured on the soundtrack). It is the first film to ever be released in this way! Yay us! Please download it (should only take around 15 mins on a good connection) and if you like it, do make a donation, as 20% of the proceeds will go to Leukaemia Research and Missing Persons charities respectively.

Finally, Guy will be talking about the film and the historic release on Radio 5 Live at about 07.55 on launch day, Friday 28th December. You can listen live or Listen Again, as is your wont!

Go on, you know you want to.

God Hates The World...apparently

Wow. I don't know about you, but I find this absolutely fascinating to watch, because I find it amazing that people will believe almost anything given the right amount of brainwashing. Make sure you watch the last 20 seconds for a perfect example of what I mean...


http://view.break.com/278059 - Watch more free videos

Sir has a firm touch, but very fair...

If anyone is still wondering what to get me for Christmas*, this is pretty much my ideal gift. What a way to wake up. *sigh*

*I do know no one is actually buying me a present and that's fine because I'm a long way away and I can't afford to buy anyone anything either.

Christmas Beaver

Errmmm... it appears to be the 17th December. That's just over a week till Christmas. How the hell did that happen? Despite the snow and twinkly lights, it's very easy to miss that it's Christmas here, what with us all just working and skiing/snowboarding all the time, though to give her credit where it's due, Laura has done a sterling job of trying to Christmasfy the Beaver with the fake tree and decorations we found behind the sofa. Zander & I spent the other day at work desperately trying to find out if we could buy an actual beaver to roast for Christmas dinner, but sadly it seems it's not going to be possible. Still, we had a whole day of 'eating beaver' jokes, which was some comfort at least*. I found some great recipes for beaver stuffed with pork***.

I'm supposed to have done some online Christmas shopping for home, which I thought I had plenty of time to do, but it seems I don't. I just ordered 2 presents for my nephews, thinking I had got in under the Xmas deadline, but it seems in my confirmation email that I haven't. Darn it. Sorry boys. Have sent Liddi (my niece) something from here but knowing the Canadian post, it won't arrive until around February, so better get something else sorted too. Oh and I've got a Secret Santa, which the Aussies apparently call a Kris Kringle by the way, to buy for the Beaver Massive.

I probably ought to stop sitting around and actually get on with it then!

*The thing I love about living on Beaver** is that beaver jokes only ever get funnier the more you tell them
**See?
***Oh stop it, you're killing me!

Bad/good

Been really pissed off for the last week or so as the injury I referred to in my last ski-based post, which caused me to fall over whenever I turned, has been getting progressively worse and I've been unable to ski since then. It's basically the ligament just to the back of my left knee that I've managed to strain, and even walking has been very painful. Today it began to feel a bit better...until I had to run for the bus this afternoon and it throbbed all the way home. So I'm trying to give it time to recover before I get back on the slopes, which has been enormously frustrating, as I'm desperate to keep practising. Still. Got to be sensible.

On a more positive note, a few days ago, about 15 mins before I left work, I got a call from a hotel in Banff where a Senior's Alpine Ski Club were staying. They'd been to Sunshine and two of the women had left their skis and poles outside our ticket windows. I popped out and found them and, after several confused conversations about how we could return them to the women (who were off to a different ski hill the following day), I decided to take them back there myself, as it wasn't too far from where I live in Banff. I roped Zander in to help me cart them back and handed them into the hotel reception. Job's a good 'un. Today, Sheila, one of the women, called my work to thank me and to ask where she could send me a 'tip'! I protested feebly before giving her my address and we wished each other a Merry Christmas. How sweet.

Stampeding to Calgary

Chris, Amy, Gravy & I hired a car today, getting a sweet deal from our housemate Kevin who works for Budget, and road tripped over to Calgary to buy...well, loads of stuff to be honest. Living in a resort town don't come cheap, so you need the big city to get essentials at a reasonable price. Our first stop was Wal-Mart, where I bought a few grocery items - cornflakes were 2 bucks cheaper than Safeways in Banff for example - and some jersey sheets. Mmmm. As I may have mentioned before, once you've slept on jersey, you never go back.

We headed off to have lunch with some friends of Gravy's and arrived about 10 minutes before them. Lethal. Next door to the restaurant was the Ski Cellar, a mecca for my new obsession with ski wear. 10 minutes later a new pair of ski pants in bright green were mine, for a bargain price...compared to how much they were to begin with, that was. Believe me, you don't want to know. But I live in a ski resort and when I'm not working, I'm skiing, so I think I can justify the investment*.

However, our main task of the day was to go to Ikea, where I intended to buy a duvet. In Canada, people use flat sheets under something called a 'comforter', which is basically a thin synthetic duvet with a fixed and often lurid cover, with possibly a blanket over the top. It's bloody rubbish. Firstly, it's not warm enough, particularly for a winter where temperatures can go down to -30. Secondly, as anyone who is old enough to remember England before duvets became the norm, you invariably wake up with the sheet squished over onto once side, the comforter over to the other, and the rough woollen blanket fallen off the bottom of the bed. Thirdly, thin synthetic duvets do not cover you properly, they just lie over the top of you and create cold gaps either side of you. Last night I was freezing all night so today I practically ran round Ikea in order to buy myself a lovely down duvet.

Naturally they didn't have the cheap one I wanted, nor did they have the slightly more expensive one in the size I wanted, so I ended up spending $72 on a king size, but still, 36 quid for the pleasure of being warm and comfortable at night for the next 5 months is a bargain if you ask me. I had planned to buy a cheap duvet cover - they had a rather unpleasant yellow circley designed one at $12.99 - but spotted a jersey duvet cover in green, which I was naturally unable to resist, despite it being a fair bit more expensive. I also bought a couple of packs of twinkly lights, one red, one green, to put round my windows to make it a little more festive. I hope you like the effect. My room rocks.

After Ikea we went to the Chinook Centre, a big shopping mall, where we planned to go to the IMAX cinema to see Beowulf in 3D. We bought our tickets before browsing round the shops, and returned to discover that, irritatingly in the extreme, they had sold us tickets to the wrong showing. The IMAX 3D version had started half an hour before, and we had tickets to the regular version. The boys were devastated to miss the opportunity to see Angelina Jolie's gold nipples side-swiping their faces, naturally.

