big william's world

Here is the proof that I wore the boots yesterday - I was up at Eldora Ski resort before they opened at 8.30. Skied the baby slopes for two hours and left just as it was getting crowded. Cars were lining up to get IN to the parking lot. It only costs $7 per day to use the beginner's lift.
I didn't fall over and was under control the whole time. I may take another lesson when I am confident on the easy slopes.
The boots are smaller than the ones recommended at the resort and they are just long enough. Like all my footwear they are always too big in most dimensions in order to be long enough.
There is a whole chapter on "boot tuning" in the book so I spent last night with my allen wrenches (keys) adjusting things. They worked far better than the ones I had rented and actually began to feel like extensions of my legs - which is how I think they should feel.
I sense most of you are asleep at this point so I will leave you in peace.

First read the book which my friends Pat and Ray gave me two Christmases ago when I left California

"Soft boots" a relatively new idea, maintain the necessary left right rigidity for steering skis while allowing slightly reduced front back rigidity for SLIGHTLY greater comfort.
Seems to me ski boots are NEVER comfortable unless you are skiing in them - which is only about 20% of the time.

Anyway a search through the tons of ads for ski stuff on craigslist led me to a guy in Golden Colorado (half an hour down the road - remember littlewilliams ski purchase and eating bulls balls at Christmas?) led me to a 6' 3" guy who found these too BIG for him. He could not believe that they were snug and just right on me! - barely 5' 11" $80 the price of a few rentals and they are mine!
Size 30.5 half a size below the ones I rented and just right.
I think he really had only worn them once.
Waiting for the storm in the mountains to abate and leave me it's fresh powder so I can hit the kindergarten slopes next week.

Show me the slopes!

Maybe next week!

and jupiter aligns with mars ---

an inch or two of fresh powder and I was there - for my ski lessons given for Christmas by W, MK and J.

Morning was getting beat up with a "rookie" teacher of about 19 and falling over a lot. Went up the chair lift and skied down the not-so-easy beginners slope six times or so with numerous tumbles and zero useful advice. It's what we experienced teachers call running before you can walk!

In the afternoon, after a hamburger and beating the temptation to go home ----

I had an hour or so with an experienced teacher who skied backwards in front of me - telling me what to do - quite a difference. So-- if I can still walk tomorrow I may go again!

Then for dinner the "Slanted Door" - known to one or two of my readers, came to Boulder with "Shakin Beef" a delicious Vietnamese dish with cubes of fillet steak, marinated in rice wine, rice vinegar, soy sauce, garlic etc cooked very briefly in the wok with authentic Slanted Door cocktails (a ginger limeade vodka martini thingy) authentic Slanted Door broken rice and their recipe for corn. May have been even better than the restaurant in San Francisco itself.

Remember Boulder Falls? I have shown you pictures of it a few times - here is what it looks like in single digit temperatures.

Which calls for my biggest log - this one is 3 feet, or about a metre long!

Which is what they call it here when it is below 10 F - actually 7 in the garden last night - which in Celsius is -14!

I am not complaining about that though!

So that is my excuse for not using my free ski lessons yet - should be nearer to average temperatures next week so I will go then!

For the tennis fans - John McInroe (?) has made a commercial - I don't remember the product but his catch line is "you cannot be serious!" - who would have thought that when he disgusted the world with his temper at Wimbledon?

Who, also, have imagined that I - with no knowledge of - or interest in - tennis, would be quoting him?

Thank you Tim for the tea towel. Some very interesting art work from a very large number of children in Bicester.
I have marked Tim's piece with a yellow arrow.

But on a happier note here is T in 2005 at the music class in Bicester with not many teeth!

Even HE looks older now!

And here is me in India with an elephant. The man on the elephant is called the Mahout.

The vegetation the elephant is carrying is it's lunch.

Wish you were here to celebrate with

My first foray into cheese making - the book said start here so I did
Served here as Paneer Picatta - with ginger, white wine, cilantro, onions and lemon juice
Not bad for a first attempt. I am looking forward to Mozzarella next - which uses rennet to coagulate the curds and cooks and kneads the curd.

Every day several squirrels come to eat the bird's food and we now put leftover almonds from the Christmas cake out for them as well

Today a fox visited the area right outside the window and showed a great interest in Buddhism

Further investigation revealed that as the fox sniffed alternate sides of the Buddha, the squirrel's tail could be seen on the OTHER side of the Buddha, oscillating with the same speed.

I never heard a squirrel make a noise before but this one was clucking like a chicken as I shooed the fox away.

Then I went to get the screwdriver, regular readers for more than a year will remember last years' incident when Buddha fell and had to be fixed to the wall with screws. When I returned the squirrel which had not been stuck after-all was up the tree looking down on me still clucking.

Still sleeping off the excesses and the snow here!
Can't wait for the spring.
Miss W, MK and J a lot