A snowy day on Hampstead Heath

I’m distracted from writing my retrospective holiday blog by the unexpected arrival of December (where did that come from? I’m still in July) and real winter weather. Heavy snow falls are disrupting daily life and making memories of hot and humid desert weather hard to recapture. Walking on the snow is easier with my ‘due north get-a-grip before you slip ice and snow everyday traction aids with Ice Diamond ™ Replaceable Spikes’ (somebody in the marketing department needs to get back to the drawing board on that one – not exactly a snappy title). I bought them in Taos on a whim because they were in the sale in the shoe shop, to a little bit of sneering from Tony, who promptly appropriated them as soon as the ice formed and wouldn’t give them back. Had to hunt down another pair, and eventually found them in Wood Green.

Last week a friend phoned to say she had spare tickets to Opera Up Close performing Madame Butterfly at the Kings Head pub. G. managed to grab us the first row, where we sat with knees pressed against the stage – practically close enough to see the soprano’s tonsils vibrating and a bit different from the balcony at the Coliseum. The plot had been changed – relocated from Japan to Thailand, with Madame Butterfly (clad throughout in a very skimpy negligee thingy) now a ladyboy. Which meant they had to make the child Mme. B’s nephew, rather than Pinkerton’s son. Que?

It was very, very cold.  Given the colossal suspension of disbelief (even by opera standards) we were floating on, it crossed my mind more than once that they could have gie’n the lassie a dressing gown for a bit of protection against the icy blasts. It wouldn’t have made the story ring any less true. A testament to her professionalism that she never once visibly shivered.

It was great fun and I’d like to do it again when they’re performing something a bit more melodious. There’s a lot of shrieking in Madame Butterfly…

Canyonlands Tree

(I took this one… artistic, what?)

Thursday was a kind of filling in time day, waiting for the evening Golden Hour (or Magic Hour) for Tony to get his photos. The Golden Hour can be the first or last hour of sunlight in the day, and apparently it’s the best time for taking photos of red rock structures because you get a glow on the rocks and long shadows. The scenery is stunning in this part of the world, but because of the weather (hot, hot, hot) and the terrain, there is not a lot of geriatric-friendly walking to be had. Unless you are superfit and into overnight back-country camping. Whot we are not. Tony occasionally says he would be up for it, but only because he knows there’s not a chance that I would consider it. Also, he’s still recovering from scrambling about the Fiery Furnace, and I’m still nursing a dodgy ankle from Negro Bill Canyon.

Still, if you have to fill in time, this certainly beats wandering around Brent Cross. After checking in with Chip (no tyre yet) we drove along Highway 279 – also known as the Potash Lower Colorado Scenic Byway. Stopped and had a look at some petroglyphs, took some photos of the landscape. Stunning red rocks, etc. etc. etc. We were just going to have a bit of a drive then go back for for lunch and head out to Canyonlands in the evening. The road twists and turns and I was keeping a good eye on the map trying to work out where we were in relation to everything else, and I spotted a road going up the Long Canyon, branching off into Pucker Pass which then turned into Pucker Pass Road, which in turn links up with the road to Dead Horse Point Trail and Island in the Sky Road. So we hatched a new plan – let’s go that way! Then we don’t have to go all the way back to Moab and round the other way….

It’s a lovely drive, if a bit bumpy and rugged, along the Long Canyon and up, up, up Pucker Pass Road. You have the place all to yourselves. We were doing really well until we reached the point where the pass puckered, gathering itself into a tight little knot and protecting its entrance with really big boulders. Apparently it is possible to cross in a four-wheel drive vehicle but personally I think you would need one of those moon-buggy spider things with the six independent legs to get over that lot. We had a good look to see if we could re-pave the path by moving rocks around, and wondering should we just give it a try, but it was just whistling in the wind, really. Especially given the spare wheel situation, the fact that we were in the middle of nowhere (again, it’s our favourite place) and we hadn’t seen a sign of another person, car or even animal. We were just postponing the moment when we had to turn round and go all the way back down again. Which was easier said than done, given that there was about six inches of clearance on either side of the car. But one carefully negotiated and only slightly heated 32-point turn later we were facing the right way and off we went, retracing our path. If anything, the views are even better on the way back down, but it was frustrating and a bit disappointing.

Off to Arches in the evening and a gentle stroll along Park Avenue, but the Golden Hour was obscured by clouds.

