Falling behind

I am horribly late in my blogging efforts here - there's a whole lot to be said about skiing and the creation of small skiing monsters, not to mention the French idea of the proper accoutrements for a hamburger. But the arrival of a certain wee dog has thrown a spanner into so many of my good intentions that I am totally off the rails.

To recap: wee dog has arrived, is incredibly sweet and eager to please, has a bald tail and hindquarters due to an unfortunate case of mites that his whole litter picked up, and is working on the not-peeing-in-the-house concept. The girls adore him, but I think he finds them more then a little exhausting. Which is good for the whole sleeping/crate training thing. So all is well. In fact, he's been alseep in his crate in the kitchen for the last almost-two hours: he got his second vaccinations today, and I think he's not feeling his best.

So next week, I promise: girl skiing, the French Alpes, and the meal that almost caused immediate cardiac arrest.

The future Picabo and Lindsey

I spent much of the last week organizing my first family ski trip. Now, we've gone on plenty of family ski trips, but they've all been organized by someone else, usually my parents. This time around I've gotten the "joy" of choosing the resort, sorting out housing, finding equipment, organizing travel (still working on that one...). And the whole process has gotten me really excited about getting out on the snow. Even more, I'm excited about getting the girls out on the snow - I learned to ski at a very early age (3? 4? Something like that), and I have now-fond memories of freezing my butt off and hauling extraordinarily heavy skis and poles up a hill and falling in the snow on my face. And whining, oh the whining!

Since it was so much fun when I did it, I've decided to share the joy with my own children. 'Cause I don't hear enough whining already of course. Since Devil is quite reluctant about new experiences where she might not be perfect at the alloted task, I took the girls to their first ski lesson last weekend. The rationale being that it would be a good idea for Dev to try skiing before we take her to a house in the French Alpes for nine days.

You may be wondering where on earth you can go skiing in London in January. The short answer is: nowhere (in London). The closest ski resorts are in the Cairngorms in Scotland, but there is a surprising (to me) number of indoor ski venues relatively close by. Some of them even have "real" snow! So the girls and I hopped in the car and drove to the northwest side of London to go to the Snow Centre.

I will skip over the negotiations that were required to get Dev into her gear and onto the snow. Just know that it was a struggle, but once she went out the door, she was fine. They didn't get a whole much done in their 30 minute lesson, but I think the seed has been planted...

Putting on one ski

Walking with one ski

This is a snowplow. It looks like a piece of pizza.

Devil's snowplow

Boo's snowplow (or lack thereof)

One good student paying attention, one hellion wandering off up the slope and sliding down on her bum.

See? Serious hellion.

I'll leave it to Grandpa's tender imagination to predict the skiing future for these two, but for one of them, I suspect it will involve traction. And the skiing equivalent of road rash. Perhaps a broken bone or two. Lovely...

Training

Now that it's January, I'm starting to get a bit more concerned about this upcoming ride-across-a-big-island thing that I'm doing. And since I've recovered from my self-induced ankle injury, it's time to get back on the bike in a real way. In the last 30 hours, I've ridden about 80 miles (ouch!). And I've learned some very interesting things.

1. For a town with a fair bit of cash floating around, Esher is really not good at road repair. As I stood on the side of the road last night changing my flat tire (30 min, valve stem broke on my spare tube so I had to find/patch the hole in the original tube in the dark at 40 degrees. Fun times!), a lovely little sports car came down the road with it's hazards on and a rear tire most of the way off the wheel. Oops. Today, on my second trip through Esher I saw another hazard-flashing car with a flat. Ick! Thankfully, today's ride was flat-free on my end, probably because I brought two spare tubes.

2. A bacon and fried egg bap, while delicious and unhealthy, is probably not the best pre-50 mile-with-hills meal.

3. I will be using the equivalent of a year's supply of Bag Balm for a 500 head dairy farm over the next few months.

4. Any bike handling skills that I may have once had in my halcyon Tucson days are long, long gone. I now descend hills like a Tourettes-afflicted squirrel. Audible soundtrack: squeek! Squeek! Squeeeeeeeek! (that one was my brakes). Internal soundtrack: Shit! Fuck! Shit! Fuck! (Rinse, repeat ad nauseum). Here's hoping that improves. A lot.

5. After a fair bit of time off, I can actually go out into the Surrey Hills and not give myself a hernia (although I rode perhaps the least-hilly route possible - thanks honey!).

As a bonus, it was relatively warm and the long-lost sun actually peered out from behind the clouds for the last hour or so. I got home just in time to stretch, change my clothes and grab Boo from school and head to the pool. She splashed around in her new swim cap and goggles while I lazed about glassy eyed. This was the first time in a long time I've been able to bask in the lovely post-workout glow of endorphins when I can feel in every muscle that I've worked hard, and I know I'm going to sleep like a rock. When we were in Tucson, that was the story of our Saturdays: go ride with the Shootout in the morning, beating ourselves into oblivion, come home, shower, nap and eat everything in sight before going to the movies. I got to do some of that today, adn it's been waaaaaaay too long.

