nunoncastors

I don’t really know where to start; all the recent concern from you guys has thrown me a little. I suppose I should begin by assuring you that, while skiing is the closest I come to being utterly happy and contented, I am in no way suicidal (Miss Barks :p) as a result of returning to the grim reality of everyday life. I’m not happy about it, but then I’m not exactly noted for my cheery disposition.

Still, thank you all for wondering, my heart is a little less flinty for it.

Truth be told, I’ve been procrastinating, navel gazing and, when not doing that, cycling. It’s not much of an excuse for leaving you all in the dark, but it’s the best I have. Sorry. And, you know, having spent a truly wonderful week sliding down mountains, ignoring the world at large and generally being content, having reality come blundering in comes as something of a shock to the system and it does plunge me into something of a malaise. Being cheerful, as any fule know, isn’t something that comes easily to me, as much as that may sound like an affectation, and the comedown from a week of being happy is rather jagged.

Trust me, there’s nothing worse than starting to believe that everyone is nice and the world wonderful, only to be reminded upon your re-arrival in the real one that it’s full of arseholes and predominantly shit.

Do you know what the first thing to greet me upon my return to the UK was? I was met by was some miserable, po-faced, bastard who glared at my passport and couldn’t be arsed to say hello when I spoke to him. This was then followed by a newspaper headline about someone being raped and murdered. Seriously, welcome home.

Still, this isn’t to be some miserablist rant, ‘tis a retelling of awesomeness and what I’ve been up to since (for I have been somewhat remiss haven’t I? Naughty boy.)

I went skiing, you see. And you have absolutely no idea how much I love skiing. Not just the act of skiing itself, but everything that goes with it, the combination of scenery and solitude, the exhilaration and socialising. HOT. TASTY. CHOCOLATE.

It’s expensive, you have to dress up like an idiot (which I secretly love), wear torture devices upon your feet and pray to a god I don’t believe in that you don’t end up impaled on your own poles after the inevitable thousand mile an hour crash. But my word is it fun.

Even more so if you know the right people. Fortunately, I do and I’d be a terrible friend if I didn’t say thank you to Tom for organising everything. Again. Good work that man. And while I’m on the subject, I’m going to say thanks to Claire, Laura, Hannah, Amy, Ian and Joe for being awesome people and for making the whole trip more fun than you’d reasonably expect it to be. Hi guys!

Right, that’s enough of that gushing crap, it’s story time.

I hate airports and all the hoops you have to jump through for the illusion of safety, and we’ll say no more about. Well, we’ll mention the chap who got arrested in France for declaiming, “What’s the problem, it’s not like she’s a terrorist or anything” because it’s funny. Well, no, it isn’t. Because it just shows how fucking reactionary and farcical the world has become. Therein could lie the humour, I suppose. It was a bit odd really, considering he’d landed and got off the plane. I’m not sure what they thought he was going to do.

Anyway, aside from Ian’s inability to know where he’s going on the motorway (proving my theory that satnavs are for people with no sense of direction), Gatwick was achieved on time; the flight was a flight and the three hour transfer to the resort was a relative joy mainly, it must be said, because I don’t remember any of it. I maintain that Chambery has to be the smallest airport in the world and that their approach to baggage is much the same as a drunk’s approach to stairs. That is to say, there’s a great deal of confusion and a normally simple situation becomes very complicated, very quickly.

Still, not all was lost. Nothing was lost in fact, except for the woman’s husband who was carted off by the Filth for stating that she isn’t a terrorist which, indeed, she wasn’t. At least, she didn’t explode or call me an infidel that I am aware of, she could always be biding her time I suppose.

We ran the same routine as last year, package trip thing, everything included, basic accommodation; evening activities that are avoided because when you decide to enter the pub quiz it turns out you can just write any fucking answer and the idiot rep will accept it. I’m not bitter, but if you’re going to do a quiz, you give points for the right answer, not “roughly the right answer” or “well, I’ll give them that because it has a “U” in it” for fuck’s sake.

Not that it matters.

Much.

Sod it, it was a fucking travesty, Ian’ll agree with me on this.

I’m over it now though, in much the same way Ian’s over the little paddy he had on the first morning when it turned out that our lessons started in the afternoon and the fuckwit rep suggested he, “go with this guy, he can ski” as opposed to providing a solution that wouldn’t result in Ian “First time Skier” Pattenden wasting half a day with some feckless git, falling over and dying. Ok, so it wasn’t a paddy, more a valid point about not wanting to snap his legs right at the beginning, fortunately Joe talked him out of going back to the hotel by ignoring everything he said.

Clever man, Joe.