Friday and it’s back to Chip’s again. No tyre. Tomorrow is the last day we can do this, we’re leaving on Sunday. Because I couldn’t leave it alone about the insurance (low-grade muttering – can’t believe we’re not covered, what is all that money for, maybe the woman in Montrose was wrong….) Tony got the rental agreement out but we couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Eventually he phoned Alamo and it turns out we are covered, but only if we use a Goodyear or Firestone dealer. Now we’re in a bind. Chip’s gone to a lot of trouble, we surely can’t say we’ve changed our mind. Or sneak out of town under cover of darkness. There is no Goodyear or Firestone dealer nearby – maybe we could argue with the insurance company that we couldn’t travel without it, so they have to re-imburse us for the money we pay Chip. Imagine what fun that is going to be and how much we are looking forward to it!

We drove up to Pucker Pass Road from the top end and went to look at where we had to turn round. So close! But not possible. We did the Canyon Rim walk again so Tony could take some photos – and here’s him getting ready to do so. Point and click? What’s that?

Breakfast for me in the garden of the Jailhouse Cafe, in the cool morning air (delicious fry-up, proper pot of tea – Tony dropped me off on the way to his Fiery Furnace guided walk) then off to find him a birthday present. I wanted to get him a red dirt t-shirt, with some writing on it. The shop assistant was having some personal problems, refusing to make eye contact and conducting and intense phone call of the ‘he said no, so I said what do you mean?, and he said I mean no, so I mean, now what? what should I do?…’ Any remotely interesting content was happening inaudibly at the other end, so not even any entertaining eavesdropping to be had. Eventually, with a bit of body contortion on my part, catch her eye – ‘how much to have a slogan printed on a t-shirt?”

“50 cents a letter.”

On the front – are you sure this is the trail?

On the back – I don’t remember this bit…

50 cents a letter. That’s nearly $20 (and it might be extra for the underlining). Plus $11 dollars for the t-shirt. That’s $31 dollars. Not forgetting tax, we’re heading up towards the $35 dollar mark. At 70 pence to the dollar, that’s twenty four pounds. Jings.  A lot of money for an amusing nightie…

Not that he’s not worth it of course, and it’s a joke with a long pedigree (and hopefully an even longer shelf life). We’ve already been applying it for 10 years, and I’m sure it’s got at least another 10 left in it, or at least until we stumble off an edge somewhere, the words ‘are you sure…’ lingering in the air. So I decided to go for it, but the letter applying man wasn’t due in till 4pm and she couldn’t tell me whether he’d be able to do it straight away, and it all got to be too much trouble so in the end I bought a nice card in the bookshop and just wrote the slogans on it. Got him some other bits and pieces from the bookshop to go with his manly hiking shirts and set off to walk back to the CityMarket for a birthday cake. The receptionist at the hotel had told me it was a two mile walk, and when I asked about buses, gave me that blank, slightly panicked look – ‘what is she saying? Is this English she’s talking?…’ so I thought I was in for a long, hot walk. I haven’t ever seen a taxi. However, it was a pleasant day, the pimple hat kept the sun off nicely and I was home before I knew it – couldn’t have been more than half a mile. And, 50 yards from home, guess what I saw? It was the only sighting of it in the whole week, so it’s obviously pretty rare…

Filling in time in the afternoon we went to look at

which I’d noticed on the drive in here. There is a home carved out of the rock – kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms, living room, full of amazing furniture. You have to do the 12-minute, 5-dollar tour to see around inside it. I would happily have shelled out 10 dollars for 24 minutes, but it wasn’t an option. (Tony decided to forego the experience and had a right nice sit down, recovering from his Fiery Furnace experience.)  A young woman whizzed us round the place, talking 15 to the dozen (no photos allowed, do not interrupt monologue with questions). She fired off facts – Albert and Gladys spent 10 years excavating a trillion tons of rock with the help of one small donkey, and creating this vast space, with a huge fireplace. Temperature is constant at 65-70 degrees so no heating necessary – the fireplace is just for show. She also ran a diner and a gift shop. In their spare time (in their spare time? Who are these people?) Albert liked to paint portraits in oils and Gladys made jewellery. Dates were flying around – 1953 opened the cafe, 1957 he died – but not making much sense as a chronology.