The film was purest comedy gold. I'm fairly sure it wasn't supposed to be a comedy, but we laughed our arses off all the way through it. If it wasn't for Ray Winstone's East London accent saying "I'm Beowulf, and I've come to kill your monstaaaahhh", or Beowulf's penchant for removing all his clothes before he fought said monstaaaahhh, necessitating a whole 10 minute sequence where something was always placed strategically in front of his - ahem - tackle, it was Angelina Jolie performing a particular act upon a sword with an inevitable, slightly messy, and surprisingly graphic conclusion. Well worth seeing: 9 out of 10 for comedy value, though only 2 out of 10 for achieving the original aim. My private theory however, particularly given the abundance of British actors in the film, is that they decided to see how utterly ridiculous they could make the film, and still get the Americans to buy into it completely.

Oh, just a quick update before I publish this: I slept last night on my jersey sheets/duvet combo and it was purest heaven.

*I'm doing a good job of justifying this to myself, aren't I?

Shredding the gnar

Whenever the boys go snowboarding, they tell us they're going to 'shred the gnar'. Well, today, Amy & I may not have shredded the gnar, but we certainly agitated it a little. Kicked it around a bit with our toes, as it were. We stuck mainly to green runs but did go up Lookout Mountain on the Continental Divide lift (which crosses into British Columbia and back to Alberta on the journey!) and discovered there were only blue runs, so we did that too. Unfortunately when I stacked it on Angel the other day I hurt my leg, which had been fine during the easy runs, but when I was trying to carve sharply across the run to control my speed on the steep downhill, I found it became really painful and ended up giving way on several occasions. Annoying, because I actually felt up to the task in other respects. Anyway, good runs: good funs, or something like that. And would you look at the views?

Xmas nut run

Forgive me, but I'm a leeeeetle bit drunk. It was the staff Christmas party up on the hill tonight and, though it wasn't exactly brilliant, I felt in the mood for a drink or two. I've actually had 4 gin and tonics, but I'm fairly sure they were all watered down because I should be far drunker on 4 gins than I am. Anyway, that aside.

My supervisor, Pat, decided at some point in the evening that he might fancy doing a 'nut run'. This involved him running naked, in only his shoes and visor, from the Daylodge (where the party was held), to the gondola station, to Trappers (the pub on the hill) and back to the Daylodge, around a 3 minute round trip, which in -20 degrees probably seems longer than that. He was slightly concerned he might end up fired over it, so his friends collected pledges for the nut run all night and finally, when Pat had accumulated over $100 and the last gondola down the hill was approaching, he decided to go for it. He did the run and raced back to the Daylodge, only to find to his horror that the first person he ran into as he entered the Daylodge, stark bollock naked, was Ralph Scurfield, our CEO. Ralph handed him a $20 note, saying "Good effort son".

Priceless.

Feeling blue

Although I had planned to make it up the hill again yesterday to try to conquer my powder demons, when my alarm went off at 6am and I tried to get out of bed, it quickly became apparent that my limbs were not playing ball. So I went back to sleep for a bit and spent the day dragging my heavy legs and aching muscles - many of which I was previously unaware I even possessed - around the place.

Today, however, I was not letting sore legs dictate the day. After a morning's work, which as usual passed by in the blink of an eye, I had the afternoon off and, after a quick bite to eat, headed up the hill with my ski gear to meet up with Toby, an English ski instructor I met last night who had offered - the fool! - to give me a few pointers. We started off going up the Strawberry lift and going down a run I was very familiar with, the Dell Valley. However, my confidence had been knocked by my inability to stay upright for more than 2 minutes the other day, my legs had forgotten how to behave on skis, the run was icy and the visibility at the top fairly poor, so although I managed to get to the bottom relatively unscathed, it hardly gave Toby a good impression of my abilities. I let him take the lead and we headed up Wawa lift for the next run. We did some exercises designed to improve my turning technique and gave the green run a go. It went fairly well, a few bails here and there but nothing dramatic, and as we headed up the lift a second time, he told me he was going to take me down a blue run next. "Erm...if you think that's okay?" I ventured, "I mean, what do blue runs have that green runs don't? Topless dancers, late night poker, that sort of thing?" "Well, you might find the odd bit of barbed wire, assorted booby traps and some land mines, but nothing you can't handle" Toby assured me.

I would love to tell you, gentle reader, that I stormed the blue run with grace and aplomb. But in reality, though I started well, I stacked it on practically every turn - into nice soft powder thankfully - when it got all mogely (bumpy) and very steep. However, I got down it in one piece, learnt a ton about turning on the way down, and we did another blue run straight after, which was a bit (a bit) better. Toby had to run off so I went up and took the green run again by myself and lo! Suddenly it felt like a piece of the proverbial. Not one fall and I found myself actively looking to make up speed and take a more interesting line. Ha!

Of course, I'm not saying I'm suddenly a brilliant skier. But with a ton of practice, I finally feel I might just make it as a perfectly acceptable one by the end of the season. Life is good.

Living the life of a celebrity, on the wages of a pauper

Over here at Sunshine, working full-time, I'm earning somewhere in the region of £500 per month. My rent and utilities comes to around £250, so the rest goes on food, entertainment and any other essentials. Back home this would be virtually impossible, but here, it's perfectly achievable to live on minimum wage. For a start, not drinking alcohol saves me tons! Most places here I'll pay for one soft drink, around $3, then get free refills for the rest of the night. We often eat communally, which saves money, and on our days off we mainly go skiing/snowboarding, which is free for those of us working at Sunshine obviously. Snow gear - jackets, thermals, boots etc. - is our main expense, because the good stuff does cost serious money, but once you're geared up, as I now am, you're done.

Yesterday was my day off and I had planned with a friend, Aaron, to go for a ski lesson. However, due to a car accident on the approach to the ski hill, the bus was late and I missed the start of the lesson, so we decided to just go up and do our own thing. Aaron has been boarding for years but has only skied twice before, so was happy to come on green runs with me. We'd had a ton of snow over night and it was still snowing heavily - puking snow as they say over here - so it was a 'powder day'.

I'd never skied in powder - having only skied twice before of course! - and soon discovered it was both a blessing and a curse. It was monstrously difficult to stay upright and nigh on impossible to turn when you were up to your knees in light, fluffy snow, unable to even see where your skis were. If you slowed or stopped, the effort involved in just lifting your feet up to get on top of the snow again was monstrous and soon my legs were like jelly. However, if you got a good downhill run going, you could bomb down with relative confidence, because if you did fall your landing was as soft as snot (as my mother would say). I literally stacked it every couple of minutes and sometimes the temptation to just lie there in the comfortable snow and to catch your breath for a bit was overwhelming. On one occasion I did a huge bail face first into a ton of snow, which was apparently hilarious to see and the story has already done the rounds. I managed to drag myself up and looked around to see where my left ski, which had come off, was. It was nowhere to be found. Eventually, after poking randomly around with my pole, I found it about 4 feet away and completely hidden 2 feet under the snow. I tried to get it back on but everytime I tried to clip my boot into the bindings it sank again without a trace. A full ten minutes later, I was finally ready to head back off down the run, where Aaron and another friend Amy were waiting patiently for me.

