Week 2

Well hasn't time flown? It's been a whole week since my last post. I'm now two weeks in and I think what has surprised me most is how very little I've actually got done. I appreciate this is not the most exciting way to kick off a post but stick with it.

It's not as though I've even been sitting round doing nothing. Time simply seems to evaporate. I find myself wondering how I ever managed to squeeze a 12 hour working day in London between all the other tasks that need doing. I suspect it's because my wife did them far more efficiently alongside all her other work.

I did manage to squeeze in a snowboarding session at an indoor snow centre. A few months ago, in a moment of exuberance, I booked a ski holiday given one of the boys had really enjoyed their school ski trip the last two years. It turned out he was the only one who wanted to go in the family so the pressure is now on me to learn how to actually ski or snowboard.

Having researched the topic fairly extensively (20 mins on google), people say that snowboarding is difficult to learn but easier to master whereas skiing is easier to learn but difficult to master. I, instead, based my choice on the far more relevant statistic of where people suffer the most injuries. I have a suspiciously clicky knee and therefore opted for snowboarding as most snowboarding injuries typically affect the upper body, particularly the wrists (never had an issue with those), whereas skiing is mainly to the lower body i.e. knees.

What the sites don't really mention is how much of a faff it is learning to snowboard. After two hours of slogging it up the teaching slope, strapping on my boots, wobbling down, unstrapping my boots, slogging up the hill again, strapping on my boots etc the instructor failed me at level 2. This was made more impressive by the fact I'd actually passed level 2 a few months ago but had thought it would be good to have a refresh. By the end of the 2 hours, I ached so much.

I am therefore now going to flip to skiing. Easier to learn is certainly more appealing. I am also far from needing to master either sport. I just need to be able to get down the slope and I figure I can do that at a very slow speed.

Following my snowboard session, I moved onto the second critical part of my ski holiday preparation, ski gear! I visited the Snow & Rock shop whilst at the snow centre. Who knew ski gear was so expensive?! Even more so knowing that I'd likely only wear it for a week before stashing it in the wardrobe. In a decision that I thought would benefit both my wallet and the environment, I downloaded Vinted onto my phone. I then spent 10 minutes trying to come up with a unique pseudonym that said cool and edgy. I suspect trying to be cool and edgy automatically disqualifies me from said category.

What followed was an inordinate number of hours scrolling through clothing to find anything that: looked like it would fit me; was in decent condition; wasn't just the same price as discounted new clothing available elsewhere; didn't appear to be fake. By 1am, I eventually plumped for a new, last season discounted jacket from an online ski retailer.... but I did buy ski trousers and gloves from Vinted which will arrive shortly. Exciting!

I shall close this blog with news that one of our boys introduced us to his girlfriend for the first time yesterday. She seemed very nice and brought home-made brownies so is welcome back anytime. We did our best to appear a normal family. After she left, he said in all seriousness, 'Thanks Dad, for not being weird.' I'm not sure how long that'll be kept up.