The update

So, I was a little surprised to see that it has been around 3 weeks since I last did a post, surely time hasn't gone that fast?! Anyway, I shall give you a summary of what has happened since I last wrote...

A typical day:

7.30 Wake Up
8.20 Make sandwiches/get ready
8.29 Rush to bus
8.30 Get on bus
9.00 Go for warm up run
9.30 Meet trainer for day (normally Colin)
9.35 After a bit of banter with Gav start training
10.55 Get told I'm doing something wrong
11.00 Correct initial mistake but get told i'm doing something else wrong
12.00 Go for lunch and eat my home-made turkey and cheese ciabatta roll sandwiches
1.00 Meet up after lunch, give Gav some abuse.
1.05 Watch someone try to undo their pole straps after Gav has tied them together (he still finds it funny...)
1.06 Learn to do a silly trick on skis like a running two-footed jump into bindings or how to balance on the tips of your skiis.
1.10 Start training again
2.00 Get told by Colin that i'm still doing it wrong
2.15 Get stroppy with Colin for being too negative
2.45 Finally do something good and get told it's "nice" (about as much as you will get out of Colin in the way of a compliment!)
3.00 Hit the beginners' slopes for demo/teaching practice
3.30 End of training with de-brief from Colin. More abuse in Gav's direction, moan about Colin.
3.35 Go fo a final run, use the beginners' slopes to practice my backwards skiing, carving through the snow-ploughers using them as racing gates.
4.00 Bus home
4.30 Arrive home, eat/drink/shower
5.00 Rest/do lessonplan/go to town/have supper ect.
11.00 Bed

Last night was a bit different though, we decided to stay up on the mountain for night skiing which was good fun, although exceptionally cold. You get some amazing views though as the sun sets (see photos!) and it stays pretty light till about 6pm, although it keeps going untill 9pm as they have big floodlights over the mountain. Normally night skiing is quite a party but last night wasn't too busy as it was so windy and the snow wasn't really all that good. We did a few runs whilst it was bearable and then just went and sat inside but still had a good time.

Some of the photos are also from Heli-skiing which was a really good day out. We drove for a couple of hours to Wanaka which is another, somewhat smaller and quieter, town on a lake up north a bit. Here we got in the helicopters in our groups on 5 with our guide up to the snow (there is no snow at ground level here) and got to do 4 runs of powder skiing including a really good buffet lunch up the mountain. The snow here isn't fantastic and they don't get a huge amount of snowfall each season but there was enough to really enjoy ther experience and it was my first time in a helicopter (they are very cool... I think I want one!)

Oh Jesus, crocheting and teaching

Apologies to all my adoring fans who I have abandoned somewhat with the blog recently. It's partly my laziness and also that I have been quite busy and trying not to spend too much money on the internet recently.

I probably do have a lot to say, but will no doubt forget most of it so I shall try to fill you in as well as I can with what I can remember.

I have discovered a new hobby since I got here to kill a bit of time in the evenings. I've taken up crocheting beanie hats! it takes me about 3 hours to do a hat and then I give it/sell it to whoever wants it. The wool for each hat only costs around $10 ($3.50) so they're cheap and look quite resonable by the end. I quite like making them becuase in the evenings I can sit around the TV with the boys who are normally watching a film that I have little interest in and at least be partially sociable.

Skiing has improved a lot the last few days as it has snowed most evenings. It's rained a bit down in Queenstown, but the weather here is fine now, just a bit chilly. Got to do some good off-piste as well because of the conditions. Friday was really great weather so we spent a lot of the day just exploring bits of the mountain that we couldn't get to before. It was good to have Nat, our instructor, with us because she knows Coronet better than most! Managed to go over a jump that had briefly been pointed out to us on our first day too. Its name is 'oh jesus', which comes from a few years back when one of the instructors when over it and screamed 'oh shit' at the top. However, Coronet Peak didn't like having a jump with this name so forced the instrcutors to re-name it oh Jesus. Anyway, when you go over it you realise why it has that name. Everyone else in the group decided to just roll over the top slowly, but for some reason I thought I'd give it a go, and without much speed at all got projected about 4m in the air and about 15m from where I took off. It gave me a huge suprise, as i wasn't expecting to fly that far given my timid attempt at it, but I guess that is why it has its name. I managed to land it okay, but was then in so much shock that I decided to fall over, which was quite amusing. (End of boring ski talk for those not interested) Here are some photos from the off-piste I was doing, you can see the impressive scenery from the top of Coronet.



We've also been practicing our teaching for the exam on Tuesday which has been interesting. There is quite a lot to learn because there is a very specific progression we have to follow for introducing beginners to skiing. I did my practice teach on developing the gliding wedge which went pretty well, except for minor mistakes like making my students do straight runs down terrain that was too steep and had no run-out so they had no way of stopping. Nat just found it very funny that I had told everyone to stop infront of my poles that were on the ground and everyone just skied over them! Everyone in the group was actually very good, although most people made little mistakes like mine, which turned out to be pretty hysterical at the time, including one girl who told us to "look at the building behind your head' instead of 'look at the building behind my head.'