Eventually I went to have lunch and bumped into Chris, Gravy & Zander, who were having an awesome day boarding down black runs. It certainly seems to me that snowboards have a slightly easier time of it in the deep powder due, presumably, to their width. I did one more run after lunch before deciding that my legs just wouldn't take it anymore, so I popped off to the Sunshine Inn hotel (right on the ski hill) to take advantage of the huge outdoor hot tub, where the boys and Amy joined me.

It was snowing heavily and was fairly mild by then, around -5, compared to the -25 we'd had in previous days. We ordered drinks (me a coke, the boys a pitcher of beer) and sank down to relieve our aching limbs. Pretty soon we were so warm that the idea of stepping out into the snow in our swimmers was rather inviting and so the boys went first, rubbing themselves down with snow before jumping back into the hot tub, which gave you a pleasant, all over tingling/pins & needles sensation for around five minutes afterwards. Just next to us was a gate which led out onto one of the ski runs, so the boys then decided to try lying down in the snow, face first initially:

then onto their backs:

I was reluctant at first to try it, what with my pathetic circulation an' all, but soon got swept up in the excitement and sure enough, soon discovered that lying in the snow in a bikini was an enormously exhilarating experience, and the resultant tingling well worth it:

As we sat in the hot tub, drinking beer/coke, watching skiers and snowboarders whiz past us, reflecting on our day, we couldn't stop telling each other how amazing our lives were at the moment. We are enormously lucky to be here, in an incredible place, with fantastic people, doing things we love. We truly are living the dream, and we're determined not to take even one second of it for granted.

It's a numbers game

27. Sounds so innocent, doesn't it? But it sends shivers down my spine, because the number 27 follows me everywhere. Consider the evidence:

• I was born on 27th June (put it in your diaries people)
• I grew up at 27 Ingrams Close
• My staff number when I was temping contained 27
• My staff number at Queen Charlotte's contained 27
• My staff number here at Sunshine Village contains 27
• My ski locker here at Sunshine, to which I was randomly allocated, is number 27
  
• My flat in Weybridge is number 72 (stretching it slightly?)
• 27 was by far my favourite age (stretching it quite a lot?)

Now the most scary one:

• When we went to bingo the other night, of the six boards I selected totally at random, all six of them contained the number 27.

What can it all mean?

How cool?

As you may already be aware, one of the things I was most concerned about when I knew I was making the trip over here to Canada was the weather. As someone with pathetically poor circulation, who therefore doesn't fair well in cold temperatures, I had no idea what really cold (i.e. sub -10c) felt like or how I would cope with it. Well, as it's been knocking around the -15 to -25 mark for the past couple of days, I'd like to share with you the things I've learnt.

I believe it was Billy Connelly who first said that there is no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing. How true. My thermals, multiple layers of clothes, goose down coat, insulated boots, ski mittens, scarves and array of toques (woolly hats, to those back home) work a bloody treat and despite the well-below-freezing temperatures, I usually find myself toasty warm. In fact, I can usually only really feel how cold it is on my face, which then necessitates pulling my scarf up over my mouth and nose; Kate & I ably demonstrated this technique only this evening, and though admittedly we did look like we were about to pull a bank job, so did every other person on the street. To my utmost surprise, I rarely 'lose' my fingers (my term for when the Reynaud's kicks in) as long as I'm wearing my mittens, which are far far superior to gloves by the way, though if you have to remove them for any reason it's amazing how quickly you realise how bloody cold it is without them.

That said, my body temperature must have adjusted considerably in recent weeks. This afternoon, I popped out of the guest services building to pick up a bottle of 7up. I was dressed in my uniform, which consists of a thin quarter-zip top, under a sort-of fleece jacket, which I had unzipped. As I got outside, I thought to myself, oh, it's not too cold actually, and so I ambled over to buy my drink, only noticing as I made my leisurely way back on the thermometer outside the ticket windows that it was, in fact, -19c. Now, once upon a time in the very recent past, I would have been terrified at the thought of temperatures as low as that. I would have assumed that I would have turned into a popsicle within seconds. But in fact I now know that it's really not that bad and more importantly, I can cope with it. And thank goodness for that, given that it's not likely to get much warmer in the foreseeable future...

Bingo or bust

Tonight was bingo night at the Legion in Banff. Yes, you read that correctly. I've managed to get this far in my life without ever actually playing it, but tonight, due to a variety of circumstances too dull to go into, I missed the film I intended to go and see this evening and instead, I lost my bingo cherry.

Picture the scene. A smattering of Banff's older generation dotted around the Legion clubroom - which, even in Canada, looks exactly like you'd expect - cheek by jowl with a large number of the town's young, up-for-anything, transient population. $9 pitchers of beer on the go. A bingo caller who looked exactly like Seth Rogen's cop in Superbad, though with little of the easy-going charm. A group of volunteers who, as well as collecting and checking cards, doubled as bouncers.

Bingo, as you may already be aware, is an inherently dull process. Any activity that comprises calling out numbers, slowly, for a protracted period of time must be so, even if said activity is interspersed by people winning (small amounts of) money. So as the hours passed and the beer began to take its inevitable effect, the crowd began to find their own ways of relieving the boredom and trying to get into the spirit of the occasion. The bingo caller and his accomplices became more and more agitated at the alcohol-induced jollity that was spreading around the room. The announcements of 'please can you keep your voices down' and 'out of respect for those who have died for our country, please can you refrain from using profanity' became more frequent and warnings were given to people for tearing up beer mats and putting feet on chairs. Finally, three people, including our friend Jamie, were forcibly ejected into the -19 degrees outside for using their dabbers not just on their bingo paper, but on each other instead.

Boys will be boys

The boys I live with, Gravy & Zander, were on a climbing tour around the United States before they came to join us here in Canada. During this time, they were persuaded by one of their friends to participate in a photoshoot for a gay magazine (I forget which one or why, but it matters not). Being straight Aussie blokes, they were very uncomfortable with their close proximity while semi-naked, despite being best friends for the past 9 years, and when one shot required Gravy's hand to be placed on Zander's bottom, they needed a whole heap of beer to be consumed before it could take place. But still, they are both rather buff to say the least, so the finished product was worth their agony, as I'm sure you'll agree. Knowing I had a penchant for a bit of boy on boy action, Gravy made the mistake of emailing me the one picture they hadn't deleted from their hard drive and made me promise not to put it on facebook. I have kept that promise. But I never said I wouldn't put it on my blog; a technicality I have decided to exploit. Sorry boys.

