Annwen's Birthday weekend

We were back in Fernie this weekend to celebrate Annwen's birthday. Eight of us stayed in a privately owned condo which was part of the Stanford Resort. The condo itself was a really weird layout, with 3 bedrooms across three floors and was typical of the hundreds of developments being thrown up across Canada at the moment. Fortunately we only had to stay in it, not look at it.

However this row of five beautiful heritage houses are right next to the new development and looked out on it. Good for us, not so great for them.

Saturday was, as always, spent on the slopes, but this time there was no fresh snowfall and the runs were rock hard. I called it a day after falling off the lift twice as I dismounted and flipping in the air whilst doing a turn and coming down hard on the ice. I'm not mad about snowboarding and days like that certainly don't help!

We went out to a small restaurant called Corner Pocket on Saturday night. We were by far the largest party in there and the owners had a clever solution to help the small kitchen cope with big orders like ours : a close up magician. He kept us entertained between our starters and main course, which was a rather innovative idea.

Our condo was slightly out of town, so we took advantage of the bus service which is laid on by Fernie Town. It costs a $1 each way and so gets its name from the Canadian term for $1, a "looney", so yes, it's the "looney bus". We've no idea if this name for a bus full of drunken tourists is half as funny to the Canadians as it was to us.

Aside from our weekend in Fernie, temperatures here continue to hover around freezing point (as opposed to highs of -15c!) and although we still have snow on the ground, people in Ralston are starting to tentatively suggest that worst of the winter may be behind us... here's hoping!