There was snow

[nineveh_uk]

I am back from my holiday. It was good. It was very relaxing in that for a week I was too busy or tired to think about anything at home or work, and it was exhausting in that for a week I was too busy or tired to think about anything other than what I was doing. My internal monologue for the skiing part can be basically summed up as follows:

balance balance OK balance left right left right glide glide hill ankles edge edge edge edge edge flex fuck edge OK relax ankles weight weight ankles knees weight weight weight weight slip pole edge down down down knees in IN IN IN shoulders that way lichen poles ooh footprints argh CONCENTRATE turn glide turn turn turn ice turn edge edge weight! edge edgeedgeedgeedgeedgeglide pole glide glide etc etc.

And so on, with occasional singing. 'The Hills Are Alive' is excellent for navigating those downhills that are within ones capacity and will actually go better for relaxing. The beginning of Chesterton's 'Lepanto' can provide momentum up the steeper bits. I have eaten my bodyweight in food, don't need to see porridge for another year, enjoyed the sauna, and, inevitably, had a cold for the second half of the week. I managed relatively little reading, slept well when I wasn't blowing my nose and once I had remembered to turn the radiator not down, but off, spent a week away from the internet, and have started, but not completed, unpacking.

I had a great time.

Photo on LJ...

Comments

[naraht]

Welcome back! That sounds absolutely fantastic to me.

[nineveh_uk]

I had a really good time. It feels that I have done very little today, which is probably true, and also probably necessary!

[naraht]

Very necessary and very well-deserved, I'm certain. Continue to enjoy the doing nothing for as long as possible. :)

[nineveh_uk]

Alas, all good things must come to an end.

/returns to work.

[caulkhead]

I am glad you had a good time. I know what you mean about relaxed but exhausted, too. That internal monologue sounds remarkably like mine off-piste (with the addition in my case of the bit that goes "Look at the GAP not the tree, the gap not the tree.. the tree... tree TRREEE! arrrgh)

I'd like to try cross-country one day, but worry that I'd lack the stamina.

[nineveh_uk]

I knew I missed a bit... slide slide slide crust collapse! sink flounder oof slide duck branches slide elk poo slide slide ooh nice bit duck duck that gap is never two foot wide slide fwump fwump fwump uphill.

Actually, there were some utterly gorgeous bits of gentle-meadow-dotted-with-birch-trees-in descents, and some very interesting fwump fwump fwumping bits through thickish woods round some sort of elk superhighway, but (fortunately for me) no steep glades of sturdy pine with unfortunate TREEE consequences. Though the prize for unexpected off-piste hazard surely goes to the people who encountered a snow leopard.

You should try cross-country some time. It doesn't require more stamina than downhill to give it a go. /devil's advocate

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Welcome back!

*waves*

(Also: jealous).

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I could make you more jealous by saying that I saw a ptarmigan, ravens, and I think what were willow tits (the leader said they were around, and my careful internet search not for "tits in Norway" suggests that willow tits are the likeliest option). No mammals other than dogs and kamikaze child skiers, though.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

No, you'd better not mention those, because if you did I would get more jealous.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

Glad you enjoyed it! Scenery looks breathtaking, though with all the technique to master it was probably hard to notice it all the time.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

There are definitely times when I'm concentrating on the immediate rather than the more distant terrain :-)

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Don John of Austria is going to the war! (I admit that's all I can remember of Lepanto - it gets all muddled up with How Horatiius Kept the Bridge. Evidently I should take up cross-country skiing).

The pictures look fabuous. I'm suitably envious.

[ylla.livejournal.com]

I'd never heard of the poem before, and find some of the Don John bits distractingly reminiscent of A A Milne - although I suppose it might really be the other way round!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Don John of Austria
Son of Charles V,
Took good care of the Empire
By fighting battles at sea.

[ylla.livejournal.com]

Brilliant :)

That Horatius is *not* the boy who stood on the burning bridge is one of those things that I've learnt several times but can't keep in my head - I wonder if it'll stick this time...

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

You can tell them apart by remembering that as a Noble Roman, Horatius would obviously never be picking his nose like mad/ He rolled it into cannon balls, and flicked them at his dad. as per young Casabianca.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Hahaha! So he was son of Charles V - just goes to show much history I didn't learn by reading imperialist poets.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Just as everything I know about Richelieu etc. is owing to Dogtanian, everything I know about Charles V's family (i.e. not a lot) is due to opera.

Don John of Austria is going to the war!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Confusion is understandable, one bit of heroic vision-of-empire is pretty much like another...* My skiing version of Lepanto is like Eric Morecambe's Grieg: (some of) the right words, but not necessarily in the right order. Horatius hadn't occurred to me, but would also be a good one for the famous lines on repeat, if perhaps for a slightly gentler hill at a quicker stride as it is quite pacy.

I have actually been to Lepanto; fortunately I had a guidebook and didn't have to rely on the poem for what happened!

*I tend to think of Horatius as a less good version of the Battle of Maldon, the latter having a lot more heroic speeches, and less geography.

Re: Don John of Austria is going to the war!

[azdak.livejournal.com]

And they're both full of longs lists of names and go tum-tee-tum-tee-tum (so ideal for skiing, or indeed any activity involving rhythmic movements), so I get confused as to whether King Philip's in his closet or his eight hundred slaves sicken in Ilva's mines. As you say, one heroic vision-of-empire is pretty much like another.

RE: Re: Don John of Austria is going to the war!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

And there is slaves in both of them!

Don John said to his brother:
“Brother,” he said, said he
“The League will never defeat the Turk,
If the fleet’s not led by me.”

I begin to think that there might be a gap in the market for a "Poems that go tum-tee-tum to exercise to" volume. Possibly with accompanying podcast.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Sounds lovely!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Thank you, it was!