Snow Business

Today’s post is more of a musing than anything else. So grab a cuppa and let me tell you a story…

In the last few years I have really felt like life is passing me by. I have wasted my 30’s and now my 40’s just working and not doing anything else. Not going holidays, unless you count a handful of (incredible) trips to London and visits to Aberdeen so Prince B can visit his mum, but just not having any adventures. For some people, being at home all the time is what they want to do, that’s fulfilment for them but that’s just not me, even though I have spent 20+ years doing exactly that. Until I met Prince B I never even own a television. I tried filling the big gap in my life with ballet. It gave me a purpose, something to look forward to but with Covid my ballet training has been all but destroyed. Going back to training after a 2 year break, even if there was classes I could attend, which there isn’t, is difficult. Serious ballet training can’t just be picked back up again after that long a break as your body loses so much essential, muscle mass in that time. Building it back up to its previous level would take a long time and many hours of classes. The classes are not available so it just isn’t realistic to go back to training the way I did pre Covid. I’ll still dance when I can make the class but ballet isn’t going to be the thing that fills that void any more.

So I have to find something else.

I LOVE the snow. The joy I feel when I’m in the snow is like nothing else. I love it even more than the sunshine. In my early 20’s I used to go snowboarding. None of my friends partook of this pastime except one, Steve. Steve was more a friend of a friend but he loved snowboarding too so we would go together. We would pack up his car and head to Glencoe, our nearest ski resort which is about a 2 hour drive from Glasgow. We’d stay in a lodge and spend 2 days there just shredding and having fun. Then I found out he really liked me and after that I wasn’t comfortable sharing a cabin with him and since I had no one else to go with me, I gave it up.

Every winter I long to go back but with no way to get there, as you have to drive, and no one to go with, it just became yet another unfulfilled dream.

Then I had an epiphany.

There is a real snow indoor slope here in Glasgow. I could snowboard all year round! So I am.

In 2 weeks time I’m starting snowboarding lessons. I’m going alone and I don’t mind. I’m used to doing things on my own and I’ll do this on my own too. I’m also learning to drive right now, which I HATE, but I now have a real impetus to learn - if I can drive I will be able to drive myself to the mountains and go real snowboarding again. The excitement I feel is off the chart. I haven’t felt this exhilarated in a very long time. In fact I can’t even actually remember the last time!

It feels right. It feels like I’m meant to do this, the way I was meant to learn ballet. I also think my ballet training will really help with riding because some of the principles are actually very similar. Both are focused on balance and using your centre of gravity to create a movement. It’s also all about hip and knee alignment which is the core of ballet too.

My current plan is to ride maybe twice a month with a lesson in between. So when next season comes around I’ll be fully proficient to hit the real slopes. In Scotland we have 5 ski resorts, so snowboarding is actually a great past time to have in Scotland and we certainly get the weather for it, so my plan is to free up my schedule a few days a month during the season to drive up to Glencoe and spend the day in the snow. It will also fill the gap left by not going any holidays because I will be in the mountains so will feel like I’m actually going somewhere. And those hours on the snow will make me content to spend the rest of my time working and sitting on the sofa. It’s a little more expensive than ballet training at the height of my training when I was dancing 4 times a week, but I’m selling off a lot of my wardrobe to help pay for it (you can find my wee Depop shop: @TheVampiresCloset. I’ll be hopefully updating it fairly regularly).

Doing things alone can be scary. And lonely. As much as I’d love someone to chum me to the mountains I know my interests are mine alone. But I’m ready for my next adventure.