I called the previous post on the topic minus 27 and that’s fine, but this morning I got up to go to a breakfast meeting and couldn’t help but notice just how cold it was on the way there. For a start, the bloody air was frozen! Ok, so not literally, but it was cold enough that there were ice crystals forming in the air. As I drove in to town, the headlights of the car lit up thousands of glittering crystals that gave the effect of someone having shaken glitter (or maybe even fairy dust) over the town. It was a remarkably beautiful sight that only went some way to offset the sheer horror of the car’s external temperature reading that sat at a cool -32C!
As the two photos below show .. at least it warmed up as the day went on! (The sun now reaches its peak about 30 degrees above the horizon - these were taken about midday).
The local ski hill opened last weekend and we endeavoured to get there late Sunday to try it out. But of course, us being the Temby’s we stopped in town first to visit the ‘festival of the trees’ (a local pre-christmas thing where pre-decorated trees are auctioned off to support the local hospital) and had to stop to buy ski boots and skis for Caroline and myself. Needless to say by the time that we drove to the ski hill, things were getting a little bit tight time-wise.
After the 47 trips back and forth that are required to get everything ready and then the pain and horror of getting everyone changed and into ski-boots etc, we finally got onto our skis to find an attendant standing at the top of the hill we were about to go down telling us that the run was closed for the day. We’d missed it by 5 minutes! Happy? It takes four letter words to describe how truly happy I was at that point.
So yesterday, being Saturday, we made our way back out to the hill (despite the -22C forecast) to have our first ski. With everyone set to go and without really knowing just how challenging the hill might be (though we’d been assured that it really was mild) we stood at the top and I went through a quick review with Emily ... pizza and french fries (that would be ski tips together to form the snow-plough wedge and parallel to go fast). She knew what was required and so I told her to go with me and we’d ski across the hill (rather than the more direct route the boys like to take).
Caroline and the boys went first and then Emily and I. Well, Emily had her ski tips together and started down the hill after me. I went across the hill and glanced over my shoulder. Rather than a nice controlled snow plough across the hill like I was anticipating to see coming behind me, instead I saw our little pink and purple-suited Emily with her snow plough pointed straight down the hill and as she accelerated rapidly past me, beyond the nice easy start and onto the somewhat steeper section beyond. She squatted down as she picked up speed and stuck her arms out sideways like little wings and shot down the hill. There was just the faintest note of a little terror in the cry that emerged from her as I called out to Caroline (thinking that she was ahead of Emily).
When Caroline responded, it was clear that Emily was all out on her own and so I pointed my own skis down the hill and raced after her. There was a flatter bit after that first more adventurous slope and I thought that she might pull up as I screamed, “Pizza! Pizza!” at her over and over again, but her her momentum carried her over the cusp again and down the next steep part of the run. I caught up with her half way down that bit as she’d fallen over. The rest of the way to the bottom was a test of a parent’s nerves as I tried to get her to follow me and survive at the same time. Given the amount of time I’ve spent skiing, I didn’t exactly feel like the most qualified educator for the subject!
We had some lunch after that to calm everything down and then after much pleading, allowed Emily a second attempt. It was much improved, but not so much that she won herself a third. She’s been booked into lessons instead. The rest of us had a better time of it, though given it was about -25, more than 2 runs at once was more than this man’s toes could bear!
And finally, since starting this earlier today, we’ve had dinner, Caroline has gone out and the kids are in bed. What did we have for dinner? A BBQ. Because i simply had to challenge my BBQ’ing skills and be able to say that I’d cooked steak outside, on the BBQ when it was -25 degrees. And now I can. Though I did find out in the process that the BB! Cover doesn’t like being frozen. It likes being pulled off the BBQ when it’s frozen even less. Which is why, after scraping the snow off, it came off in pieces!
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