Staying upright- Snowboarding

On Easter Saturday it was time to give snowboarding a go. I had signed up for a full- day package including ski lift, gear hire and lunch so all I had to do was show up.

This proved more difficult than I thought, having gone to bed well-pickled at 1 am after an achy day skiing. I nearly contemplated not going. I nearly missed the bus. Now I know that would have been truly awful.

I showed up to the bus stop, almost looking for Karen though I knew she wouldn't be there. Instead, I saw a good-looking blonde Canadian guy bearing more than a passing resemblance to Leonardo Di Caprio shouldering a matchingly good-looking ski bag with all his gear in it. That was the right idea. Pop all your skis, poles gloves and anything else you might drop or stab yourself with in the one bag and off you go. Brillant.

Normally I would have been too intimidated by his Karen-like ease in ski gear to dare speak to him. But I was so tired and washed out that my internal monologue was temporarily broken.

"Nice bag"
"Thanks", he said and got on the bus.

Hardly earth shattering stuff, but that, as they say in Casablanca was, "... the beginning of a beautiful friendship". Of course I didn't know it.

I got on the bus, minus breakfast, makeup and if memory serves, a haircomb, used the last of my energy to inflate a travel pillow and promptly hid in a corner to nurse my liver.

I woke up in time at Sunshine to panic that I would be late for snowboarding school. In fact it wasn't even school. It was more like snowboarding for dummies. I knew I was a dummy. I didn't want to miss a moment.

Anyone who tells you that beginner snowboarding is easy is lying. We spent at least an hour working out how to wear our gear and clipping our feet into the board and out of it. Then it was standing on it. Then it was pushing it along on the flat on one foot. That's called skating.

I spent much of the morning negotiating my board in our group of 6 and the afternoon on my bottom (see previous posts re: bum magnetised to ice and snow). However, my feet were clipped into the board, knees apart whilst I was sitting (lying down). To get up requires a huge upper-body effort to push yourself from a sitting (or lying) position to a standing position. It must be in a fluid motion because your feet are locked into the board on an icy surface. Do that a dozen times and see if you have the strength. Apparently lifting beer and chocolate from a table surface to mouth level was insufficient arm exercise for me over the previous weeks to achieve the required fitness level.

The other consequence of having my feet locked into my board is that Eric, the pocket rocket (5ft 1 inch tall) hot instructor from Toronto had to come help me all the time. After the dozenth time of seeing his face suddenly appear between my knees as I was lying flat on my back, done in, I felt like I was undergoing some strange birthing procedure in an episode of Days of Our Lives. Eventually he saw my distress when I burst out, "This is not dignified!". He politely changed the subject but saw my point when he urged me just to "push, just one more !"

My entire class graduated from Snowboarding for Dummies (not the official title). Hooray! The only exception was a girl from New Brunswick who absconded after lunch to join her boyfriend on the slopes. No dedication to the goal.

I had a soft drink at the saloon with one of my classmates and headed off to buy my stuffed moose a badge. I have a plush Moose, if you remember from an earlier posting. He wears a stick pin for every significant place I've been to and one for every Province visited. He's getting quite pointy.

My victory was capped off when waiting for the bus to arrive. Ski-bag guy showed up, looking all windswept and interesting. He asked me how I went on the slopes and that started a conversation that lasted all the way back to Calgary. Turned out he was a Nova Scotian who traded his sea-legs in for ski-legs a few years back after a stint in the Caribbean working as a graduate and enjoying "lime time" on the beach. Hard to believe that any bloke can talk as much as I do but hardly either of us drew breath all the way back to Calgary. Turned out he was a lot more than a pretty face.

Marc called a week and half later and picked up the conversation where it left off. That conversation continues. New Kids on the Block still haven't called him back for the reunion tour (just kidding, sunshine).

I managed to stay upright on my board for at least 50 m at a time whilst changing direction and I met two amazing people in two days who really like me. Maybe I'm cooler than I think.