They think it's all over...

...it is now.

Both Cardrona and Treble Cone closed on Sunday. A few days prior to that we had our friend Josie, one of the Canadian girls we met grape picking, come to stay and we did an epic 3 resorts in 2 days stint - Cardi on Tuesday, Snowpark Tuesday night and Treble Cone on Wednesday - and, after literally lying down on the run at the end of the day at TC vowing I couldn't continue, I thought my season was over. I didn't even bother to bring my board back up to work on Thursday but then Saturday brought a big dump*, as is often the way just before close, and I had to get out on something and make the most of it, so I borrowed some skis and went out with Mark, Roland and Stacey for a ride break. We managed three runs and they were probably the best three runs of my season. The snow was amazing, which - no offence NZ - is pretty unusual out here and we found some great drop-ins which were untouched, so we touched them. Oh how we touched them. Naturally we all fell over left right and centre, but that's what a powder day is all about. At one point Roland fell over, and I was laughing so much at him I went over myself, only to find I was now laughing so hard I couldn't get up again. I looked up to see Mark and Stacey laughing at us, causing both of them to wipe out too. Full house! I went out on skis again on closing day, which was not quite as epic, but I did find one totally fresh slope above the halfpipe, so I stood at the top and yelled "I CLAIM THIS HILL AS MINE!" before dropping in. Lovely. It was great to be back on skis again by the way, thus proving to myself that I enjoy both skiing and snowboarding as much as each other in different ways.

On closing day we also decided to have breakfast at the Mezz Cafe, the 'posh' restaurant at Cardi, and just before heading over there I popped my camera in my pocket saying to Lisa 'Just in case Shaun White's in there - you never know!' On arrival at the Mezz, I spotted Shaun White sitting at the next table. Okay, okay, I did know he was up that day, so it wasn't totally random, but still. In case you're not aware, Shaun White is basically the coolest pro snowboarder in the world, and won the Burton Open this year with back-to-back double corked 10s, the first ever in competition, and is probably the only pro snowboarder I'd spot a mile off. The mane of bright red hair helps! But this guy was on the front cover of Rolling Stone magazine for goodness' sake - he's a bona fide cross-over star. Well, seeing him sat there with his coach at the table next to us I just had to say something, particularly with it being our last day an' all, so I went over and apologised for interrupting him, and for being totally lame, to which he immediately replied 'No, no, not at all! Did you want a picture? I don't mind at all, really!' He leapt up and put his arm around me while Stacey took my camera. Afterwards I sat with him and had a nice chat about me learning to snowboard, and about how seeing snowboarding tricks on the telly is a totally different experience to seeing it happen right there in front of you. Eventually I thanked him again and went back to my table to eat my pancakes while he laced up his boots ready to go out and hit the pipe. What a very lovely chap indeed.

Lie in Monday morning, of course, and then off to Ron & Jemma's in the afternoon for a BBQ and a spot of fishing. Ron has a rod, and property that extends down to the river, but has only fished once or twice before, never actually catching anything. Isaac knew there was fish to be had, and had not yet caught anything over here in NZ, so they went out just before dusk with Ron & Jem's son Andrew, to see what they could find. They came back with two trout of pretty damn good sizes! One brown trout, one rainbow. They were duly gutted and arrangements were made for us to come back the following evening to eat the one Isaac had caught - needless to say it was delicious!

So now it's all about packing. It's all pretty overwhelming I'll be honest, we seem to have accumulated so much stuff, as tends to be the way of these things, and we've already got one box to post home to Canada alongside our bags. Whilst we are quite looking forward to being back in Jaffa, and certainly looking forward to heading home after so long away, we're really really going to miss our lovely flat here in Wanaka, not to mention having our own loo and standing headroom. But we leave here tomorrow, amble our way back up to Auckland to stay with Jude & Glynn before flying to the UK on 2nd November. We want to be down in Surrey/London for a week or so to catch up with friends & family before hiring a car and heading up north - although so far we've not been able to find anywhere to stay down south, as everyone is full! So no idea where we'll be - email me with any offers?!

*of snow, of course




Latest pics here

More of the same

Yes yes, once again I have been slack in my blogging. My main excuse is that it's all been more of the same, we got to work, come home, watch a film/tv show and go to bed, and get up again the next morning to go to work...blah blah blah. I will, however, fill you in on the latest with my snowboarding, which is coming along very nicely.