It was fascinating but deeply unsatisfactory. I had already decided not to shell out $6.95 for the official history, an economy I soon came to regret…

In the afternoon, to Ken’s Lake and the Faux Falls, just a few miles east of town and up a nondescript side road. We probably wouldn’t have found it if the woman in the visitors’ centre hadn’t told us how to get there – basically there’s a pipe high up in the sandstone wall that has water forced through it at great pressure which fans into a waterfall, and then makes the lake. Magic. We had a paddle and a splash about (it was a bit nippy…)

and then settled down for the serious stuff. Tony is still working on his technique for photographing running water – it requires tripod, special filter, long exposure, specific kind of light, no people, and of course a waterfall, or at least a mini-cascade.

Master Photographer at work…

It all came together nicely for about 15 minutes before the large extended family from Salt Lake City came along. Two sisters – one about 7 months pregnant, with a very large camera; one husband (the other back at camp with the baby); several children – five? six? they were moving around so much it was hard to tell, one Grandma and one Grandad.

Lots of chatting and milling around and splashing in the waterfall. Tony offered to take a group photo of them and the husband said to his wife – the pregnant one – honey, do you think we could get this lot together in one place for a photo? She said no problem, and set to striding about the place scooping up toddlers and small children one-handed and tossing them over her shoulders. In no time at all she had them all deposited in the middle of the pool. I was drop-jawed with admiration. No matter that she’s 30 years younger than me and used to all this terrain, I still felt pathetic.  And then she gave Tony instructions on how to frame the picture and technical stuff about exposure etc., and I think he felt a wee bit intimidated as well. It’s usually him issuing those kinds of instructions to me. Here’s Tony’s version of the waterfall:

Faux Falls, near Moab

In the evening we drove to Dead Horse Point, arriving just after the Visitors’ Center had closed, of course, and walked around the rim in the evening sunshine. I’ve read two different versions of how Dead Horse Point, which is a waterless plateau that dead-ends in an overlook to the valley 2000 feet below, got its name. The plateau was used to corral wild horses that had been rounded up. They were led there and then imprisoned by a barrier which stopped them leaving until the cowboys were ready to move them on. In the first version, the cowboys penned them in but didn’t come back for them, they couldn’t escape and they all died of thirst. In the second version the cowboys came back and took the barrier down, but for some reason the horses decided, rather than make their way down to the river, they would just stay there and die. Hmmm, which one rings true?

There are no photos of the view from Dead Horse Point – which is lovely, take my word for it – on Tony’s webiste, but here’s a wee deer he spotted on the way back from the rim walk.

Everywhere you go there are leaflets and notices warning you that hiking in the heat is dangerous, and no matter where you’re going you need to take at least two quarts of water (that’s about 3 of our pints) per person. And some high energy food, because you need the carbs and protein to replace what you’re sweating out. So guess what we did, when we went into Negro Bill Canyon yesterday afternoon? We took one poxy little bottle of water (it’s a canyon, it’s late afternoon, we won’t be in direct sunlight, it’s only four and a half miles) and no food.  There will be some elevation gain - 350 feet or so. Barely worth mentioning…

This is a beautiful walk, by the side of a creek. There is a wonderful variety of trees and shrubs, very lush – and such a beautiful smell. Herby stuff that I should be able to identify but can’t, and every so often a whiff of mint. It’s two and a quarter miles to the Morning Glory Arch at the end. Just like from home to the top of Parliament Hill. Except…

The going was harder than we thought. The trail was very up and downy, and there were rocks to be clambered over, and mini sand-dunes to be trudged up and down. A small but vigorous stream, to be crossed and re-crossed. It took us about an hour and a half to do two miles, and that was me. Done. I’d had it. We could see the arch, but I thought if I do that, I’ll never make it back. If we’d had some energy source - a trail bar, perhaps or even a banana – I might have made it, but all we had was Margot’s tin of guarana mints. I ate half of them and settled down for a power nap. Tony went on to the end and came back reporting glorious wonders of enormous arch (I don’t care – I’ll see it on the photos), with a gushing freshwater stream. If only he’d taken the water bottle with him…

By this time, about 7pm, I was getting a bit concerned that we wouldn’t get back to the trailhead before dark. Concern occasionally moving up the scale to anxiety a couple of times when we took a wrong turning and had to retrace our steps. At one junction the trail split into three – left fork to creek, middle fork nondescript, right fork up the hill. There was a trail marker, but it had fallen down and was lying, carelessly we thought – why couldn’t someone who knew the trail put it in the right place, for goodness sake! – across the middle fork. So we took the right hand fork, up the hill and away from the stream. It took about 10 minutes of upward scrambling before we realised we’d gone wrong. Again.

Really, we shouldn’t be let out alone.