Next week's goal: actually get my long ride in on the weekend instead of having to play hooky from work. Windsor is the plan - 60 miles of much flatter stuff, which should take about the same amount of time.

Random musings

Last weekend I had the opportunity to experience, for the first time, the particular English institution of pantomime. These are theatrical performances that pop up like mushrooms after a rainstorm around Christmas time. I don't know what their form was orignally, but they now are theoretically targeted as family entertainment, with a big name (read: D-list American celebrity) to draw in the crowds.

We went to a production of Peter Pan. Sadly, our lack of planning meant that we did not get to enjoy the spectacle of Hoff the Hook, but the second stringer Springer was a good understudy. Listening to a group of pirates chanting "Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!" was only slightly more surreal then the gay pirate cabaret later in the show. No joke. It was my impression that it was one of Mr. Springer's first performances as Captain Hook, given that he seemed a bit taken aback by the audience participation factor (not to mention somewhat wooden delivery), but it was brilliant. Now I'm crushed that last year's Christmas flu meant that I had to miss Aladdin last year (with Pamela Anderson as the genie). (What is it with ex-Baywatch stars and panto?) I can't wait to see who is on the docket for next year.

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Girls are back at school, and I'm back to work, just in time for rain, rain, rain. I made the mistake of riding to work yesterday without checking the weather forecast, and was very, very sorry. Pouring down rain and 45 degrees on the way in, enough time there to get my riding clothes mostly dried out, and then torrential rain, flooded gutters and somewhere in the region of 35-40 degrees on the way home. Lovely. My poor bike hates me, and I'm buying a single speed this weekend so I don't have to deal with replacing my drive train every six months.

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Speaking of weather, yesterday Himself and I check the Met Weather office website (as we do on a regular basis), and discovered a somewhat contradictory weather icon for today:

Ummmm...how can it be pissing down rain and sunny at the same time? 

Well, now I can tell you: the walk to school and my run back home = pissing down rain. Picking up Boo from school and a later walk to the pool = sunny! Walking from pool to Wagamama with two worn out children in the dark = pissing down rain. Lovely.

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While waiting for Himself to finish a physio appointment before dinner, the girls and I stopped at the local coffee shop to dry off a bit and fortify ourselves with chocolate. There I was, innocently shooting my eagle eyes at the door every time it opened in the hopes that it was my husband coming to rescue me from my lovely children, and lo and behold, Chrissie Wellington comes bounding through the store. All 5 foot 6 inches 120 lbs of hat trick Ironman World Champion. Dude. I wish I could say I got faster just through proximity, but I'm not sure even she has that superpower.

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And just to round out my run-ins with famous people for the day, I think I've finally figured out why there have been Metro Police stationed at the end of a small road near the girls' school for the last eight months or so - could that be where our illustrious Deputy PM lives? Enquiring minds don't really care but feel sorry for the poor guys that are stuck sitting there all freakin' day.

Here's to 2011!

We've been so fortunate over the past twelve months - we've had lots of good travel, great accomplishments, happy days. Here's hoping that the next twelve months bring all of you peace, joy and good memories!

Copenhagen from the Round Tower, 29th December 2010

Merry Christmas!

From our house to yours.

Some intial thoughts on December

Thought #1: It's kind of nice living someplace where it actually snows. My previous post highlighted the first of several snowy days, and it snowed again yesterday briefly and overnight/this morning quite a bit - to the tune of about 3 fluffy inches. Two foxes were running through the garden this morning, and we've had a badger come to visit in the last couple of weeks.

Night shot with no flash = fuzzy badger

A friend recommended peeing around the massive hole said badger has dug under our fence from the neighboring garden - they can be quite destructive, particularly to lawns, and since they're a protected species we can't very well take active measures to get rid of it. Himself took one for the team and duely watered the appropriate area and we haven't seen it since. The foxes, however, have found the same access point very useful. Aaaahhh, English wildlife!

It's all very lovely, particularly since I'm holed up inside and the rest of the family is out playing in the snow. Which brings me to thought #2: I seem to be on track to taking a run at last year's stellar record of two bouts of disease within 10 days over the Christmas holiday. This year's plague is better then last year's in that it's not the flu and I don't have six extra people in the house, but it's still not very fun - I am blogging from the comfort of my bed. Hooray for wireless!

Thought #3: the first few days of the girls' holiday have been nice. We've decorated Christmas trees in situ,

and at home.

We've gone to the dinosaur museum and made mini-mince pies.

And I've discovered that they are big fans of Cheap Trick. Particularly this song.

I'm not sure why D has her tongue out in ever shot - maybe she's chaneling Mr. Jordan? It was some pretty strenuous dancing...

Time for me to finish up and crawl under the covers for a nap. Here's hoping everyones' gifts are purchased/made/otherwise obtained, that the snow is falling softly and the Christmas tunes are on. Enjoy!