Tuesday Ten

Ten tales from the ski trip....

1. Going just a little stir crazy with Benny on the bus, after 18 hours of travelling....the coach was late fetching us and then had to pack a load of suitcases into the spare seats (not good) and then we missed the ferry....and at the other end, it couldn't get up the mountain, dumped us partway up and then drove off into the blue yonder, leaving us to trek upwards for 20 minutes without warning.
NOT. HAPPY.
That was the worst bit of the week, though.


2. Lift buddies! Cara is my official ski lift buddy. She takes lots of pictures on the lifts together.

Here, we are both wearing headbands I knitted - hers is the beautiful Calorimetry featured recently, while mine was a stockinette rectangle I found in my old knitting stash and seamed just before we came away. In fact, that little marvel was from when I taught myself to purl. It was an entire ball of yarn I found on sale in the Get Knitted warehouse. It did as a headband and also a neckwarmer. Lovely colours - I know the yarn is discontinued but I wish I knew what it was.


3. Snow angel - sort of.


















I honestly thought, when I threw myself face down in this virgin snow, that I would sink a foot or more into it and it would be the best outline ever. So I was quite surprised when this did not happen, and I was left, instead, with a rather sore nose - and a perfect imprint of myself.


4. There's only one things cooler than teachers doing karaoke....
...and that's teachers dancing, whilst doing karaoke. Especially when they are singing Copacabana. Oh YEAH we were so cool!
.facepalm


5. Really hard work...
Cara and I made an effort to drink plenty of hot chocolate. This place served a particularly delicious kind, along with some very yummy chocolate rum cake. On the way out I tried to dive head first into the snow, again. Fail, again. Cara has pictures of that. I won't share.

6. Really great weather.....
We experienced this until Thursday. I have a rocking tan and yet managed to avoid panda eyes.


7. And really bad weather.....
















Visibility was very bad on Friday and it was very cold. It snowed all night Friday night and all day Saturday, and we were all bundled up and very wet and cold by the end of the ski session. I haven't skiied in fresh powder since I was 12 (and therefore, don't remember it). It was fun, ish. Then we went on the button lift. At that point I gave up and went and drank a very alcoholic version of egg nog and waited for the injuries to roll in - which, miraculously, they didn't.



8. Cards.


















I learned two new card games whilst away - President, and Frank. I kicked arse at Frank, which mainly involved being speedy. Here we were playing in the pizzeria, which took a record hour and 40 minutes to get the food out to us, and the people on the table behind came over and asked us to be quiet. Restaurant full of kids, and WE were the ones told off. Doh. It got worse on the Friday night when we went to the disco, where the bar was serving soft drinks only, and had our bottle of lemoncello confiscated. Didn't really see why it would be a problem, but apparently it was. Sorry, disco venue. Sorry, tour operator. .Sheepish.


9. Olympic piste. My first black (I'd done one the day before, trying to get down the mountain quick for an injured pupil, but in my panic had slip-slided most of it) - and I did it without falling, until I got to the bottom and Tom cut me up and I fell over. Bloody snowboarders! I was very proud of myself, though - Sestriere was very very busy and the slopes were terribly churned up and quite slushy. Shortly after this I had my most comical fall to date - I actually managed to fall on top of one of my skis and it took me a while to work out how to get up again. Meanwhile, Tom was stranded off piste, unable to continue thanks to his fits of laughter, and Cara was so hysterical she fell over too.

Still, feel quite proud of myself for skiing part of the men's downhill and part of the slalom (parts of both were shut, but I did what I could).


10. HOODIES! The head of art did the design for us - he said we wanted something that looked a bit Fat Face and sketched this out in about 3 minutes. Talented people, eh - don't they make you sick?!
I originally wanted purple, but the boys thought it too girly, and fixed on this colour instead.... Which, I think, is actually my favourite colour, so it all worked out for the best.


It was tough to only make 10 points! It was an amazing trip - best ever. The snow was great, the kids were wonderful, the hotel was lush, and we had very few injuries. There was another ski party in our hotel - a sixth form college not a million miles away from here - who did not fare so well - and my favourite moment of the holiday was when one of their girls, sunbathing in a vest in the deckchairs in front of us, was absolutely covered in snow by one of our sixth formers, who thought it was a kid on our trip and did it for a laugh. Oh boy, did we laugh. She didn't, though. I can almost forgive him for giving me the stinking cold I am suffering with now, for that little jape.