I am in general a helluva lot more confident on my board and yes, I can finally say that I absolutely LOVE snowboarding. It's taken me a while to get to this stage - far longer than I was expecting - but somewhere around my last post it all just clicked and since then it's only got better. Before, I found everything hard work on a board, from cat tracks to chair lifts, and longed to be back on two planks. Well the mileage I've put in has paid off, and now I no longer look at skiers with envy at all. That's not to say I don't want to ski anymore - in fact I'm determined to have one more day skiing before we close - it's just that I feel like every time I go out on my board I improve a little bit more, feel that little bit more comfortable, can ride slightly harder terrain, and it's rather addictive.

After spotting a poster at work and signing up immediately, last Wednesday I had a freestyle lesson. Freestyle, for those of you who don't ski or ride, is all the tricksy things you do on skis or a board; jumping, spinning, riding rails and so on. I had already ridden a couple of boxes in our 'baby' park, and felt I needed a hand getting my confidence up to try something more, so this was just the ticket. It was only $25 (organised for staff) and given that only my friend Stacey & I were in the beginner's lesson it was basically a 3 hour private, which is worth $355 to a punter! We had Pierre, a Belgian instructor, teaching us and it was amazing. I'll be honest, I ended up chickening out of the boxes in the Big Boy's park (aarrggh the pressure!) but by the end of the three hours I had ridden the baby boxes several times, got some good air off a small jump (previously one of my biggest fears), learnt to ride switch (this means riding the opposite way round to the way you normally ride, so since I'm left-foot forward, known as 'regular' or 'natural', I was riding 'goofy', which is right foot forward. It feels very weird), perfected my spins (not spinning while jumping, just pirouetting on the snow) and learnt to do 180s (where you jump from facing one way, to facing the other, hence 180 degrees). All in all a very productive and enjoyable three hours. Whilst I don't think I'll ever be a park rat, with their oversized clothing and fearless tricks, it's nice to know you can do something a bit more interesting than just sliding downhill, you know?

Following on from that, the following day we had Interdepartmental Games at Cardrona, and I was 'persuaded' to take part in the relay race. It involved running on slush from the courtyard to the bottom of McDougalls chairlift, getting on and then coming down a steep and icy front onto a gentler slope, racing back to the archway to send your next team member off to do the same. Not too bad then, if you forget to factor in that there are 6 other teams competing and they were all very VERY fast skiers and snowboarders, who were taking it all very seriously. I was lucky, by the time I ambled down we were so behind I was pretty much alone but it was honestly one of the more terrifying experiences of my entire life. We lost, hopelessly, but since I managed not to vomit on the chairlift through sheer nerves coupled with physical exertion, I considered that a win. I have vowed that in future, skiing and snowboarding is for fun and my fun alone.

The only other thing that is occupying nearly all of my time at the moment is my Permanent Residency application for Canada. It's so much more than just a form, it's a huge document where we've had to basically lay our lives bare for the Immigration Officers to judge us. The fact that we ARE a genuine couple means that it should all be fairly easy, but sadly it doesn't seem to work that way. Our main problem is that we spent the first 6 months here living in a Toyota Hiace, and though you (and I) might argue that this is a far tougher test of a relationship that sharing a flat together, whether it counts towards my immigration application is a moot point. Still, I've determined to press on, putting together a bundle of emails between Isaac & I, birthday cards to each other, our tenancy agreement, joint van ownership/insurance docs, joint bank account statements, a ton of photos, statements from family and friends saying they know about, and are supportive of, our relationship and much much more, including a comprehensive list of EVERY campsite, hostel or house we stayed in during our first 6 months here. That took a while I can tell you. That, along with every address I've lived at and every job or period of unemployment I've had since the age of 18 - leaving NO GAPS whatsoever - has been a challenge. That's not to mention the application costs! But little by little I'm chipping away at the work load (and using work while I can for photocopying and printing, naturally) so the plan is by the time I arrive in Canada, I can literally send it all off the next day. I hope that it'll be so comprehensive that they'll have no choice but to say yes! The whole process of course will take around 6 months to complete (maybe less but very possibly more), during which time I can't work legally in Canada, unless of course I get a temporary work visa separately, which I plan to try to do. It's all a bit of a nightmare, but it will be worth it in the end...