My muscle injury continues to aggrieve me, and the painkillers I'm on are mighty strong. I've not taken any this morning as I have to go to the bank and the post office and, given that it snowed again overnight, I wish to get there in one piece. But when I get back and can slump on the sofa, I'll take some more and fly for a bit. I really wanted to go skiing tomorrow - loads of my friends will be on the slopes - but obviously, that's not an option just yet. Fingers crossed that next week I'll be up to another lesson and I can regain some confidence.

Pulling muscles from a shell

Sorry if the following is a little confused, but I'm doped to the eyeballs. Earlier today, just after I finished blogging in fact, I coughed and felt/heard a crack or a pop in my left lower ribcage, where my pulled muscle is. Immediately the pain became excruciating and when it didn't subside after a few minutes, if anything it got worse, I decided on my flatmate Chelsea's advice to go to the clinic. Thank God they're open 7 days a week. I could barely walk, couldn't breathe very well and kept crying. I made it to the clinic with Chelsea's help and got seen by a doctor who confirmed that it sounded like either a severe strain, a small tear in my intercostal muscle or a cracked rib. The treatment is the same, whichever, so we decided not to do an x-ray. He gave me an injection of Demerol, which is pethidine to us Brits. He then gave me a prescription for Percocet, as well as a very strong muscle relaxant and an asthma inhaler.

So now I know what opiates feel like, having been giving them to women for years. Very very spacey, and I barely remember the events of the early evening. I wouldn't say it took the pain away exactly, just made me care about it less really. Apparently I repeated myself a lot. I couldn't remember whether I ate dinner (I did; thanks Chelsea). I'm in a lot of pain when moving or coughing now, and still feel woosy, but it's wearing off, so I've just taken the Percocet and muscle relaxant and, while the others have popped off to the pub, I'm off to bed. I better clean my teeth quickly before they kick in and I pass out.....

I expected to injure myself skiing at some point, but I never thought I would manage to injure myself while talking to Silas on MSN. Very embarrassing.

Easy like Sunday morning

I got 11 hours sleep last night - what luxury! - and have spent today mainly fiddling around on iTunes in my dressing gown eating biscuits. I've created a 'Beaver Nights' playlist of all our fave tunes, am currently doing the playback, i.e. listening to it in sequence to check that all the songs go well together and are in the right order. So much easier these days than when I used to spend hours making mix tapes on cassette; not only did you have to be sat in front of the stereo the whole time lining up the next track and making sure the levels were right, but if you did the playback and decided a song was in the wrong place, or didn't in fact belong on there at all, there was no way of taking it out without redoing the whole side. Many's a tape I remember where one song jarred every time I listened to it. Nowadays, of course, it's all drag and drop into a playlist, where you can do as much adjusting as you like, then sync to your iPod for ultimate portability. Easy as pie. I love modern life. Incidentally, in case you're interested, my favourite song of the moment is the Foo Fighters' The Pretender. Just can't get enough of it.

Last night Laura & I went down to town to watch the Santa Claus festival of lights parade, which was very pretty indeed. My photos suck, sadly, because they're all dark and blurry. But the big guy himself did put in an appearance, which excited Laura no end.

Hi ho, hi ho

Bit of an update on things generally. I've decided to go full-time at Sunshine, as I'm enjoying the work and everyone else I know is full-time there anyway, which makes it a sociable event. I really like my crew at Guest Services, the work is not too difficult and I think I'm pretty good at it. My boss jumped at the chance of getting me full-time, so I can't be too bad anyway! Today I was sat at the opposite desk (part of the Ski School desk) to where I normally sit, doing Direct-to-Lift pass conversions (don't worry what that means, but just know that it involves lots of paperwork.) However, whereas my normal desk is nice and warm, this one was directly in a freezing cold draught (and draughts here can literally be freezing) which set my Reynaud's off something chronic. Ever tried to type addresses & take payments with no feeling in your hands? With people staring at your dead white/grey fingers like you're some kind of freak? Then, when my printer broke, the queue moved firmly into the 'ridiculously long' category, and the people comprising the queue went into 'thoroughly pissed off' mode, it all became great fun! But the best thing is that when I walk out the door, I don't have to think about it. At all. Such a luxury I've not had for 7 years.

I've developed a bit of friendly banter with the guests that gets me through the day. You know, the little jokes that you say repeatedly in your job that make you laugh, if no one else? Well when I'm doing DTL conversions I have to take a credit card imprint and get the person to sign at the bottom. I've taken to saying "...and if you can just sign here, this authorises us to take the money from your credit card to pay for our staff Christmas party this year..." Usually raises a laugh, but some don't even react, which as far as I'm concerned is tantamount to permission. Today I had 4 people together, so I started with the Christmas party joke, then for the next girl I said it was for our beer fund for the next month. The next one I told we would take for a staff trip to the next Calgary Flames game (ice hockey) and with the final chap I thought for a while and finally ventured forth with "well, I do need a new pair of shoes..." They all seemed perfectly agreeable.

I did in fact buy a new pair of shoes on my way home today. Well, boots would be more accurate I suppose, and they are nice and warm, which is more than a bonus out here. It rarely gets close to freezing point now, normally bumping around the -5 mark in town but it was -16 the last time I was up on the top of the ski hill. My ancient Levi boots are lovely - and really warm considering they're not really geared up for these kind of temperatures - but as they're about 6 years old, they have no grip on the bottom anymore, which is a bit of a hazard. I totally stacked it on the icy stairs coming out of the boys' flat downstairs the other day, which would have been far less embarrassing if Rory & Andrew hadn't been outside smoking and saw the whole thing. I have an enormously impressive bruise on my left hip and another on my right arm, as well as the echo of the boys' laughter still ringing in my ears, to show for it.

Oh and for those who have been following the cough saga, you'll be delighted no doubt to know my bronchitis is now on its way out. The muscle I have pulled in my left side is still very painful (I actually wondered if I had developed a hernia, but maybe I'm being paranoid) but the coughing no longer keeps me awake at night (hurrah!) and is perfectly manageable during the day. I'm so happy I could cry.