Even through the tiredness, heatstroke and rising panic the walk back was glorious. Towering red cliffs, green lushness, setting sun creating pink glowing clouds.

Try to see this as a vertical panorama, and slot the top half of Tony into the bottom picture, matching him up at the neck…

On the way back, we passed some people walking briskly in towards the arch. I said I didn;t think they’d make it there before dark and they said it’s ok, we’ve got head torches. Fair enough, but why would you want to do something like that in the dark?

We had been planning to go to Arches for the sunset, but it was too late.

Now that I’ve recovered (and bought 40 trail bars and distributed them around every handbag, backpack, jacket and trouser pocket) I want to do it again, because I want to see the giant arch and the bubbling, ice cold, freshwater spring….

Home from home…

When we arrived in at the Alamo car hire depot in Denver and the rental man said “Do you want to take out puncture insurance at $7.99 per day (plus tax)” I did a quick calculation in my head ($7.99 + 12%, roughly $9, call it 10, times 54 days = $540 dollars minus $54 comes out at not far off $500…) and said “No!” very firmly and decisively. He’d already talked us into upgrading to an SUV, which I was almost sure was what we’d actually booked and paid for. We’d ticked every optional insurance box and paid more for insurance than for the actual car. So, even though slightly dazed and suffering from oxygen deprivation, I thought I’m not falling for that one. Absolutely not. No. On yer bike, Jimmy. Away an’ bile yer heid….

So when we got to Chip’s Tire Shop and he told us it is going to cost upward of $500 dollars to get the wheel fixed, I felt a wee bit crestfallen. It’s a long way from the $10 they quoted us at Walmart, I said to Chip. That’s because you damaged the rim, he said. I thought the rim is the fancy plastic bit that you put over the wheel where the bolts are, to make it look nice and stop people undoing the nuts on their way past for a bit of a laugh. And I thought the rubber bit is the tire, and the steel bit that the tire fits on is the wheel. So $500 dollars seemed a bit steep to replace a bit of plastic. I was beginning to suspect that somewhere along the line we’d got our wires crossed, so I asked. What exactly is a rim?

The rim is the steel bit, the bit that I thought was called the wheel. That must have been some tree I dislodged – I wonder if there’s been any unexplained collapse in the Gunnison Canyon Walls…

Chip doesn’t have the requisite bits in stock, but he and Dan and Stan and the UPS and FedEx are on the case, and everything should be here by Wednesday – Thursday at the latest. They gave us a working spare to be going on with, so we’re all safe and legal, if not very pretty. And they wouldn’t take any money – we’ll sort it all out later.

Should have taken out the insurance.

Tony, to his credit, has not so much as muttered this phrase – well, not out loud, anyway. Still, if we don’t do it again we’ll be no worse off than if we’d bought the insurance, and if we only puncture the rubber bit all we’ll need is $10 and a Walmart.

Somewhat deflated (pffffft – sorry about that) we went exploring, up Highway 128 which runs alongside the Colorado River. We stopped at Negro Bill Canyon for a quick look. The sign says the Canyon is named after the first black prospector who settled there in the 1880s – and that’s it as far as information goes. We walked a little way in and it looks gorgeous and fairly easy walking so we decided to come back and do the four and a half mile round trip later in the afternoon, when it will be cooler.

The fallen leaves that jewel the ground

they know the art of dying,

and leave with joy their glad gold hearts

in the scarlet shadows lying..

October Song, Incredible String Band

Tony, standing by Stanley (our giant SUV) at the top of Independence Pass

(which has nothing to do with this entry…)

We’re going to be in Moab for a week so today is get ourselves organised Sunday. There’s no Safeway in town, but there is a CityMarket, with the same kind of member discount card, a nice deli with pasta salads and cooked foods (and 10c off per gallon of petrol at their in-house gas station). Another barn-like place, where I failed to find a jar of pickled beetroot, which I had a real fancy for. Tony and I both attempting to explain to the assistant, who was trying so hard to help us, but he couldn’t decipher either of our accents and in the end we took pity on his visibly growing air of panic and let him go. Stocked up with fresh fruit and salads, cooked salmon steaks, chicken, bread and the indispensible peanut butter (it’s amazing how far a peanut butter sandwich will take you – perfect packed lunch food, keeps you going for miles and no mess – no bits to fall out onto your lap).