All coming together

For the past week or so I've had the cough/cold from hell; I've been very worried that it was going to develop into bronchitis like in Banff but I think - hope? - that today I'm over the worst. However, I did have today off work due to 3 nights in a row with hardly any sleep due to constant hacking. I did actually get up this morning and put my uniform on, but when Isaac came into the bedroom to find me sat on the bed crying due to sheer exhaustion, he wisely advised me that I probably wasn't going to be much use at work. I called in sick, which I hate doing because I'm always paranoid that they'll think I'm lying, and then tried to go back to sleep for a bit, which I managed to do, albeit on and off, till nearly 1pm. A day sat on the sofa watching Amelie and playing on the internet ensued and I definitely noticed that my cough has decreased in its ferocity a little, so I'm hoping tonight won't be so bad.

Tuesday and Wednesday are our days off, and this Tuesday, as I was feeling very rough, we spent the day at home doing much needed things like washing and cleaning. Whoop de doo. Come Wednesday, one more sleepless night down, I really wanted to just take it easy again but it was a bluebird day, I hadn't been on my board for 2 weeks, the NZ Freeski competition was on at Cardrona AND I didn't want to cheat Isaac out of a day on the snow, so come late morning I dosed myself up, and sucked it up Buttercup.

I had been flicking through a book a couple of days before in the bookshop called "Great Outdoor Adventures: An Extreme Guide to the Best Outdoor Pursuits" by the fabulous Bear Grylls. In it, whilst talking about skiing, he advises against being over-cautious, since this tends to over-ride the natural instincts and abilities that confidence affords you. Certainly in both skiing and snowboarding I've found that whenever I think 'Uh-oh, I don't think I'm going to make this!', invariably I don't. So with this in mind, and boyed by a dream I'd had the night before in which I was a really good snowboarder, I decided that today, I could do this. Sure enough, I found myself following Isaac onto terrain that previously I'd have avoided - too steep, too bumpy - and killing it. I threw yet more caution to the wind and upped my speed and realised it had all clicked! In sheer joy I followed Isaac off a small jump and landed it!* By the end of the day I found myself on our mini-bordercross course** riding the rollers and banked corners with ease. Hurray! Now I can't wait to get on my board again. My pesky coffee hand still waves around like crazy without my knowledge or permission, but at least I feel like I can now get to work on such small things. I may only have achieved mediocrity, but I embrace it like an old friend.

*it was a very small jump. And I got a very small amount of air. But still.
**okay okay it's called the Family Fun Park or something and I know 10 year olds are probably therefore supposed to be able to do it but I would still have avoided it on a board in the past...

The earth moved for us

Last night we were watching telly - nothing new there, we must be one of the most unsociable couples in Wanaka - and it suddenly occurred to me that everything was moving. It was subtle, but unmistakable. A strange thought began to occur to me...then it stepped up a notch - the curtains were swaying to and from the windows - and I realised it definitely was an earthquake. I've never experienced one before but remembered the advice we'd been given at our orientation here in NZ and grabbed Isaac - who was still oblivious - and dragged him to the doorway between our lounge and bedroom. We knelt down, giggling and in disbelief, and waited for the odd sensation to stop.

There are few reliable things in this world, but the solidity of the ground beneath our feet is - or rather should be - one of them. When the whole house and the earth beneath it begins to shake and sway, your brain finds it devilishly hard to register - I'd have wondered if I was drunk if I didn't know that I haven't had a drink since May 2008! As it turns out, this was a fairly big earthquake, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, and was the biggest one in NZ for 80 years. No one was hurt, thank goodness, and the resultant tsunami that hit the Haast coast was only a tiddler. Still, it was all very exciting, even if nothing even fell over in our house.

And in other news, the lovely Kat Von B: Queen of Beaver is in town. She's from Perth (Australia, not Scotland) and has flown over on holiday to see me and her friend Lucy, who lives not too far from us. Sadly her trip has coincided with me developing a rather nasty virus - no, not swine flu thank goodness - and I've had to bail out of our planned skiing trip today in favour of sitting on the sofa feeling sorry for myself and eating Tim Tams. We did however manage to get out snowboarding together on Monday before I fell ill, which was great, and I was terribly relieved that we seemed to be fairly well matched with our riding abilities, with Kate being rather rusty (not having been on snow since we left Sunshine last year) and with me still being fairly gimpy.

