Wrong Weather
No matter what you want the weather to do, it’s got a different plan. The last two weeks we’ve been looking for stronger winds to get us flying across the water, but now we’ve jumped on a snowboard the weather is still playing tricks. Snow has been in short supply all over Europe this year, but it’s the strong winds that kept us from the slopes, even enough to divert the plane to the next airport.

Monday saw the last chance of wind for the week, even that came in late at Clacton, colder than Egypt but great to get down to 6.0m sails. Chippy Dave, Shaun and I were happy to milk the last drop before the lack of light stopped play. There’s something special about squeezing that last run in before the sun naturally closes the beach.

That feeling was even stronger on the mountain. We’re all used to waiting on the wind, but Skiing or snowboarding you are sure get a go on the hill, it’s just a case of how good it is. But when the captain turned his microphone on and announced, “the good news, we’ll be landing in 15 minutes, the bad news, it’s not in Granada, it’s too windy” I figured it wasn’t going to be great but didn’t expect to find the slopes closed.

I’m going boarding with a large group later in the year, all but two had skied or snowboarded before, so Mark and Julia Dunt talked about going to the snowdome at Milton Keynes to play catch-up. Unfortunately we were to close to a computer and before we knew it Steve and Debbie Dowman were hitting the “book now” button for a trip to Sierra Nevada in Spain. It worked out cheaper to fly to the real thing than have a full day with lessons in the snowdome.

While the mountain was officially shut, there was nothing to stop us walking up the slop outside the hotel; I took Mark and Debbie for the first go on the slopes. A red run wouldn’t be have been my first choice but it was the closest, plus they didn’t know. Considering we didn’t have any flat to get going on, both were doing well, Mark windsurfed and skateboarded years ago so felt more confidant on the board and was doing well when he took one fall to many.

So this is why we carry the E11 card on holiday, it took longer to find the medical centre than it did to get Mark X-rayed and strapped up. Steve and Debbie normally ski, but with Mark’s board doing nothing they joined Julia for another go in the after noon.

After a bit of hesitation the mountain finally opened around ten the next morning. Not sure if it was nerves or Julia being polite, she wanted to book a lesson rather than hold me back, so Steve and I went off for a blast. Sally’s been boarding for years, and having been my personal nurse for year’s boards at her own, so opted to go off with Debbie.

Harty gives me stick goading people into what they can’t do, personally I think its giving confidence in what they can. That way of thinking was confirmed to me a couple of hours later when we met up for a drink. Julia had given up her lesson, and wanted me to take her back up the hill. I’m not better that her instructor, far from it, but she trusted in me, so trusted in herself. It took just one run down a green run to build her confidence, on our second run she managed without my help. She’s now a snowboarder and can’t wait for the next trip.

Steve and I had arranged to meet up for a last run down with the wives so when the two black runs opened we had to race around the mountain to catch a run on them. Thanks to a little out of control skiing on the last black from Steve we managed to catch the very last lift up the mountain to the girls.

We may have been in Spain for less than 48 hours, but it’s kept me in the good book with the wife and it was cheaper than staying (snowboarding) indoors.