A visit to the Visitors Centre to get details of walks, buy me a new hat (my favourite straw one is past its best) and pick up a leaflet about safety. What not to do if you want to stay alive. My new hat turns out to have cooling crystals in the crown. You soak it in cold water, the crystals swell up and form a tight cold band around your head. Great idea but I wish I’d realised it before I bought it and I’d have bought a bigger size. (Tony says when it’s fully inflated it sits on top of my head like a giant pimple…) So now we have to add hat-watering to the list of things to do before we set off.

The weather is off-and-on rainy and consistently cloudy, so not much good for photography. In the evening we went to Arches National Park, and Tony signed up for the Fiery Furnace guided walk on Wednesday. I decided to give it a miss after I read the description and saw the photos. It’s three hours of strenuous walking, including ‘starfishing’ up rock clefts which sadly is at the outer edge of, if not completely beyond, my capabilities. Maybe if it was just the two of us, with harness, block and tackle I could do it, but I doubt if I’ll be able to keep up with a group. So sadly I will have to spend the morning all alone, by swimming pool and hot tub, maybe checking out the hidden delights of the CityMarket stationery aisle…

Driving round the park, hoping for the sun to peep through the clouds and create a perfect Kodak moment, we got chatting to an elderly frail-looking little bird of a woman, from Virginia. She was on holiday with her son and his ‘lady friend’. She had a German accent, but she was from originally Budapest and had gone to Germany after the war. Just settling in for a good old natter when her son said it was time to go. Tony and I speculating that maybe she was ethnic German, re-located after the war. Tone says millions of Germans were brutally displaced from all over Europe back to Germany, with mass rape, murder, etc. and nobody objected…

Anyway half an hour or so later and we bumped into each other at the entrance to Park Avenue and got to continue our conversation. She is an Auschwitz survivor – went back to Budapest after the war to look for her family but she was the only one left. She went to Germany to get away from the Russians and because wanted to get to America. She insisted on getting a photograph of us on her camera, and to my regret , we didn’t get one of her. She said we look like a happy couple and we should do as much as we can while we still can. Make the most of every day she said, and her son’s lady friend took this photo of us…

Just about any combination of cliff, lake, blue sky, cloud and sunshine is guaranteed to lift the spirits, but sometimes it all comes together with such perfection and excellence it takes your breath away. For example just after the turnoff from Highway 135 out of Crested Butte onto Highway 50 which runs alongside the Blue Mesa Reservoir towards Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Tony driving and me saying, oh wow, this is amazing – incredible. Pull over and have a look. Really, you have to stop. Tony, you have to see this it’s just perfect. TONY!! STOP!!! HAVE A LOOK…! Given that by this time SONABs* have become part of the wallpaper, you’d think my enthusiasm would make an impression.

*SONAB – Scene of outstanding natural beauty.

But there were no obvious pull off places (that you would notice in time to stop when you’re belting along at 80 miles an hour, anyway) and we were Making Time. Making Time is a fugue state Tony gets into when driving which can last for several hours, during which he refuses to stop. It can sometimes be broken by the passenger (me) suggesting mildly but insistently and repeatedly that we should have a break/change over, but more often than not requires a bit of emphatic loudness (otherwise known as screeching).  It usually ends with him having his fingers prised off the steering wheel, and the rest of him levered out of the driver’s seat and unfolded into an upright position. This last bit often requires the intervention of a chiropractor…

Eventually we did stop, but after we’d passed the best bit (we have no photos that do it justice, but I have it in my mind’s eye, and I would love to see it again). And we met these people, on their fabulous yellow tricycle, on their way home to Iowa from California.

The figure tied to the back, which I thought at first horrified glance was a child, is a giant teddy bear.

Anyway, we were Making Time because we had a busy day ahead of us – aiming for Moab, Utah to arrive late afternoon in time for a photography session of sun setting on red rocks – by way of lunch at the Black Canyon. All was going well, we drove round the rim road, getting out every few minutes and walking in to the edge of the gorge in the broiling heat to take photos like this one

and then heading for the floor of the gorge to see the river. Tony has covered this in some detail in his blog so I am just going to tell you I was driving down the narrow winding gorge road at a sedate 15 miles an hour and we were nearly at the bottom and then I got us a very spectacular puncture. I don’t know what happened exactly but there was a sort of bang, and we swerved a bit and lights and bells went off and when we stopped there was one could-not-have-been-flatter tyre with a rather large chunk of tree sticking out of it. I wish I’d had the presence of mind to take a photo – it was really quite impressive. Anyway Mr D Casedy, Park Ranger, came to our rescue and helped Tony to change the tire, but then we decided we’d lost too much time to carry on to the bottom and we turned round and drove all the way back up again. Sigh.

