Ski Sunday (think I have used that line before but it is a good one...)

Back home with two exhausted boys who decide that the way to avoid the queues was to ski down to the car park and come back up the queue-less access chair...simple......Which is why they re appeared an hour or so later absolutely wiped after a very long trip via the blue route and an excursion round a wood. Toby won the most falls competition by 4-3 but Garret already with aching limbs from the day before at work was definitely today's fall guy. Meanwhile Freya and I skiied out and about and queued in perfect harmony!

More of the same...but different

Different day, different colour...same old painting!

"hang spring cleaning!"

I am feeling very much like Mole as the painting goes on and one and on!!!

Kids and horses in perfect harmony (some of the time)

"There is something about jumping a horse over a fence, something that makes you feel good. Perhaps it's the risk, the gamble. In any event it's a thing I need. "

William Faulkner

At the end of a Perfect day

Which is right where I am now. We have had a fabulous days ski-ing up at Glencoe with sublime views and exceptional weather. Toby and Garret managed to spare an hour to guide Freya and I down a mostly thick powdery snow laden Happy valley a couple of times and then shot off for the delights of faster, white knuckle runs. Freya and I (and sometimes Rosie) had a great time going out wide in the deep snow lowere down the hill, I love skiing with ma girls!
The latter pictures are on the way home when a frozen loch beckoned and was well worth the traverse across the snowy grass to reach it.

A week of skiing and running

Half term has been and gone in a blur of running and skiing with a little bit of horse riding thrown in on Sunday. we have had three fabulous days at Glencoe en famille and then a fabulous FABULOUS day today. The weather was perfection and the snow unbelievable, the best we have seen. Collectively we have had many adventures and passing of personal goals over the week with Rosie descending Mugs alley confidently with a smile and Freya coming down the Main Basin and Etive Glades. Toby and Garret made it onto the spring run several times and as for me...despite falling off it again I managed to over come (to some extent) the Terror of the T-bar Tow....urghhh!
The running included an 8.33 or so mile loop including a trip up dun na cuiche, a 3 miles up the same and two training runs of 3 miles and 4.2 respectively with our two jogging groups.

Thankful for my blessings

Note to self...remember to count blessings occasionally. Can't reveal why this is in my heart tonight here but someone close is having a tough time at work and I feel for her.Choices, decisions and choices. The worst that happened to me today was buying a card at the supermarket, getting it home (70 mile or so drive) and finding in very very tiny letters on the cellophane " Don't forget your envelope" Well..... I DID!! So the house needs hoovering and I need to do some stuff but life could be so much more stressful...So onto tonight's run at jogscotland inveraray. Cracking turn out with 12 of us doing the winter mile trial and frightening the local residents strolling their way to and from the pub. Toby breezed it in 6.30..admittedly a slow time but when one has to negotiate a 180' turn and various hazards such as tourists, road works on the pavement (pavement works then I suppose),the bus queue, entrances to car parks and small boys running alongside a little leeway is allowed! I was slower than last time in 7.22 but I am sure that someone has made the Main street steeper since November.

Queen of Procrastination..

One little button...I just have to sew on one little button onto one big shirt but as this involves going and rooting through all the very many (and I mean many) buttons inherited from Garret's grandma, tracking down some thread, finding a needle (even if not in a haystack they can be damnably difficult to pin (hahaha) down) and then actually bringing those items together in a happy conclusion I have put it off for the hundredth time today and have come for some quality computer time. Despite the whole country suffering many white outs this year (and back of the last one) we have remained relatively snow free if not frost free. So, unlike everyone else in the UK we remained sentimental and pleased to see the soft white flakes floating ground-wards late yesterday afternoon. My decision to go 25 miles down the road to jogscotland was short-lived as the foolishness of the risks involved or merely the worry became apparent 4 miles from home after traversing one of the highest parts of the route so no running club.I rectified the lack of exercise (My guilt ridden personality is so wasted on the Church of England) today by going along the mainly still snowy tracks along the shore for what I in my oxygen depleted state thought was 5 miles but turned out to be 4.75 (it matters...it really does) and then back again. This took me an awful long time as I still have very many residual aches and pains from "boot camp" on Monday. I was ambling along with ever more freezing hands and feet when a thought drifted into my fluffy brain about ebay...this happens I am sure to us all but the gist was that Garret had asked me to bid on some skis for Toby at 1.20 and so in order to ensure I did this I had better jolly well get a move on!

There are three post scripts to this tale.

1. Garret was still at home when I puffed up short of breath and weary of leg.
2. I could have bid from my iphone which has an ebay app and was in my pocket
3. They went for way more than our top limit bid anyway....

Well, time to do the animals, wonder if I should go out the front way to avoid the shirt lying accusingly over a kitchen chair.....

Life in the fast lane...

Another birthday been and gone but not forgotten. I had the best day ever even though it started a little bit too early after the (late)night before for my liking. With four friends (one beloved old mate and three new ones)to get kitted up with rented skis etc. as well as Toby we made an effort to get up to Glencoe reasonably early which it turned out was a very good plan. Not as busy as last weekend but still plenty of demand on the ski hire. There was 9 of us with 9 different levels of skiing from an almost novice to the frankly barking mad. Groups of Claonairigh skiers came together for a time then re-formed all day with everybody happy and glowing by the end of play. I loved skiing solo with Freya for a chunk of the afternoon even though she witnessed an ignominious wipe-out by a ski-boarder. We made a night in with movie, popcorn and pizza sound as attractive as we could to the children and then I was wined and dined at The George and Argyll by five lovely men and I did not have to share them at all, even the waitress didn't get a look in. It was an experience in more ways than one as one guy is an actor on a soap opera and so I got a peek at how life is for the famous on a night out...unending patience and tolerance for a range of behaviour from the polite enquiry through to the downright intrusive and rude. Didn't spoil the night though. Chauffeured home by Peter and then another short night......