Spoke too soon

Had a second day's skiing today, but this time I was skiing alone. The skies were blue, the temp was something like -16 and the snow was flat and icy, which meant that I spent much of my time bombing down at breakneck* speeds and struggling to control it. I had some really good runs, but also some bloody terrifying ones. This, combined with my bronchitis (did I mention that before? I've been coughing myself stupid for weeks and now have a pulled muscle in my left rib cage which is agony), and my recent poor sleeping record (some self-inflicted, most cough-induced), has left me feeling very down today. In fact, I cried all the way home from the ski hill on the bus. I suppose I should cut myself some slack; I've only been skiing for 2 days. But still, I'm not used to feeling scared and was really annoyed with myself for not being, well, better. Plus all my friends are snowboarders, so I don't really have anyone to talk to about it, or to go on runs with (I tried to go on a run with them today but within 2 minutes they'd disappeared into the distance in a flurry of snow, even Zander, who's only been snowboarding for just over a week but is already bombing down blue runs like he's been doing it for years).

So, in the spirit of trying to be positive, even though I don't feel it today, I'm going to have another lesson soon - Sunday hopefully if there's spaces - and try to regain my confidence. And I took this picture at the top of one of the hills today, which shows that even if I'm not any good at it, I still get to enjoy the views:


* I have a whole new appreciation for this phrase

Ski Sunday

Yesterday was my first ski lesson on a proper mountain. And it was fantastic! I am so relieved, I did feel I was taking a bit of gamble coming to live in a ski resort for 7 months without actually knowing whether or not I liked it, but fortunately it all worked out for the best. I'm afraid I was too busy learning stuff (and wearing mittens) to take pictures on the mountain so a picture of me doing the TV slalom will have to suffice. My new down jacket was a great investment as one of my biggest fears was being freezing cold all day, but in fact I was warm as toast. Even my hands stayed warm thanks to my mittens! Feet got a bit cold but that's to be expected I suppose. And thanks to Megan and the loan of her fabulous skis, I slid down that mountain a right treat, I can tell you! It was an all day lesson and though I started off rather unsteady on my feet, by the end I had those parallel turns nailed. If anything, I need to go a bit slower (my instructor reckoned that being a biker has given me confidence at speed) until my control is a bit stronger, but I only fell over 3 times, which isn't bad going, and one of those was when an old guy took me out getting off the chair lift. I'm not even hurting too badly today, and would have gone back to the slopes if I hadn't had my first training session at the steak restaurant I'm going to be working this afternoon. I've got loads of homework to do - this restaurant demands you know all about different types of cows, where the cuts of meat come from, how they're prepared, everything. Plus you have to know every single ingredient in every single dish on the menu - there's a written food test that you need to get over 90% to pass. Although I'm struggling with learning it all, I still think it's great, it's what all restaurants should do, because back home I'm fed up of crap service.

Speaking of which, I should probably try to get some more sleep in before I go. Last night was our lovely friend Mike's leaving do, as he's heading back to England to join the Army. We've all been trying to persuade him to stay, particularly as he has a Canadian passport, but he seems set on going, damn him. Although I was absolutely shattered after my day's skiing, I dragged my sorry arse out to say goodbye, intending to be out an hour or so, but ended up staying out till some godforsaken hour of the morning, when the inevitable coughing fits (I'm still coughing like a bastard after nearly 3 weeks and am beginning to wonder if I've developed bronchitis or something) kept me awake for most of the rest of the night. Anyway, photos of the love-fest in the usual place. We all love Mike, so much so that we even forgive him for being sick on our kitchen floor the other week. Bless his cottons.

Aaaahhhht clubbin'

One thing I find interesting is that you can get used to anything. Those who know me well back home will be aware that as an a) non-drinker and a b) thirty-something, going clubbing is normally my idea of hell. Thousands of drunk people squashed into a sticky-floored, minimally-seated arena; bad bad music blasting out at a thousand million decibels so you can't hear how much drivel someone is actually spouting whilst they spit copiously in your ear; interminable queues for overpriced drinks which get spilled by someone's overenthusiastic dancing the moment you turn away from the bar; elbows freely and repeatedly placed into your kidney or stomach; anonymous erections pressed into your back the moment you approach the dance floor; the constant vigilance you need to avoid the next fight breaking out/person about to vomit; the layer of sweat that soaks your every item of clothing that you're not entirely sure is all yours; the ongoing internal dialogue about whether you've endured it long enough to justify the extortionate entrance fee.

But.


I'm now, it seems, someone who goes clubbing pretty much every week. Much as all the above still remains as true as ever, I have found that being with good people (because my crowd are ACE), free soft drinks all night (I love being a non-drinker in Canada!) and dancing up a storm despite the direty of the music gets you through it. Photos of the debauchery (see here for latest) are traded as currency the following day, along with 'Do you know what YOU did last night?' 'Oh God no, what did I do? No, before you tell me, let me tell you what YOU did' and the rush to upload the evidence to facebook is often frenzied. I actually rather enjoy being the only one who remembers all of the previous night's events and whom the others look to for confirmation/clarification of the rumour mill's latest. And, as some of the photos will undoubtedly show, I believe I have proved repeatedly that I can hold my own in the fun-stakes, despite being sober as a judge.

Quite possibly pointless

Modern life, eh? I just had a fairly lengthy conversation with my flatmate Laura via facebook, whilst I'm in my bed and she's in the lounge, for no particular reason. It was fun.

Meant to say, non-facebookers can find latest photos here and here.

Can't help but be a smug bastard

First day training for my new job today and this is where I now work. Don't all be jealous now. I mean, yes, it is very beautiful, and yes, I will get to go skiing for free, and yes, I do work with cool people, and yes... well okay, you can be jealous actually. It is very cold, but then that's the price you pay for all the snow I suppose. Today it was -8 degrees up at the ski hill (a 17 minute gondola ride up from where I work) which seemed pretty bloody cold to me, but that is small fry compared to how cold it's going to get later in the season. I think I will get those battery-operated boot warmers built into my ski boots after all...

Life in Beaver Street remains damn good. Every night the gang come round and we have a spot of dinner, or sit around and watch TV (Miami Ink marathon last night) or we just debate the pertinent issues of the day. For example, a couple of nights ago, we wondered aloud if you could actually get 2 people into Gravy's fatman trousers. As you can see, the answer was a resounding yes.

Tonight, in honour of the fact that it was Bonfire Night but fireworks are illegal to buy here and we live in a National Park so we can't build fires, I decided to cook a huge chilli, which was, in Zander's words, 'gold'. Or he might have said 'cold', I'm not quite sure. Anyway, it's safe to say I'm enjoying my time here immensely.

Oh and we've finally got our wireless internet working in the flat so I'm typing this from my bed. Hurray!

