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!)