Then we went to Italy. Well, Joe, Hannah and myself did anyway. Tom was busy changing his skis for the millionth time or somesuch. We all went over the mountain as a group later in the week, but I started off my trip on a black run into Italy. There’s nothing like starting small. Obviously I fell over like some vast domino on the flattest, most innocuous piece of piste you’ve ever seen, but I maintain that my tumble was down to a gipsy curse and because I wasn’t wearing my most awesome hat, don’t listen to what anyone else says. Gipsy curse.

Definitely.

I should point out that most of the time we’re split up into separate groups according to what everyone felt like doing. If it seems as though I’m omitting names, I’m not, it’s just the case that much of the time we were out and about in groups, tinkering. There’s no real need for this, but it ensures that people don’t get bored, or out of their depth, or stabbed in the eye for being too good at skiing by far. It’s a formula that works. Much liking meeting up for lunch to plan afternoon fun. We did that a lot.

What I did less of, was fall over. Obviously I fell over a lot, I’m large and clumsy, but only when I wasn’t paying attention or, conversely, when I was paying too much attention. I do not know how this works. I struggle in deep snow, it would appear. But then we had a shitload on the third day that resulted in powder up to your knees and I think everyone struggled. That shit isn’t easy when your previous trips have been predominantly on ice and hard-packed powder; I’m too used to digging my edges in to really cope with deep, deep snow. It happens. Getting cut up by fucking snowboarders happens too.

Mind you, so does pushing one of them over. Repeatedly.

Karma is a harsh mistress however, and on my third trip over the mountain into Italy I cracked a rib in the most spectacular wipe-out I’ve ever been in. To my eternal shame, none of my friends were there to laugh or gloat over my misfortune. I owe them big.

Again though, it was a result of my not paying enough attention. I was trying to carry as much speed as possible into a blue run (not steep) from a red (really rather steep) in order to avoid walking two hundred yards on the flat. Hot chocolate takes dedication and effort, y’know? Unfortunately, I carried far too much speed and ended up dragging my arse along the ground like a discomforted dog. I managed to get myself upright in time to drop down a dip in the piste and drag my arse again. Somehow I pulled myself upright a second time but unfortunately this was at precisely the moment I became airborne off the crest of a second, larger, dip. All this would have been fine were it not for the fact that, when I landed, I clipped the tip of one ski in the deep snow at the edge of the piste and cartwheeled at fuck knows what speed (four, five, thousand miles an hour at least) into a drift, headfirst, driving both of my knees into my chest and temporarily stopping all time for a period of at least an hour.

Well, maybe thirty seconds, but it feels like a very long time when you think you’re dead. It feels even longer when you’re trying to pull yourself, your kit, and your dignity, back onto the hard-packed snow through five feet of powder. I’ll tell you this, walking in snow up to your chest is about twice as hard as you think it is. It’s even worse when you’re wearing your most awesome hat and it turns out it isn’t magical after all.

Probably another gipsy curse.

Fortunately, all of this was forgotten (breathing pain aside) when Ian and Joe invented Snappity-Snap-Snap. A card game of such ridiculous genius that I can’t remember the rules, how you won or what it was all about. In all probability, neither can they. It was a game born of beer. There was technical Jenga too, which the boys won (obviously). On the day, we just wanted it more.

I could go on like this forever, about skiing, playing cards, hurting myself, how cool it is to see one of your friends progress from being unable to ski to coming all the way down a mountain on their own, but the standout memory is this. I’m off-piste, because Tom is a tricksy swine, and making my way across to a black run with Hannah and himself. Clare and Amy are skiing along the ridge above us, making their way to a gentler slope, and Ian, Ian who I’ve known for twenty years, is stood directly above me bellowing, “Own the mountain! OWN IT! MAKE IT YOUR BITCH! TAKE IT BACK TO SCHOOL, JAMES! SCHOOL IT OR IT’LL NEVER LEARN THAT YOU OWN IT! JAMES! RIGHT NOW, YOU ARE MY HERO!”

Words fail me.

And what have I been doing since? Well, nothing much.

No, that’s not true. I’ve read a few books, moved my furniture around and rekindled my interest in Manga. Solitary stuff mostly, long walks, that sort of thing. I’ve been doing a fair bit of cycling too, though mostly I’ve been trying my level-best to ignore the news, the tv and anything that’s likely to remind me just how horrifying the world can be because, frankly, I can do without my fears being confirmed.. It’s incredibly childish, but I’d like to preserve the feeling that maybe everything isn’t shit for as long as possible.

Oh, and I sprained my ankle playing football, which is a shame as I enjoy playing 5-a-side with the guys from Vision Express. The bruise is an interesting colour however. Sort of a purply-green.

I’ve grown a beard.

Sorry to keep you all waiting