Victorian values

Modern life often consists of households sitting around watching the telly together - think The Royle Family - and although The Beaver enjoy nothing more than a damn good LA Ink marathon, we don't actually watch much telly over here. This is in no small part due to the fact that North American TV sucks donkey balls. You can easily have 50 channels of absolute rubbish that you wouldn't watch unless you were forced at gunpoint and, should you find yourself in such a situation, you can literally feel your brain dropping an IQ point for every minute you endure it. Clichéd police nonsense, for the most part, with an ad break every 3 1/2 minutes.*

Now, however, our telly has stopped working. I put in on a few days ago, only to hear a loud bang a few minutes later. The picture and sound disappeared to be replaced with a blank screen and loud electrical hum, which was actually an improvement on the show we were watching. So nowadays we feel a little like a Victorian family, sat around the kitchen or living room of an evening, listening to music (from a iPod rather than a gramaphone, but that's possibly splitting hairs), with our latest crochet or knitting on our laps, chatting amiable and swapping stories of our respective countries, hobbies or, more often than not, travelling tales. Much much better than Canadian television, and far more likely to enrich our lives.

*The only programme that Laura & I try never to miss is Sit and Be Fit, an exercise programme for the elderly and infirm, from which we have devised most of our kickass dance moves. 'Moving the Water' and 'Spider on a Mirror' are two of our favourites.

Rocks

There is not a single day when I don't look out at the Rockies and think to myself that I'm one of the luckiest people in the world to live amongst them. On my way home from work I find myself staring out of the window of the bus with what feels like a thirst, a desperate need to drink in the incredible views as deeply as I can. I want to try to hold them inside of me and make sure I remember them - exactly - forever. Is there any better reason to get up in the morning? The majesty of them at once humbles me and inspires me to greater things.

Before I came out here, many people told me that travelling gives you the opportunity to see and do things that you otherwise never would and that it will irreparably alter your perspective on life. I nodded and smiled and agreed, but never really understood till I took the leap and found myself here; now I know what they meant. In so many ways, I will never be the same again and I wouldn't have it any other way.

It's not just the mountains that inspire me. I've found so much in the people I've surrounded myself with out here to admire. Time and time again I've had my hastily put-together first impressions shattered when I've merely scratched the surface and have made friends who, not only do I believe will be my friends for life, but who have made me a better person at the same time. I hope that I can take some of their passion, their enthusiasm, their positivity and their perspective forward into my own life.

10 Things I Have Learnt in Canada

1. Skiing is fun and not as cold as I thought it would be.
2. I can now do figure-of-eight, double figure-of-eight, bowline and sheet bend knots. I even know what they're good for.
3. You should never sing Wuthering Heights at a karaoke. It was not me who attempted it, I wish to point out, but the girl who did is currently doing 15 years for first degree murder.
4. Communal living can be enormous fun. It can also be messy and unpleasant at times. Having the bath plug clogged with your flatmate's vomit being a point in case.
5. Rocks and legs do not mix.
6. The feeling of sinking an axe a few millimetres into ice and relying on it to haul you up a slippy vertical face is without equal.
7. A duvet is an essential item of bedware and worth every penny.
8. It is perfectly possible to go out for the evening in -15 degrees wearing only a hoodie in order to save money and time on coat checking, as long as you walk quickly or have some good friends to cuddle up to.
9. There are many different types of snow. Many of them are useless for making snowballs.
10. Crochet rocks.

Beanie baby

Thanks to a particularly slow day at work, less than 24 hours after I began my crocheting career, I have finished my first toque. Though the boys have complained that it's 'girly' and refused to call the colours involved by their proper, wool-company given names*, I'm very proud of my achievement and plan to start my second hat this very eve.

*Aubergine, merlot and ivory. Not, as they would have it, purple, pink and cream.

Kicking ice

Today Zander & I went ice climbing. Gravy was going to come with us but he'd hurt his shoulder yesterday doing (or not quite doing, as is slightly more accurate) a front 3* on his snowboard, so it was just the two of us, which actually worked out pretty well, as we only really had enough equipment for two and it meant I got more time on the ice.

I've been climbing stuff since I was a kid, though mainly trees and the like. I always fancied having a go at rock climbing but have never known any climbers so the opportunity has never arisen. I never had any interest in ice climbing before, because I thought it would be too cold, but the boys went a couple of weeks ago and when I saw the amazing pictures, I decided I just had to have a go. Secretly I was hoping I'd be quite good at it, but thought it was best not to have any real expectations, given that it was my first time.

Oh man it was awesome. I had so much fun I can't even tell you. No sooner had Zander put me in a harness, talked me through the basics and handed me the ice axes, then I was attacking the ice with zeal. The first climb was fairly easy but good to get to grips with the concept. The second was a bit harder, and at one point my feet lost grip, leaving me hanging by my axes, which was a bit hairy. After a spot of food (my leftover risotto from the night before, surprisingly good cold), we went back for a third ascent, which included a fair amount of vertical action. It felt amazing to be searching for good footholds, whacking my axes in and testing the hold and looking back at the incredible views. Zander told me on more than one occasion that he was impressed with how well I was doing, which from him is pretty cool, because he's certainly not known as a man to bandy around compliments willy-nilly.