I must admit, I had hoped that I'd pick up this snowboarding business a bit quicker - I mean, how hard can it be? But as usual, my desire for perfection is found to be lacking in the riding department. I can now get down a run without falling over, pretty much, and I've even been on blue runs. In fact, I actually prefer blue runs because the steeper it is, the easier it is for me to turn. But it still all feels rather unnatural to me and I feel like everything is harder on a board than on skis. Cat tracks for example (relatively flat and narrow) are easy as pie on skis - point them in the right direction and pole it if you slow down - but a nightmare on a board because you have to be on one edge or the other all the time and I just can't get the bloody hang of it. Isaac, who has been riding for 12-odd years, just says 'oh you don't need to be fully on an edge, just put more pressure on one side or another, and you don't have to make turns, just go straight'. Well all that is fine if you are instinctive about it, but for me, having to think about everything I do because it's not muscle memory yet, this always ends up with me a) trying to put too much pressure on an edge, losing balance and falling over, b) ending up right at the side of the run, hitting something, like a wall of snow, and falling over, c) hitting someone who's trying to pass me because I'm so slow and falling over, d) getting some speed up, panicking, trying to slow down and falling over or e) getting just too tired holding my legs in that awkward position and falling over. So falling over is still a big thing for me. And most of all, the thing that has surprised and disappointed me in all of this is that I haven't fallen in love with it yet. Everyone I know who snowboards says that it just suddenly clicks and you just love it and to be honest, it hasn't happened with me yet. I still yearn for skis and how easy and familiar it all is. I know in my heart of hearts that I didn't always feel that way about skiing - it was hard to begin with and I fell over alot - but now I feel very comfortable on skis I just wish it wasn't all so much of an effort on a board.

That said, I'm determined to continue with it, because I hate giving up at things I've decided I'm going to do. To that end, I'm delighted that Isaac's brother Reilly and his dad Imo are coming out to visit us in a week and a half. Imo has been a ski and snowboard instructor for years and is apparently keen to help me get my riding up to scratch* so that would be fabulous. Watch this space - I'll be hucking and shredding that gnar before you know it.

*actually, I only have Mary Lynn's word on that, and he might actually be going around saying 'God I hope she doesn't expect me to teach her anything, what a busman's holiday THAT would be!'

Birthday blues

You're quite right Jenny (see comment on previous post), I have no real excuse for not blogging now. I can't blame lack of internet anymore, certainly - I suppose I've just got out of the habit. It is true however, that the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of training, working and snowboarding, so even when I have had time I must admit that the most I can do in the evenings is sit and stare at the telly like a zombie before crashing. It's pathetic. You'd think I'd never worked before!

So basically Isaac & I have both started work at our respective resorts, me at Cardrona and him at Treble Cone. In many ways I think I've got the better end of the deal, because Cardi is very similar to Sunshine in many ways, so it was easier to pick up for me, whereas TC has some fairly archaic systems. The ticket windows don't have computers, they sell pre-printed tickets by hand, which turns cashing up into a nightmare. It can take up to 3 hours for them to balance! I, in related news, was promoted during my training, when myself and an Aussie girl called Lisa were asked if we could help handle the 'money room'. Basically we have a woman called Margaret - English*, ex-banker - who handles all the money coming in and out for the whole mountain 2 days a week. The other 5 is now covered by Lisa & myself. It's nice to be trusted, and it's a bit more money, but it's also longer hours and very like being in an all-day maths class, which is hardly my idea of a relaxing time. Anyway. Treble Cone has more extreme terrain, whereas Cardi is more beginner/intermediate, so we get the lion's share of the family market. Plus we're between Wanaka & Queenstown, so we get people from both towns, whereas TC is a bit of a hike if you're not in Wanaka. We both work with some great people who we've been out with a few times, so that's nice, and working at both resorts means we get to play on both mountains. It's a good thing that Isaac's at TC really, as I'm rubbish on a snowboard at the moment and probably wouldn't be able to handle its steeps! We both get the opportunity to go on ride breaks most days, though I've realised that going for an hour by myself when I'm this new at it can actually be counter-productive, because I lose my confidence very quickly, so I don't go very often.

