The return of splatman

I’ve been enjoying the skiing lately when we finally manage to mobilise the four kids and actually get to the local ski hill (not to mention my not working being a factor in achieving the feat) but one of the things that I am learning about myself is a seeming inability to not test my limits. Part of the reason for that at the moment is it doesn’t take much for me to actually reach my limits.

Added to that is the fact that the kids are skiing with us and despite possibly have limits that they should reach before I reach mine (very debatable) the reality is that they don’t have one limit that I reach well ahead of them ... fear. The other seems to be the ability to fall down and not care (though admittedly they aren’t doing much of that of late.

And its not just the skiing.I

It’s a simple fact these days that I have two dodgy shoulders (which is actually important to this story). One stems from a touch football incident that I incurred what is probably over 6 years ago now and the other, from a more recent incident. this well documented case. Now last week, on Christmas day in fact , I decided to take the boys and their new sled things to the sledding hill to try them out. The first thing that happened was that I slipped going down the steps by the bbq and jarred both shoulders. Ouch. The second thing that happed was that I took a fine running approach in order to execute a beautiful and fast sledding run.

In reality however, as I sought to gracefully propel myself forward through the air and onto the sled for a wondrous and awe-inspiring sled run I stood on the trailing edge of the sled. Which meant that whilst I was in fact propelled through the air, it was with no grace and indeed with no sled. Instead I landed ungracefully on the far side of the sled in a rather unfortunate mess in the snow. Splat.

Now I didn’t pull up too badly from that encounter, the right shoulder wasn’t good, but I wasn’t crippled either.

So it was that I was skiing with Emily and Thomas on the weekend, following Emily down the hill with Thomas trailing behind. Now most of the time I get down the hill comfortably without even going close to falling over (exceptions occur when one is looking wildly around to find out where the small one went). And of course that’s where testing one’s limits come in.

Michael Sam and Thomas have already progressed to small (foot high) jumps and of course if they can do it, I can too right? Well the first time I could and even the second time i landed without major incident, it was just that one ski popped off when I landed ... but I stayed upright! So that was fine.

But on the occasion that I have been distracted from (kind of like skiing with small children) we were on a different run and it wasn’t a jump that was my undoing. There is a small slippery table-top halfway down the hill that one can choose to go over (note I said choose, the wise and sensible amongst us choose not to). I’d seen Thomas go over it and I had nearly gone over it myself earlier in the day. But I decided that I needed to work this one out. So Emily went over ... and stopped right near the end, which caused me some consternation as I was rapidly approaching. Now I can’t say for sure that that was my demise, but regardless of whether it was that distraction or merely the exceedingly early limit of my skill, when I went up onto it, I lost control. It seemed like my left ski was left behind and so I tried to lift my foot and bring it forward.

After that it was all rather amusing. I know that it was amusing because the four or five pimply faced, snot-nosed good for nothing layabout snowboarders who happened to be seated nearby collapsed in paroxysms of laughter as I once again propelled myself ungracefully through the air. This time I again landed face first sans skis. Ouch.

Of course at that point, Thomas, who was trailing me and doesn’t understand the concept of NOT going over the feature skied into me from behind.

Fortunately he didn’t manage to hurt me further. Of course I was less than pleased when he indignantly had a go at me for getting in his way and ruining his run!

And so now, although not terribly seriously injured, I sit here with rather sore shoulders from recurring wounds, wishing I had a younger man’s arms.