My plans for an extended Sunday morning slumber were shattered by the wail of the fire alarm. After pulling on my overalls and grabbing my emergency bag I headed over to muster at Bransfield House, to be greeted by the smell of burnt toast. Courtesy of the chef. He can cook an eight-course meal for 22 people on Midwinter's Day, but making toast? Not so much.
It was 08:30, so rather than go back to bed I headed to the kitchen to make some Chelsea buns in anticipation of a skiing trip after lunch. They were good fun to make with pummelling the dough and rolling them up, but they took about 5 hours rise, so they had to go straight from the oven into a box to take with us, without time for cooling.
The snow conditions at Vals were lovely so we spent several hours practicing turns, and trying to take photos of each other going over the jump that we had dug the day before. Things were also a little less eventful than the previous day, when someone let go of their snowboard at the top of the hill. I gave chase, swooping it up just before it collided with the caboose - a risky manoeuvre which could easily have ended with egg on my face, but instead I have now acquired a reputation as a superhero skier who wears her pants on the outside and a cape around her shoulders. How little they know.
Some folks went into the caboose to get the primuses going for tea, so I had a go on a snowboard. I've improved a lot since I first started, and can now fall over making both left- and right-hand turns, as well as backwards and forwards. We'll get there one day, but after one run down I decided that tea and cake was the better option. The Chelsea buns went down very well and fuelled us for our ski back down to base.
Monday's main excitement was my first decent sighting of a Sun Pillar. This is coded and entered into the synopic observations which are sent to the Met Office. It is a 99040, for those who care!
No comments:
Post a Comment