Exactly 12 years after Brad and I were married, we finally had our honeymoon. 10th July 1993 was the date of the wedding and with all the expense and stress of organising it all within six short weeks, the cost and drama of organising a honeymoon was out of the question. Besides, the prospect of taking my then 10 year old son, Zane on a week long honeymoon didn't quite have the appeal that it should have and I was happy to go back to work the following Monday with an extra ring on my finger. I wore that extra ring for 12 long years and during those years we were blessed with three more children. One boy and a set of boy/girl twins. I was so preoccupied with mothering, studying and working that the idea of having a belated honeymoon was a distant memory. That is, until I'd stopped working and the brainwave took over again...
So, after 12 years to the day of happily wedded bliss (?) we were finally on a direct flight from Brisbane to Christchurch, New Zealand. We were going to spend 10 glorious winter days and nights at a 5-star resort in Arrowtown just north of Queenstown skiing by day and dining by night then snuggling up in front of the fire! hmmmmm... No kids.... Peace and quiet...
Yay! Within about a 50km radius there were five ski fields. Just the two of us! Everything was already paid for in advance all we needed to do was pick up our ski gear and head on up to the slopes. Eeeeeeeee!!!
Imagine for a moment please, the act of fitting a scalene triangle into a rectangle... no. Think a little harder... No... Really imagine hard! At some stage, you'd want to break off at least two of those corners and hit the dang thing in with a hammer... Can you REALLY imagine? Well, that was my feet getting into ski boots. During the fitting I thought ‘aaahhh P.O.P. I can live with this. How bad could it be?’ So, with that, Brad and I left the hire shop, skis over the shoulders and boots and jackets in a bag in the other. Yay! We looked like we knew what we were doing.
At this stage, Brad had never seen snow before. I had, because I'd grown up around the volcanic mountains and plateaus in the North Island of New Zealand and had spent endless hours sliding down slopes on plastic garbage bags. So I wasn't that preoccupied with the actual composition of the chilly white stuff. Brad, on the other hand, needed to scoop it up and study it hard. Neither of us had the slightest idea what we were doing on the skis.
Have you ever seen Bridget Jones - The Age of Reason??? Well, that was me. Once I'd untangled my legs and skis from each other and lined them up, I squealed with delight when I could actually make some distance on them. How hard could this be? What started out as a "Whheeeeeeeeee!!!! quickly changed to a "Whaaaaahhhhhhhh" when I realised that the people standing at 12 o'clock, milling around chatting didn't have the slightest idea about what was about to hit them, or possess a sixth sense or eyes in the back of their heads to see me come hurtling up behind them. "Four!!! FOUR!!!! Look OUT!!!! Whaaaaaah!!!!!" POOOFFFF! I became a giggling mess of apologies. "Ah! Sorry! ...sorry... new to this stuff... oof my feet.... oof sorry...um..." And they looked at me with their straight sophisticated faces, designer ski wear and sunglasses and went about muttering about the clutz that had just interrupted their intelligent hoity toity conversation. I just HAD to get me some lessons... Brad, on the other hand, took to the chair lift and fumbled his way down the slopes numerous times within the first 3 hours. Showoff.
So here I was Bridget Jonesing it STILL on my second day on the slopes. I took lessons and became a pro getting on and off the magic carpet (impressive huh!) before I ventured onto the T bar. Wheeeeeee!!! It wasn't until THAT afternoon that I decided that NOW was the time to try the chair lift. So, here I was lining up to be scooped into the chair with a nice Asian man with a snowboard who was obviously a pro at this kind of stuff. Woo hoo! Along came the chair and whooosh! up we went. The nice Asian man started to become a bit agitated the further up we went, I thought to myself "hoh... there are NO loos up here Mr Asian Man so you'd better slide yourself down that slope to relieve yourself." The closer we got to the top the worse he got! Shuffling around in the seat and getting a bit of a swing on. Then, all of a sudden he jumped off the chair and off he went. Whoh! Ok! Time! Time! Time! I tried to wiggle my butt to the edge of that seat pronto but the chair started rising again and was getting higher and higher! OMG! What to do? I just couldn't stay up here only to return a couple of minutes later and have everyone at the bottom of the slope witness the nork who'd missed her queue. So with one almighty heave, I became airborne for a split second... and then, with a thud and a POOF, became a giggling mess of skis, snow, arms and legs. A totally pure Bridget Jones moment. And to my utter embarrassment, they had to stop the chair lift while two ski instructors picked up my apologetic, giggling mass of amateur self and move me out of the way before the pending chair could empty its cargo on top of me.
The rest is history! With the occasional Whaaah! and ooff! I became a pro by the end of our 10 days and even ventured onto the intermediate slopes only to twist my knee on a slope that was clearly out of my league.
Here are some pics...
It was blowing a gale up there and I was being hit by those yukky sharp little ice crystals. That's why I looked like Santa Claus. A nice hot cuppa was in order so I could rest my bent up bunions.
Brad looked like Pop-eye ah guh guh guh.
Here was our villa. So cosy and warm and peaceful, looking out onto the golf course. At 4 in the afternoon, the frost was still on the ground.
It might look warm, but it was probably about 3 degrees. After skiing for the day, it was nice and relaxing to drink a nice hot cup of chocolate and read under a nice thick blanket on the deck chairs and watch all the golfers stroll by...