It was my birthday last week and I was working. I only had one card to open (thanks Toni!) in the morning and I had told Isaac not to buy me anything, since we were totally broke. However, getting up at 6.15am to make porridge before work, I suddenly, and without warning, burst into tears. Isaac naturally asked me what was wrong and I genuinely had no idea, but managed to blurt out "I don't WANT to be 35!" This pretty much set the tone for the day. I cried walking to the bus. I cried on the bus. I went for a ride break - just to be able to say I'd snowboarded on my birthday - and cried at how awful I was and how terrified I was at turning ('I know I've got to turn, I've got to turn, I've GOT to turn.....NO!' Cue falling over) and when I was asked to stay late AGAIN when everyone else was going home I ran off and cried in the stationary cupboard. I got dropped off by a bus driver who was heading up near where I live but he set me down in a road I was unfamiliar with and I got lost walking home, crying the whole way. A dog I passed in a garden went completely mental when he saw this howling figure! I made it home ahead of Isaac (the one and only time I have) and turned on the computer, only to see a whole load of happy birthday messages on my facebook, which made me howl even harder. Poor Isaac came back to find me in a heap on the sofa, sobbing my heart out. He was brilliant (as ever) - he hugged me, made me tea, listened to me wail for an hour about how awful I was at snowboarding and how I couldn't turn without falling over, gave me a present of a new jar of marmite and both a bought AND a homemade card (showing stick figures of us snowboarding together) and then took me out for dinner. We went to Amigos, the local mexican restaurant, for which we had a birthday voucher for $30, and the food was nice (I had a very bloody steak) but the service was TERRIBLE. It's a family-run restaurant, and they're very friendly, but the waiter that night was the owner's 13 year-old son, who slouches up to you and says in a bored voice 'Is everything alright with your meal?', which of course means 'Mum told me to ask you if everything's alright with your meal'. It took an hour to get our food after ordering and then we sat with dirty plates for so long that I eventually had to go up to the desk and ask them to clear our table. By this time I was so tired I was looking at my coat next to me on the bench and genuinely debating putting my head down and falling asleep. We ordered churros for dessert and ate them at breakneck speed before heading home - I'd barely made it through the door before I was undressing and falling into bed. So not a good day all round, and many apologies go out to the ever-lovely Isaac who had to put up with me being such awful company. The next day I woke up feeling fine! Go figure, as the Americans would say.

The following Tuesday we both had the day off so we decided to have birthday #2. After a leisurely morning, we headed up to Cardi and spent the afternoon working on getting me over my turning phobia. I even took a demo board out, the Rossignol Diva, which has some fancy serrated edge they called Magnetraction, which I was assured was like 'cheating' at turning. Fine with me! I loved the board and want one badly. We had a very good afternoon and, though I'm still by no means elegant on a board, I finally got the hang of turning (most of the time) without being terrified. Hurray! We had a great day, with my favourite, corned beef hash, for dinner, so that is how I'll choose to remember my 35th birthday.

So all in all, work is going fine - if a bit frustrating/anti-social/exhausting for me - and we still love our little flat. We keep hearing awful stories from other people about how freezing cold their houses are, so we feel very lucky to be in one of the only warm places in Wanaka! Still, we haven't had a heating bill yet, so we might yet have a terrible shock awaiting us...

*as if I even have to say it. EVERYONE we meet is bloody English. Sometimes I feel like I'm in England, but an England where everything is a bit wrong and you can't get Pizza Express**
**my worst nightmare of an England then

Board to tears

What is it with me and trees? Today I had a go at snowboarding for the first time and, naturally, I managed to fall into a tree well, from which Gravy helped me out as soon as he'd properly documented the occasion. Oh, and laughed at me alot. It was enormously comfortable incidentally. The snowboarding went fairly well - I was linking turns by my 3rd run - though I fell over a lot and was immensely grateful for Laura's impact shorts, knee pads, and Zander's wrist guards. Of course, the one part of me that remained unprotected was my elbows, so I now have a massive bruise on my left one. Good work. Here's me in action when it was going well:



And when I was somewhat less successful:




Oh and one of Chelsea's friends (Natsuko Katashima) who was in another part of Banff when the Aurora happened took these photos, which are incredible. I'm posting one here so you can see how amazing it really was.