What more winter sports kit?

Now that we have exhausted the list of ice hockey purchases (I've even got a lace tightener and special hockey tape that you wrap round your socks) the time has come to equip ourselves for the ski slopes...

As you will recall, although Jim is a seasoned skiier, I've gone over to the "dark side" and decided to learn snow boarding. Partly because it looks cooler and partly because the boots are a million times more comfortable. (Really they are like trainers... lovely!)

Prior to my very short episode in ski school a week ago, Jim had made me buy ski boots "because otherwise you won't be comfortable and you'll hate it" (!!) Fortunately Ben, the man who runs the ski shop in town is fantastic and not only swapped my worn ski boots for new boarding boots, but more or less threw in a second hand board too (see left!) so now we are more or less ready for Christmas week in the Rockies!

The snow board isn't the only second hand thing we've recently acquired. Jim is very keen to get a dog and has been suggesting I have a cat too (to warm me up to the idea of a dog I think!) I didn't think it was right for us to take on a kitten when we're moving again in 18 months, but I decided that if a 'village cat' needed a home I'd consider it. In the Falklands (and here to a lesser degree) because of the lengthy journeys pets have to make, they often change owners rather than locations, which seems much fairer on the animal.

This morning one of the wives came into BFBS looking for a new home for a 'village cat', I was keen, but we had one small hurdle, we needed official approval from the housing department to have a pet (an often lengthy process!) so imagine our surprise when we came home and found a letter in our mail box announcing our "application to keep a pet had been approved" - especially considering we'd never applied for it!

We'll be inheriting the cat, Blacky, after the Christmas break.... the situation with the dog remains a subject of debate! :-)

As for Christmas... Jim's finishing work on Wednesday and my last day is Friday. Then we'll be spending 12 nights in Canmore staying in a condo at the Falcon Crest. Most of the village are decamping to Canmore, so we'll have most of our friends staying nearby too.

There's free wifi access though... so we'll keep the blog updated!