One consequence of the puncture was that the tire pressure warning light came on in the dashboard and wouldn’t go off – it was a bit disconcerting. Various car mechanic type people told us that it was because the sensor was damaged in the wheel and just to ignore it. Another consequence was it kind of spoiled the rest of the day. What to do? We’ve got a lot of driving ahead of us and we need to get a new spare, just in case we have another puncture. Besides which, it’s illegal to drive with a non-functioning spare, we think.

Once before, when we were in a car accident in Lake Tahoe and we phoned the car hire people they directed us to their nearest depot where they just took the old car off us and gave us an identical replacement. So we drove to the Alamo depot in Montrose where the franchise lady was on a very long tea break but when she eventually came back said she would happily give us a replacement but all she had was a very small car – no SUV. That was no good, so she sent us to Walmart, where we met some really nice guys who said they could change the tyre for $10 and it would only take about an hour or so. Walmarts tend to be situated out on the edge of town, where there’s not a lot to do but we found a pizza place with a nice young waitress who’d just had her summer holidays in London and really enjoyed it but was not impressed by our food. Hard to get a decent pizza here, apparently.

So we went back after an hour and the really nice guys were quite upset and very disappointed to tell us that they couldn’t help us, the damage was much worse than they’d thought and we needed a specialist tyre. It was now 4.45 on a Saturday afternoon, so no chance of finding said tyre and no point in staying overnight because no chance of getting it fixed on the Sunday – shops shut. It was all getting a big tedious and we were losing our sense of humour and getting a bit snippy with each other. In the end we decided there wasn’t much to be done except keep on driving, so we did. On to Moab with more very pleasant highway driving (only slightly tinged with anxiety) several hours behind plan. We drove via La Sal through the most glorious sunset – too late to get to Arches Park for the photoshoot. Ah well, never mind, we’re here for a week…

To the Moab Valley Inn – spacious big room, lovely red rock/sky view, and a little kitchen area…. Tony’s come up trumps again. Have almost managed to stop fretting about money. Tony says he’s more concerned that in the bigger scheme of things we’ll run out of (life)time before we run out of money. Unsure whether this is a comforting or disconcerting thought….

Get the magnifying glass out, there are some ‘where’s wally?’ scenes coming up.

Overview…

Panorama of Crested Butte by Tony (summit elevation 12,162 feet)

Took the Silver Queen ski lift up the mountain (I think to about 11,100 feet) and then heaved self, puffing and panting (glad I took both sticks…) like so

that’s me, in the middle

top left, to the right of the white blob, you can see my hat just coming over the ridge…

till we got to this bit. Tony set off to climb to the summit, I was quite content to watch him do it:

bottom left, darker coloured blob is Tony on the foothills…

and one of these rocks up near the top right hand corner is Tony nearly at the top, but you probably have to take my word for that…

and here he is at the top – (photo by passer-by)

So, once I was sure he’d made it, I hauled myself over a small rocky outcrop, following a sign pointing to a scenic viewpoint (as opposed to the nondescript stuff we’d been walking through so far, I supposed) and found myself looking at the most amazing, incredible, fantastic view – peaks and valleys, snow on the far hills like a layer of marzipan icing. A person could sing with joy to be surrounded by such beauty, if she had any breath to spare.

It was worth every throbbing-thighed, ankle-ricking, lung-heaving step.

A moment of farce on ski lift return journey, trying to lift the handrail to free a trapped backpack strap. It was stuck fast, wouldn’t move an inch. Panic!!!! We’ll never get out of here!!!! Then I realised that the ledge I was pressing down on so hard was part of the same lift-up mechanism, and all I had to do was take my feet off it…

A wee video of Tony not really enjoying the ride (he hides it well, though):

There’s a method for getting on the ski lift – stand at appointed place, wait for seat to bash into the back of your thighs, fall back into chair and pull the handrail down in front of you. Breathe. Getting off, you hop to the side as soon as your feet hit the ground, so as not to be mown down by the chair. One of those very helpful young men they have scattered all over this country explained it all to us.

Some POAs* in our hotel who are here for a wedding were not so lucky. They went on the other ski lift to the ceremony (in their best frocks and suits) and there was no hand rail. Their description of clinging on to hats with one hand and a very small side rail with the other were quite harrowing. Then they got eaten by mosquitos (“and them dudes were b-i-g”) at the reception, before being bussed back home. But a great time was had by all, nevertheless.

*POAs – people our age (near enough).