Descending from these climbs means abseiling with the belay (person at the bottom holding the other end of the rope) controlling your speed by slowly letting out the rope. If s/he lets you down too quickly (or lets go of the rope!) you're pretty much buggered. If your anchor point - in our case a v-thread and an ice screw - at the top isn't sound, the same goes. However, climbing with Zander filled me with confidence because I knew he was a safe pair of hands, who knows his stuff and takes safety seriously. On my third abseil down, I shouted for him to stop for a moment and he shouted up to check I was okay. I turned around - 90 degrees to the ice, crampons dug in, and with seemingly the whole world below me - and just shouted down "HOW FUCKING AWESOME IS THIS?!" A moment I'll remember for ever as one of the most amazing of my life to date.

Incidentally, my leg coped well with it, despite currently looking like this:


Gnarly, eh? I have, however, cancelled my trip to Panorama because I think that leaning forward into my ski boot might just be a bit too painful. If I could even get the boot on that is, due to the swelling I still have.

Full pictures here.

*Nope, me neither

Ouch

Left work early today to go skiing. The conditions were amazing - not too cold, lots of powder around, newly waxed skis - and I was having a ball. On my fourth run I decided to take an interesting path which took me around a cliff and down a steep mogully bit. At one point I was skiing down a path around 1.5 ft wide with huge rocks to my left and a drop to my right, so I hugged the boulders in order to avoid the drop while I hurtled downwards. However, a rock sticking out of the wall on my left decided to collide with my shin, which stopped me painfully in my tracks. After 5 mins of sitting and waiting for the stinging to subside whilst considering my next move, I gingerly skied down and spent the next 20 mins sitting in the Daylodge with a bag of ice on my shin. I thought I might be able to ski on, but no go, as I could barely walk by the time I got up. I hobbled to the Gondola and came down to catch the bus home and was very very pissed off indeed.

I came home and put a bag of snow on it (luckily I have a ready supply), but now have a lump the size of, well, something particularly large that doesn't belong on a shin on it. And it hurts like buggery. Actually, I think I'd prefer the buggery. Got to rest it up and ice it for the next few days because on Monday I'm going ice-climbing with the boys (and ain't nothing gonna stop me) and on Tuesday I have a staff trip to another ski resort, Panorama, which I really want to go on. So everyone's fingers crossed it goes down in time, please.

More skiing tales

Went skiing yesterday and today (well what else am I going to do on my days off?!); yesterday I had a blue runner lesson and worked on turning all day. The conditions were amazing and, due to an effect caused by fresh snow and sun beating down for which the First Nations people undoubtedly have a name, the whole of the air was sparkling as tiny particles of snow were blown around! It really looked incredible. Today Gravy & I met up in the afternoon and did some hucking of the gnar and I was relieved and happy to discover I could pretty much keep up with him, even though we were doing some black runs. I did take a couple of good stacks - one where I went arse over tit, then spun round at least 3 times on my back ending up 30 feet away from my skis! - but nothing I couldn't handle. I'm clearly getting better. Hurrah.

Woolly goings on

The crochet revolution is upon us. I'm fairly sure that none of the boys travelling to Canada to spend their winter in a ski resort suspected that they'd be spending it crocheting like maniacs; in fact, when we first moved into our house and Andrew sat on our sofa crocheting his latest beanie, I seem to remember we all laughed at him. However, when said beanie (or toque, which is pronounced toook) was finished, it seemed less funny. Impressive, in fact. Gravy - with his certified beanie addiction - asked him to teach him how to do it and within hours he was hooked*. Chris followed suit and Zander, despite being initially scathing about the prospect, fell into line not long after. Now you literally can't walk anywhere in the Beaver without tripping over balls of wool and getting crochet needles stuck in your socks. We are practically drowning in beanies and Gravy could probably wear a different one every day of the month without repeating himself. In what I consider a stroke of genius, Zander's first beanie has 'Beaver St Massiv' woven into the band.

At the moment we have 2 English guys sleeping on our couches - JK and Matt - who I fully expected to laugh at the boys' sissy ways; instead they confessed that they were both knitters and a crochet/knit-off has now begun.

Personally, I'm delighted by the whole thing. Though I have not yet taken the plunge myself - far too impatient for that kind of nonsense - I could watch the others crochet for hours; I find it highly relaxing. Plus I have benefitted from the revolution with a lovely black & white beanie that Zander made for me, gawd bless his cottons. Only after I tried to steal one of his other toques I'd taken a fancy to, but still. Please observe and admire his handiwork.

In other news, I went to the Employee of the Week dinner the other night. I've got (yet another) horrible virus** - swollen glands, achy muscles, fluctuating
temperature - which put a bit of a downer on it but I dosed myself up with ibuprofen and managed to last through the delicious buffet and until the chocolate fountain, which was pretty good going I thought. When a couple of the managers got up to talk about each of the winners in turn and started going on about some girl who had done amazing things and gone out of her way to make the guests happy, it took me quite some time to realise they were talking about me! I got a trail sign with my name on it and a really lovely turquoise mohair cardigan as a prize. Then I hitched a lift with one of our big bosses back into town to collapse into bed, leaving the others to take advantage of my free drinks...

*see what I did there?

**what is it about this bloody country that makes me ill all the time?