Today I woke up to a beautiful sight, snow falling on my 37th Birthday! I couldn’t have asked for a better gift than to see fluffy snowflakes fall from the heavens on my Birthday. At first the snow was light and barely noticeable but after 10 minutes or so it was a gorgeous whirlwind of white fluffy ice swirling around to and fro. I was mesmerised.
Last year Steven asked me what cake I wanted for my Birthday, after a while I told him that I wanted something different that year. We usually go for either a Chocolate Mud Cake or a Vanilla Sponge. I said to Steven “How about a giant Neenish Tart? Do you think they could make one of those?” We joked about the giant Neenish Tart for a few weeks but come my birthday I was greeted with the Vanilla Sponge. ”Bummer” I thought, I really would have loved to see a giant Neenish. Fast forward to yesterday. Ben was getting out of the car at Perisher when I heard Cassandra squeel “Oh no, the Cake!” Ben had sat on the cake box that had been sitting on her lap all morning long. When I opened it to see the damage, there it was, my giant Neenish Tart, squished and oozing fake cream and jam. The look of disappointment on my face was probably priceless because Steven came up and gave me the biggest hug. We put the Tart back in the car and even though it was obliterated by Benjamin’s bum we thought it was still worth saving. After all, Steven went to a lot of trouble to get a bakery to make me a custom Neenish. This morning James went out for a while, when he returned he handed me 2 regular Neenish Tarts, how thoughtful!
Around lunchtime the 5 of us headed for Friday Flats, a beginners area of Thredbo. At first I didn’t really feel like getting on the skis, I was worried that I was going to bump into someone or worse still fall flat on my face with one leg going one way and the other going another. But I decided to go up the hill a bit and see what all the fuss was about. I overheard a ski instructor telling his students how to slow down, so armed with that knowledge I set off, surprising myself by not falling over. I went up the hill again feeling a little more confident and set off again for another steady decline. I did this another 2 times, at that stage I felt confident enough to go and purchase a lift ticket and go for broke.
I was nervous when faced with how to get onto the ski chair, but once in the air with my feet hovering above the most beautiful sight below I relaxed, that was until I had to get off the chair. By miracle I did that with perfection too. However, the sight that met me at the top of the hill was one that scared the heck out of me, the mountain looked a lot more steep from the top of the hill. ”Oh well” I thought, the only way is down and off I went, slowly and almost horizontally zig zagging my way to the bottom. The feeling of exhilaration was overwhelming. I had conquered the hill and I was dying for more. I went up again, and again until I got to the point where I wasn’t worried about slowing down or about falling. I had found my snow legs, they were kind of like my ice-skating legs, but only more work. In all I went up and down the hill 15 or 16 times, each time with more confidence and a thirst for more. The most amazing part of this story is that I didn’t fall, not even once. As the time neared 4.30, the time that the lift chairs closed I briefly thought of skiing over to the next lift, the one that went that much further and was slightly more difficult. Alas, time was up and I had to call it a day. James met me at the top of the mountain for our last ski down the hill, we waited until everyone else had arrived at the bottom so we had the mountain all by ourselves. It truly was a moment to savour. :)
It goes without saying that today was the best Birthday I can ever remember having. I am so glad we came to the snow! I left my camera in the Cabin while we went skiing so I didn’t get any action shots today, but I did buy a few images on CD that a photographer took of us so I’ll post those tomorrow after I have collected them and given them my gentle touch. In the mean time here are today’s happy snaps!
My broken Neenish
This is Ben’s smile face.
by Cathy
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