Freestyling and Strawberry Tarts

Well, the weather’s been rotten. Not as bad, mercifully, as that suffered by many parts of Englandshire, but depressing nonetheless. Many cricket games have been called off. Wiseman suggested I take up an indoor sport instead. “Like carpet bowls.” The day will come Mark, but it hasn’t come just yet. However, I did venture indoors for a spot of skiing a week or two ago, with my good friend Filipeedadooda. Leaving straight after work, we bombed through the rain to xscape in Glasgow, and arrived just in the nick of time for the start of the freestyle session.

Freestyle means there are a lot of unnecessary obstacles littering the piste, seriously reducing the amount of white space available for sensible skiers such as myself. I cannot include Filipideedooda in that description as she is not even sensible in shoes, never mind on skis. However, she hadn’t been skiing for a few years, having joined the Forces of Boarding Darkness a while back, and was taking it canny to start with, so we both used the strange contraptions as markers on the piste rather than objects with which to impale ourselves.

Naturally there was a high proportion of the uni-planked ones strutting their stuff, clad in varying shades of outlandish boarding gear, jumping on and off these obstacles with some success. DC, should he have been there, would’ve loved the hip hop soundtrack pumping out overhead.

On one side of the slope was a glass-fronted restaurant, the other side had a long glass-fronted bar. There were two poma tows, one on each side of the piste, which trawled you up in front of one or other of these establishments. After a few runs and tows back up each side, Filipadooda suggested we go back up the right hand side. “The snow’s better,” she reasoned. She was right. The totty on view in the restaurant was also much better than that in the bar, but I neglected to highlight this.

Today marked Tony Blair’s last day as Prime Minister in the UK. Tributes were paid by friend and foe alike. Perhaps the most touching of these came from my boss, a long-time Blair fan, who bought several boxes of cakes to celebrate his departure. Come 4pm, all that remained were two strawberry tarts.

“I couldn’t possibly eat BOTH of them,” complained Dish.

This was met with the same sceptical raised eyebrow as greeted her comment earlier this week:

“I don’t eat THAT many biscuits,” before hastily adding “In the morning.”

Finally, your help is needed. Check out fifty ways… Something to keep you occupied on a rainy day. And if you’re in Scotland, you won’t have long to wait for one of those…