Halloween & Beavers

Halloween was a debauched affair. Banff turned into Party Party Party town, where everyone but EVERYONE was dressed to the nines and out in force in the bars. Everyone had made such a fantastic effort, and though I had bought the lamest and cheapest costume I could find, it still made an impact. I arrived dressed as a ghost with my face mask at the Magpie & Stump to find Hayley and Laura, already pretty trollied, shouting 'NO FACE NO FACE! Come here to have a picture taken with us!' to me. Assuming they had realised it was me, I went over and much hugging and phototaking was had. However, five minutes later, Laura suddenly said 'And I don't even know your name!', to which I pulled off my mask and she freaked out that it was me. Ha ha. The evening passed in a blur - despite the fact that I was the only person in Banff not drinking - and contained such gems as Jamie being sick into his hat at 9.30pm and Laura shouting 'Kiss me NOW!' to some Aussie guy in the middle of the road. A good time was had by all.

Yesterday was my orientation at work, which consisted of a day listening to talks about Sunshine Village's various different departments and what they do, how not to get STDs whilst in Banff - where I won a condom holder for knowing what the second most prevalent STD in Banff was (gonorrhoea of course - I wonder what I'd have won for being able to spell it correctly?) - and a long talk about different ways you're liable to kill yourself on the mountain.

It scared the bejesus out of me. As a non-skier, I have no idea what it's like to be out there in -15 degrees hurtling down a mountain, though it sounds scary enough. However, when you are then bombarded by pictures of people with various different hideously scarring and/or life-threatening injuries, and repeated stories of 'staff members whose bodies I have pulled out from under an avalanche/under a snowcat/peeled off a tree' and 'phone calls I've had to make to parents to tell them their son/daughter isn't coming home', it makes you think twice about even trying it. I mean, I know that's why I came here, and I also know that thousands and thousands of people ski every day without killing themselves, but I'm still getting nervous about it.

Then I headed back to Banff on the bus, picked up my bags and headed down the hill to my new home, on Beaver Street. Many people have pointed out that, given my job back home, I pretty much already live on Beaver Street, but now it's official. The house may not look like much from the outside, but my room is twice the size of the other girls (yay!) and I have a big comfy double bed. I already know one of my roomies, Laura, who travelled over from the UK to Vancouver with me back in September, but met the other girls last night, Chelsea (Aussie) and Jess (Canadian) and they're cool. Of course I immediately began doing a big clean, to which the others looked on in total bemusement. "Is the landlady coming over?" When I told them I was cleaning for myself, because I wanted to be able to cook/clean myself in a clean environment, I was given some odd looks. I pointed out that they've clearly never owned their own place. But hey, they're very young yet.

Despite the 'no visitors after 10.30pm' rule, we had visitors till around 11.30pm - ha! - Kate & Chris, who both moved into their respective places yesterday too, and Dave & Zander, who are living in the flat below us, so we ate dinner, watched Gladiator, tried to get the wireless internet up and running but failed (though we can hard wire it), and chatted about stuff and things. Damn good start to the living arrangements.

Homemore

After a hectic morning where I got up, packed up my stuff at the HI Hostel, checked out and put my bags in a locker, I found myself rocketing down Tunnel Mountain Road (fyi: steep & long) at breakneck speed in order to meet up with a woman called Elaine who I thought might be able provide me with somewhere to live. She runs a gift shop in town and has a house on Beaver Street – oh yes really – which she rents out room by room. The upstairs is a self-contained 4 bedroom flat for girls only (yay! Boys smell) and the downstairs, also self-contained, is mixed. My friend Laura has already secured a room in the upstairs flat and the Aussie guys, Dave/Gravy & Zander, were in the running for one of the downstairs rooms, so I thought it would be a cool place to rent. It was pleasant enough – 2 bathrooms for the 4 of us so that’s always a bonus – and the room was large, furnished and going for a reasonable price (there was even a deer sat in the garden outside the bedroom window - awwww) , so I kept my fingers and everything else crossed. Sure enough, Elaine liked me enough to offer me the room. Hurrah! I had to to run back up Tunnel Mountain road to collect my stuff and meet up with Chris, then back down the hill again to the SameSun hostel to meet the others, then over the other end of town to get out the huge deposit from the bank, back to the gift shop to sign the lease before running to meet the Calgary bus with 5 mins to spare... phew!

So I’m no longer homeless come 1^st November, which is also, coincidentally, the day I start work up at Sunshine Village; what a weight off. As a bonus, Gravy & Zander also got offered the room downstairs, so we’re all going to be a big happy family.

My buttocks hurt now*.

*reading this back this could appear to be a reference to how I secured the room. It isn't. It merely reflects the running up and down hills I did all day. Just wanted to make that abundantly clear.

Par-ty boombaya

So far life in Banff has been an endless round of going out, getting to bed at stupid o'clock, rolling out of bed late and doing it all again. Funnily enough, this is exactly what I didn't come to Banff for, although I must admit to the fact that I'm sort of, quite, almost enjoying it.

The main reason I've taken an about turn is that this is a small community and it's pretty important to go with the flow and socialise because you don't want to isolate yourself from the group. Who else would you hang out with? This is just not a 'dinner party' type of town for those of us who are just passing through. However, I should point out that I have not succumbed to peer pressure and started drinking, and I have bailed out earlier than the others on a couple of occasions (usually to go back and make contact with home on MSN +/- webcam).

The crowd here have surprised me in some respects. Although yes, they do like to go out and have a few beers and yes, sometimes they do it to some degree of excess, they are such a nice, intelligent, adventurous bunch of people and I'm really rather fond of them all. Last night, we went to a 'Pizza for $9' evening at the Elk & Oarsman (pizza was great), and we ended up having a long conversation about spelling and punctuation. Everyone agreed that a) txt spk is stupid b) using the wrong spelling of a word such as they're/their/there is unforgivable c) exclamation marks are best used in moderation and that d) the correct use of a semi-colon was tantamount to foreplay. Not really the kind of discussion I expected to be having with a bunch of long-haired snowboarders. And most of them don't even have long hair!

We do already have a whole bunch of in-jokes that have added to the camaraderie, which I shall no doubt repeat oft when I am back home and look wistful when I received puzzled looks in reply ("You don't even know!" "I saw that!" "I can do physics!" "Dude! Dude? Dude... Dude! Hmm. You make a good point"), mainly brought to the group by Gravy & Zander, two engineers/climbers from Australia, who are worthy contributors and have a huge truck called Stacey, whose services they'll happily pimp.

