Thoughts from the back of the bus

I decided to title this blog "thoughts from the back of the bus" as I'm considering it for the title of my debut album. What do you reckon? I am of course getting ahead of myself as per usual but last night Kate and i were thoroughly entertained by our friends JC and Laura at a local open mic night. It seems JC, although a spitting image of the messiah, can play a mean guitar and can wail too! They were pretty good. JC went mental and played this awesome slide guitar tune that had the crowd going. I was very impressed. They of course tried to get me up on stage, both knowing that i play a little guitar too. My very modest and very unpractised self though decided i would just spectate. It has been an age since i had the time to just sit down with my guitar and "noodle" as we say. I haven't learnt a new song for months and the last song i learnt (and recorded) was 'Lever pulled' by John Frusciante. It's an awesome tune but i was no way confident enough last night to play it in front of strangers, even after a few ales. So i respectfully declined but in conversation after their set we all suddenly realised that between me, Laura JC and Kieran (whose nicknames are too long to mention, oh ok. He's secret-shithead-K dog, naturally) we would get together and jam. I have only ever played guitar with 2 other people though. My old mate Pocky (the plumber from Northolt golf club who had a crush on my mum! Yikes!) and the guy in the guitar shop in Auckland who kinda played over me while i was demo-ing the guitar i brought. So I'm pretty psyched about playing with these guys and maybe getting up on stage to belt out some tunes......................maybe. If i don't get total stage fright and foop (when you try to fart and poop comes out, also known as a shart) myself! I'm sure we will discuss it further at some point.

The rest of my week has been filled with the usual merriment and fun. We had a staff night skiing night the other night (phew that was a lot of 'nights' in that sentence!). They closed the hill at 5pm as usual but us staff got to night ski. They also threw in a free BBQ and had 2 buck beers! It was amazing! We had the whole mountain to ourselves. I have never had so much space on the pistes before. I of course skied awesomely! Especially after shotgunning 2 beers straight off the bat before we even started, thoroughly impressing Billy. We hit an area of the hill called 'the exchange' before the light got bad as it was still caked in snow. It seemed a popular place as there were quite a few of us hitting the jumps and drops. There was even a camera man filming some of the crazy snowboarders doing backflips and 720's. Billy (who likes to perform) decided to try his first 360. He over rotated and "ate shit" as we skiing types call it. He was all right though. I decided to hit the same jump but probably should've maybe scoped it out beforehand. It was a near vertical lip that i accidentally near back flipped off, landing neatly in a heap on my back! No harm done, except jerking my neck and aggravating the whiplash i got earlier in the season. After a few runs we headed down to the base building and grabbed Billys kayak. Yes, you read that right. Billy is a mean kayaker and decided he would bring it along and slide down a few runs in it. Now kayaks are not really designed for that sort of thing so i was employed as a safety measure to ensure Billy didn't accidentally fly off a cliff or crash into anything. It seems snow kayaking is similar to sexual asphyxiation in that they both require spotters, especially after that whole Michael Hutchance debacle!

We got a few weird looks and some whoots and hollers from our colleagues as we loaded up the kayak on the lift and headed up to the top of meadows, which is the learner bit of the mountain. Our first run was off piste. Pretty much the same line i took when i slid down the hill dressed as Shred the Kea a while back. It went fine except the kayak didn't run too well in the deep snow. So we decided to take it over to the M1 which is a bigger, steeper, groomed run. Billy got settled into his kayak using me as a front break to stop him from slipping down the hill. As soon as he was set i moved away and whoosh, off he flew. He was flying! I had to straight line it down the hill to keep up with him. I skied along side him as he made futile efforts to steer the boat away from the edge of the run and imminent doom. Now, we sort of left out a few details in our careful planning for this boat run. Nothing big, oh except how to stop the bloody thing!! The bottom of the M1 run has a curve in it with a quite large drop off the side. A curve that Billy was failing to negotiate too well in the now out of control kayak. In fact he was accelerating straight towards the drop. I responded quickly and dived onto the back of the boat, grabbing Billy and cunningly using my skies to steer us away from the drop and nicely around the curve. We hit the steep bit off the run but with me now steering we coasted nicely to the bottom, stopping short of the base building. We were greeted by some more whoops and hollers and immediately jumped up to go do it again! The cameraman, heard the commotion and decided to tag along this time.

