Ski Instructor Report 18th February 2012

What a glorious end to the week. Friday and Saturday were brilliant, with clear blue skies and good snow conditions. This contrasts with the rest of the week, when we had a real mix of weather, sometimes cold, sometimes windy sometimes snow. On Friday, in Quo Vadis, I was introduced to the cricketer, Ian Botham. I am Scottish and do not know much about cricket but I am well aware of his successes against Australia in the Ashes series. If you are in Arinsal this week, you may well bump into “Beefy”. Do not do this on the slopes as he is quite a big lad. But if you should meet him in one of the bars, you will find him to be very charming and friendly. We had a lot of children on the slopes this week. The great majority loved the skiing and picked it up very quickly. However, I did notice a significant minority, whit a high BMI. (I would have preferred to use the word “fat” but I am told that it is not politically correct to do so.) Some were so uncoordinated that they could not get off the ground without taking off both skis. I wondered if these are the offspring of the parents who will not park 100 metres away from the school entrance, but would prefer to double bank outside the gate, so that no walking would be involved. I think that my young lifestyle in Edinburgh was so different from those children. I had a half hour walk to school and some of our out-of-school actives included the following: running up three flights of stair in a tenement build, so that we could straddle the banister rail and slide down, using our skill to avoid falling 25 feet into the stair well. Climbing onto the school roof, for no other reason than it was there and it seemed a good idea at the time. It was not all urban activities; we had a large open space next to Holyrood House. This was a huge park with the remains of a volcanic plug in the centre, a wonderful play area. This was a fair distance from where I lived, so we had a long walk down the Royal mile to get there. I would pass the site of the now Scottish Parliament, which in my youth was the site of two breweries. I think, Youngers and McEwans, but cannot be certain. When we had finished playing in the Park, we would run behind the brewers’ dray and hang onto the back of the dray, to get a lift back to the city, this only worked if the dray did not see us. If he did he would crack his whip at us. It was quite easy to catch the dray as the barrels were full and it was uphill, so the horses would trot at a fairly slow pace. We rarely got a lift down to the Park as the beer barrels would be empty, it was downhill and the horses knew that they were going home. this meant that they would be travelling just under a gallop, so only the very fastest runners amongst us could ever catch up with the dray and get a lift. I never was a fast runner and think I only ever got a lift back up the hill. I suppose that all my harmless childish pursuits have been banned by some diktat issued by an unelected Kommisar in Brussels, on some health and safety grounds. Now children are encouraged to write to each other on social websites like twatter, or try to obtain level 7 on Fat Boy 3 on their Xbox console. As the old singer used to croon, “Times, they are a changing” .