The only spanner in the works just now is that the accommodation I had lined up has fallen through and so I'm now, along with every other bugger in Banff, looking for somewhere to rent on my (very meagre) salary-to-be. It is virtually impossible to find somewhere, and each room has around 100 applicants at present. I have friends who were considering sharing a double bed with someone they'd just met for $600 a month - that's how crap it is. Add to that a 6-month lease which is hard to get out of at most places and pretty much everywhere has a 'no visitors' clause (that's not a 'no one to stay with you clause' but a 'no one allowed round to see you at any time, even for a quick cup of tea' clause). So I'll be in the hostel (where I still find it almost impossible to sleep) for the foreseeable future, which is not a happy prospect just now. Goddamnit!

The Banff Chronicle w/c 15th October 2007

I've not been able to upload new pictures to facebook or my blog the last few days, because although I get free wireless here at the hostel, it's a bit on the slow and unreliable side. I'll do my best to get pictures up here today and the rest on facebook as soon as I can.

Here's what I've been up to:

The first night I was here I went out with my new BFFs: Kate (Aussie, from Perth), James (Aussie, from somewhere near Canberra) and Chris (English, from Woking!). We went on a pub crawl and they didn't mind one bit that I wasn't drinking, in fact, James wasn't drinking either, thought that was because he was broke. Still, we had a great night and ended up back at my hostel bar till around 1.30am (I'm a dirty stopout!)

Next evening we met up again where I persuaded everyone to come up to the hot springs, and we stayed till 10pm getting very warm, while the air around us got very cold. It was excellent.

Wednesday morning I had my job interviews for Sunshine Village at their hiring clinic (along with basically the entire transient population of Banff). You have an initial screening interview where they decide what sort of positions you'd be suitable for and then pass you on to the supervisors of those departments for more specific questions. I had 3 interviews, one for Food & Beverage Server, one for the Ski School and one for Guest Services. I got the one I wanted, which was Guest Services, which basically involves working for the ticket office doing ticket sales and season passes, that sort of thing. I asked for part-time, so I'll be working there weekends and I plan to supplement the rest of the time with 2-3 nights working in a restaurant/bar in town, giving me the weekdays to learn to ski. I've been provisionally offered something at a restaurant called Saltlik, which looks nice, but I'm going to have another look around tomorrow to see what else is out there.

So job is kinda sorted, but still have somewhere to live to find. Accommodation is a nightmare to find here - I know people who are sharing double beds with near-strangers for an extortionate rent in order to get something - so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my lead from back home - my friend Cindy's brother-in-law who's living and working out here - comes off. I'm meeting him on Sunday to discuss. If that falls through, I'm a bit buggered!

Today the groovy gang and I headed out to Lake Louise and Johnston's Canyon for a day trip. Annoyingly, despite a beautiful blue sky this morning, by the time we arrived at Lake Louise the cloud had come down so I couldn't see much more of it that I could when I want there with Darrell a few weeks ago. Still amazing though, and at least this time we had snow so we could all get a bit excited!* Chris got a bit over-excited in fact, and decided to go for a paddle in the glacial waters. They were 'pretty cold' apparently.

Hostel life is a mixed bag. I quite like the social element - even though it's a bit 'party party party' for my tastes - and it's so easy to meet people you feel like you have a ready made group of friends, which is handy when you're alone in a strange place. We've all pretty much been doing the same things - going for jobs at Sunshine or in town, looking for accommodation - which has lent a certain camaraderie to proceedings. But I'm struggling with sharing a bedroom with 5 other girls, lovely though they all are. I've had no more than a handful of hours sleep since I've been here, because someone is always coming in late and/or drunk, trying to open doors and bags quietly and falling over when trying to climb into their bunks. Sometimes it's me. And there's always people wandering up and down the corridors talking loudly at 4am, while I lie there, imagining sticking something very sharp into their eyeballs. I feel can't really relax, hate communal bathrooms and am mistrustful of other people's washing up in the communal kitchen. Oh and pretty much everyone is so much younger than me I feel like an old mother hen at times (though it's nice when I get carded in the bars and everyone so far has been amazed at how old I am - Chris demanded to see my driving licence and still maintains it's a clever forgery. Bless him.) And as if to prove my point, it's Friday night and I'm sat in my bunk playing on the internet because everyone else is out on a pub crawl and I couldn't face it tonight. I'm just so tired from not really sleeping, I thought I'd sit this one out.

So that's me so far. Banff is really really beautiful and I literally can't stop taking pictures of the surrounding mountains, because I almost can't believe they're real. I'm excited to be living here, looking forward to starting work and learning to ski (oh I get a free ski pass with my new job - did I mention that?) and have met some lovely people. But I get lonely and homesick too at times, so it's nice to hear from home if you have a moment?

*Snow = skiing/snowboarding = jobs starting = money

New life begins in earnest

I've made it to Banff, struggled with my two suitcases, skis and poles, rucksack, handbag AND a stick of french bread (I needed something to nibble on on the journey), made 3 friends on the bus - James, Kate and Chris - who I hope to meet for drinks tonight (haven't mentioned I don't drink yet, I'm not sure they'll take it well), lined up an interview on Wednesday with Sunshine (the biggest ski resort in the area), had an email from the other job I applied for telling me to expect to hear from them shortly if I've been selected for interview (and why the hell wouldn't I be?), found my hostel and chosen my bunk (top bunk - a pain to get into but more privacy). Phew! Quite a day so far. And with excellent timing, Darrell has finally sent me that picture of me in my Bond Girl bikini at the Banff Hot Springs (my local pool now dahlinks) so I thought I'd pass it on to you.

Although I'm not keen on dorm accommodation, I've just found out one of the English girls in my room has got a job working for Gap in the mall. Did anyone say discount?

Canada vs. England

Five reasons why Canada is better than England:

1. The scenery - and the weather - is far more dramatic. That's not say that England's rolling greenery isn't lovely, because it is, but you can't beat a huge mountain towering above you, let alone a series of the damn things. With snow. That you can actually ski on.
   
2. The service you get in shops and restaurants is far better than back home. People actually seem to want you to get what you want and be happy. I'm not used to that. I mean, if people just refrain from scowling at you when you are giving them your custom back home you think you've been blessed.
   
3. They have Northern Lights. Aurora Borealis. Okay, I haven't seen them yet, but I live in hope and I bet when I do they'll be bloody brilliant.
4. The supermarkets are huge, and as you may know, I love a huge supermarket. I can spend hours wandering round them looking at a load of old nonsense - thermal underwear, cheap electrical goods, gardening equipment - and not buying a thing.
5. Property is still cheap enough that a young couple can buy a 4 bedroomed, 2 bathroomed, huge basemented 'starter home'. As it should be. I have amazed many a Canadian with tales of how much my tiny 1 bed flat is worth.
   

