The weekend with my first ski day

Hi,

I had a great weekend!  I drove up to Raetihi (near Ohakune) on Friday night and had a lovely time singing away to myself.  I never got lost, despite the maze of rural roads in the pitch dark I had to navigate.  I got to the farmstay house at 10pm after leaving Wellington at 6pm.  Not too bad.

I shared a room with Barbara (a friend of the organiser - Tim) and she wanted to ski.  So I found a willing accomplice.  The next morning we drove up to Turoa and skied together all day.  It was such fun skiing with her.  I haven't skied with a woman that is better than me before.  I'm usually following men over the mountain.  I quite enjoyed it!  Barbara is German and skis beautifully.  Here's hoping I get to ski more with her, and it rubs off on me!

Barbara and me at the top of the High Noon Express lift

The snow was sheet ice off piste and okay on piste.  Not many rocks poking through.  They must have been making man-made snow overnight.

In the interminable queue

Everyone and their dog (well, I never saw any dogs actually) was up there, so the queue for the High Noon Express lift was long.  But I think the longest I ever timed it was 30 minutes.  It was usually around 20 minutes.  Barbara skis with a flask of tea - that was rather welcome in the lift queue.

Back to Ohakune to buy supplies for the house (more toilet paper was needed) and shopped in New World with half the mountain.  Drove back and got ready for dinner.  The theme was mid winter Christmas and we had turkey and stuffing, and veges.  It was so good.  We retired to the lounge for dessert.  The pumpkin cheesecake was so good!

Dinner Saturday night

In a dress, no less! With high boots.

I even wore a dress.  And here is evidence of it.  Hahahah.  Toby's quote when I sent him the photo was "What a very uncommon sight". Yep.  Sums that up.

I slept well that night.  Up to have breakfast and then headed back to Wellington to see the boys and do all the messages and ironing before school starts.  Got home at 1pm and Mike and I went out grocery shopping and collected my bike from work (remember the locked out incident last week?  Well, I got in out of hours this time!).  Then home to iron.

I got lots of hugs from Toby when he got home from his playdate with Jake.  We sat and watched a documentary on human evolution and then had baths before bed.

What a marvellous weekend.  I can't wait to ski with Barbara again.  And she has a son who is 10 - so a perfect ski companion for Toby too.

Have a fantastic week!  We're off skiing this coming weekend too.  Here's hoping I get two days skiing in!

Love,
Angela