We jumped back on the lift with a small crowd of followers, got to the top, got Billy settled into the boat and set off. Billy was far more confident this time and decided to perform for the camera, doing a few 360 spins as he flew down the hill. I tagged along in my role of spotter making sure no one was in any immediate danger. A guy following us decided to do a huge carve and covered Billy in snow which i think put him off as he suddenly veered towards the cliff again. In a flash i was, quite literally on him, jumping onto the back of the boat and steering us to safety. We rode the rest of the run together with our cameraman snowboarding next to us capturing it all on film. We got to the bottom to be greeted by rapturous applause from our colleagues. It was dead good!

After a quick pause to get some alcohol into me and a sausage from the BBQ, we headed back up the hill again. This time though we left our skis and the kayak behind. This time we carried snow scooters! A company that rents them in town brought them along for us to use so after a very brief demonstration on how they sort of work, Billy and i dragged them up to the top of the mountain. I had used snow bikes in Canada but these snow scooters where very different. You strapped your feet in to the board and gripped the handlebars for dear life. I travelled a mere 6 feet before stacking it big time and cracking my head off the handlebars! Luckily, i was wearing my helmet but it did my already aching whiplash neck no help. It took me ages to get the hang of it and i fell, a lot! It didn't help that the rest of my colleagues saw us snow scooter riders as targets and were constantly cutting us up and spraying us with snow. I'm pretty sure that little Jane (who works in the shop at the Remarkables) took me out the worst. She cut right in front of me, yelled sorry but laughed as i tumbled to the deck and slid along the snow causing it to all shoot up my jacket and giving me what is affectionately known as "snow belly!"

It was such a good night. The CEO, James Coddington, or Cod face as we call him, was there serving drinks and all the managers were helping out running the lifts and cooking the BBQ. It is a shame really that they don't do it more often. We do have a staff tubing (big rubber rings that you race down the mountain!) night at the Remarks next month so that should be pretty cool.

Talking of the Remarks, we actually skied there yesterday for the first time this season. It is tiny compared to Coronet but offers so much more. There are loads of bowls and chutes, tons of off piste stuff and of course it has parklife. Parklife is a collection of snow parks (like skateparks, but on snow) with loads of things to jump off and jib (like a grind in skateboarding) on. One of the parks is called the stash. It's so ghetto! It has all these logs to jib and even a hut to ride over. I decided to leave the hut for now as the 20 foot drop to a steep landing looked a little too extreme for me. Billy has done it and it does look super gnarly. Maybe later in the season. So i spent the day with JC and Kieran jibbing logs, boxes and tables. It was awesome.

Kate loved it too. As the runs are pretty short you can hurtle down them without getting quad burn (muscle ache in your thighs). I impressed myself with my downhill racing style and gunned it down a few slopes super fast! Kate even went over to the shadow bowl on the opposite side of the resort, an area that is quite advanced. She stacked it on a thin little run and i feared it would knock her confidence but she was fine. Well, until we tried to walk back to the bus on our way home.

At the Remarks you have to walk down the nursery slope to get to the bus. It's not steep obviously but in trainers, it's pretty slippery. So i toddle off to get the bus then hear this massive crash behind me. I turn to find Kate in a heap, covered in all her gear. She did a proper you've been framed style legs both slipping out stack! Luckily it was right in front of everyone on the nursery slope! I went back to help her up but as soon as she stood up she kept just slipping down the hill. I managed to grab her skis and she eventually righted herself and we made it to the bus. I imagine she is gonna be black and blue this morning though. I'm just gutted i didn't get it on film. £250 is a lot of money in NZ!

No dodgeball this week as the hall was double booked but we did make it into the local paper. They ran an article about the NZSki dodgeball tournament and mentioned our team, Bin Ladens Ball Bags, in the article. Pretty sweet. They also mentioned when and where we play so i imagine there may well be a few more spectators this week. I just hope we give a better showing than our pathetic effort last week. We're not bottom of the league though. That title goes to Victorias secrets which are the team all dressed in ladies lingerie. Nice. Well, except for the dudes.

Anyways, I'll chat to you lot later.

Peace

D

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