Five reasons why England is better than Canada:

1. The supermarkets may be huge but most of the food in them is processed and over-packaged rubbish. I feel guilty and wasteful just looking at half of it. And you can't buy loads of stuff you get back home: proper sausages, for example. Or any kind of decent cheese, which is deeply ironic given that back home, I buy Canadian Cheddar because it kicks ass. You can't get oxo cubes. And you can't buy gravy granules unless you go to the British Import Store in the West Edmonton Mall and pay nearly $6 for them...*
2. You have to have a car here to get anywhere. Having spent the best part of a month without one, I know how true that is. When Darrell was here, we tried to take the bus from Leduc, where Megan & Craig live, into the nearest big city, Edmonton. It took us just over an hour to walk to the bus stop, $17 each for a ticket, a 45 min journey time and there was only 1 bus back so if you miss that, or it's at an inconvenient time, you're buggered. If you do try to walk, the place is just not geared up for pedestrians. Often you have to take massive detours just to cross a road, or there's no crossing at all. And of course if you cross where there's no crossing, you're technically committing the crime of jaywalking (but I love being naughty!) And the distances are so big. The Canadians think nothing of driving 2 hours for a quick visit somewhere. You look on a map and think, oh, that's just over there, but then you find out that it's a 12 hour drive! At least England is manageably small.
   
3. You think Starbucks are ubiquitous back home? You should see it here: they're everywhere - and most of them are drive-thrus. I actually thought Megan was joking when she first mentioned a drive-thru Starbucks, but nope. I've had to relax my stance on not buying from them simply because there's little other choice. The other big coffee company here is called Tim Horton's and even though the coffee is fairly mediocre, the queues at the drive-thru (natch) have to be seen to be believed. Megan tells me in all seriousness that they put something addictive in their coffee so people keep coming back; I'm inclined to believe her.
4. There are very few independent restaurants or shops over here, they're all big chains. This means that every time you go to a mall or retail park (because there aren't really 'high streets' to speak of so that's where you go to shop), you get the same few shops over and over. At least you know what you're getting, I suppose (though Vancouver did have some cool independently-owned places to be fair). It's the kooky little restaurants back home more than anything that I miss. Particularly curry houses, because it's not really a big thing over here and so I've not had any since I was home.
5. Telly. Oh how I miss English telly, as I knew I would. They may have a gazillion different channels out here, but they largely show rubbish all day and night. Rubbish, interspersed every 5 minutes by adverts. I tend to look through to try to find English stuff - How to Look Good Naked and Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmare's have kept me almost sane - but it's nearly all American drama/action series, which is not really my cup of tea. Most of them are incomprehensible and/or packed full of clichés. Amusingly though, there's a big glut of English stars out here at the moment, and it never fails to make me smile wryly when I see Michelle Ryan (her off of Eastenders) playing The Bionic Woman with a - it has to be said - flawless American accent. Still, I can't shake off the image of her selling polyester blouses on a market stall, even when she's dropkicking a baddy. So I miss good English comedy and decent documentaries very much indeed. If you do see anything brilliant, please tell me, because there's lots of places online to watch them these days and I can try to track them down...

Oh and a quick mention goes to Greyhound, the bus service out here and the USA, who have screwed me over. I tried to buy my ticket to Banff online and it kept saying that it wouldn't process just now, could I try again later please? Eventually, after trying both my visa & debit cards, I gave up trying and Megan gave me a lift to the bus station to buy my ticket in person. However, the failed web purchases found their way onto my statements anyway, where, to date, they have taken an erroneous $200 from the 2 cards with a further $100 pending. On speaking to a customer service representative in Texas at length about this, after being passed from pillar to post around Canada first of course, I've been told that no, they've not taken any money from me at all. Oh, well, that's alright then. Other than the fact that you actually have. You bastards. Now I have to wait 15 days (for no particular reason) then send them copies of my statements to prove that they've stolen money from me and then they'll review it, and think about whether or not they'll return it, given that they don't believe that they have taken it in the first place because it's not on their system. Well it sure as heckfire is on mine, baby. Meh.

*A special prize goes to anyone who can name the three dishes I've cooked for Megan & Craig - a.k.a. Craigan - recently based on the clues provided. Jen, surely this should be easy for you?

Bruised, scratched, deaf and flushed down a toilet

Today, Megan* & I visited the West Edmonton Mall again (3rd time I've been there and I still haven't seen it all!) to spend the afternoon to the World Waterpark. As well as a huge beach-style pool with wave machine, there are loads of waterslides, which we partook of with gusto. At first, only the Twister and the Corkscrew were open, so naturally we went on them several times each. On one of my goes on the Corkscrew, I got so overexcited when it was time for me to ride that I forgot to bend down quick enough and whacked my head hard on the top of the slide. A lovely big bump (and possible slight concussion?) resulted, much to Megan's amusement, sorry, I meant concern. Having learnt my lesson after my first major dunking, I did my best to hold my nose towards the end on each occasion, though sometimes this was easier said than done - when I went on Nessie's Revenge, my desperate, disorientated scrabbling for my face as I could see the end approaching resulted in my scratching my face up the right side of my nose. How terribly attractive!

Then, while we were having a sit down on the beach after a spell in the hot tub, we heard the whooosh of water and realised they were opening up all the big, scary slides. Excellent! I immediately climbed the seemingly infinite number of stairs to the Sky Screamer, which did exactly what it says on the tin. It's a breathtaking, almost-sheer drop from the off, which then levels off into an aquaplane which has a tendency to deposit water where you really don't want it. Nuff said. (If you look at the picture above it's the 2 red tubes on the right-hand side.) I loved it and went on twice more, though Megan, having been on it during a previous trip, felt that once had been quite enough.

Tropical Typhoon was to be next, a short tube which catapults you full pelt into a giant funnel, in which you zoom round and round before dropping down the hole in the middle into a plunge pool. This was deeply unpleasant. Not only did I manage to somehow end up falling head first through the hole, but I now know exactly how a poo feels when being flushed down a toilet.

So several hours later, wet, weary and with ears so full of water I literally couldn't hear a thing, we departed the mall. It was bloody brilliant.


We popped home to get showered and changed before going to Yianni's Greek restaurant on Whyte Ave for dinner (I had the chicken souvlaki, which was lovely), followed by deep fried ice-cream at Julio Barrio's next door for desert, where we hung spoons off our noses for no particular reason. Or at least, I did but - as this photo proves - Megan totally cheated.

Bloody hell but it's windy here tonight. I'm in bed and keep thinking the house will blow away. We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto...

*to say Megan is a trooper would be an understatement: most of the day trips we've taken, as today, she has worked a nightshift the night before and manages to last a whole day on about 2 hours sleep. I've no idea how she does it.