9.1.13

Old Dogs

Can you teach them new tricks? I've recently tried to do something really challenging and new for the first time at the age of forty-cough something. Learning to ski is a lot like learning a new language: easier the younger you are.  With gusto and enthusiasm I joined the kids in their ski lessons then off we set down the slopes en masse with extended family.  

Fear is too milder word to encompass my overriding experience of skiing over the next three days.  Such was the terror that every fibre in my body screamed at my brain, I can only liken it to the final stages of childbirth.  I certainly blubbed like I did in labour.   But continue I did, aided by vin chaud (hot red wine) at regular intervals.  Thank god it is now over, until next time (I am told). The kids of course picked it up straight away and left me in a puff of powder after the first day.

The actual going-downhill-on-slippery-sticks bit of skiing aside, it has all been beautiful and we are lucky little vegemites to be here. This old dog might have learnt some new tricks, but she sure needs a lot of treats to do them.

This picture is my overriding impression of skiing.

Maybe one day, like people who like skiing, I will only remember the good bits.



4 comments:

  1. Hi Patsy, I hate how the older I get the more of a scardy cat I become. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Hmmm. I am a forty something gutless wimp. I tried to do a somersault thing on the monkeybars the other day and I couldn't bring myself to flip round. So sad. Well done on giving the skiing thing a go. I would've chickened out.
    What does vin chaud taste like? Hot red wine isn't doing it for me (but then I'm in Perth - where the weather's been quite nice for the last few days actually)

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  2. Vin Chaud is like mulled wine, but made with orange juice so not too alcoholic, certainly did the trick for me.

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  3. The idea of skiing almost makes me physically ill. Up until about the time I turned 40 (that must be when your body starts to tell you that you're more likely to break than bounce), I was the biggest daredevil on earth, but one day out of nowhere, I realized I had a fear of heights. At that point, only great heights triggered it...like being on a very tall observation tower...but 24 years later, I can hardly stand to climb a stepladder, so I can't imagine intentionally propelling myself off the side of a mountain. Eeeeek!!!

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    1. Hi Dana, yes you might be right, a fear if heights does seem to be something that has grown with age for me too.... And I didn't even start on the chair lifts - petrifying!

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