Tuesday 1 March 2011

Today I cycled down one of my favourite roads, favourite because of the comedy names the residents have chosen for their houses. One is called Gazebo. Another is called Random Oak. Love it! it sounds like the kind of name a rock star would give their child - Gazebo Random Oak. A friend of a friend of a friend has a baby called Matilda, going by the name of Tiddles. Tiddles Gazebo is a nice twist.

Apart from swimming, cycling and wearing my new trainers to walk around the house, I have been skiing! It uses the same leg muscles as cycling so it counts. I am sure you would be bored by the details of the scenery, perfect snow, sunny blue skies and happy children in ski school, so I won't bore you with them. Instead I will tell you about our progress. I am the lower attainer in our skiing family, using the whole piste ( they were lovely wide ones) to make my turns, I like to get my money's worth on the lift pass by covering every inch of snow with my agonised snow plough and attempts towards parallel turns. R, H and A are all above average achievers, we can all now do red runs, but I take twice as long as everyone else. A challenged me to a race, and she was out of the chair lift and down the hill before I had fumbled my sticks together and untangled my legs from the bar. R and I went to the top of the mountain on a grim snowy afternoon, and then on the next sunny day I went back all by myself! I love the views, and the solitude and quiet pistes, and I hate being on busy red pistes when everyone else swooshes down really fast and I am gently snow ploughing my way down. I did not overtake anyone all week. H injured her thumb and is in a plaster cast, with a date next week at the hospital. She missed 1.5 days, and luckily for us, Granny Mary was staying in the same village and was happy to do the childcare. that left r and I free to explore a different ski area, the unbelieveably good Tauplitz, with one of the best snow records in austria and a wealth of options for the blue / red skier. and the most amazing panorama of mountains covered in snow from the top of the lift. I got on well with the chair lifts, I was a bit worried about them as in Switzerland I found them a bit nerve wracking. As well as skiing we walked on a frozen lake, I struggled to have faith in the ice, although it is 25cm deep, it just felt all wrong. We ate out and I partook of a couple of apfel strudels, you really need to immerse yourself in the culture, I feel.

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