Hey y'all! I know I know - but things have been a little hectic around here these last few weeks. The season went from casually ripping up the slopes and drinking beer to full on revising and practicing. It's been like Snowboard University. I'll even go so far as to say that a little of the same kinda stress from my Uni days was present before exam day, but more of that in a bit. So, week 8 and we all went off to another resort called Red Mountain near the US border. This was a full on r&r weekend staying [View Full Entry]

---

---

You know, you'd think that the longer I stay here and the more I learn from these pro's, the better my riding gets and the more seriously I take this snowboarding lark. But no my friends. It seems that as my riding gets better, the more I am expected to ride whilst hindered by big silly outfits and heavy gold chains. Just when we thought we were safe from dressing up and making tits of ourselves on the hill, Wednesday 5th of March arrives and with it comes "Bling day". For one day only, the Fernie posse invaded the slopes pimped [View Full Entry]

---

---

As I write this, I've just received an email from my little sister Helen. My nephew Will was discovered the other day bouncing on the bed with his arms outstretched, calling himself "Uncle Pauly" and pretending to snowboard. He is two years old. I tell you, that's enough to weaken the eyes of any super cool, season hardened, international playboy Snowboard Instructor. I now feel as though I owe it to my wonderful nephew to raise the bar a little and give him something truly to look up to. So, one bottle of wine later and I have now enrolled on [View Full Entry]

---

---

I PASSED! Five weeks in and the fools have given me a license to teach people how to snowboard! YEAH BABY! But as rewarding as passing Level 1 is, I'm bloody glad it's over. No matter how confident you think your riding and teaching is, you just never know. The weather really helped - it stopped snowing and the sun has been beating down for the passed few days - perfect. So, the week went roughly like this; The first two days - Tuesday and Wednesday, were rider assessment days. We were taken around various terrain on the mountain by an [View Full Entry]

---

---

"What do you mean this isn't a holiday?" Mmm. A month in now, and things are getting a little more serious. Over the past few weeks it's all been about improving our riding - feeling comfortable down pretty much any terrain, because in order to be instructors we naturally need to be a certain standard to teach. And now, it's less about the jumps and carving, and concentrating more about the teaching side of things. Most of this week has been full on preparation for our Level 2 instructor exam, which is next Thursday 21st. It's all about practicing our demonstration [View Full Entry]

---

---

Well, it's finally happened and I am in agony. You hear of serious injuries here everyday, it's just part of the super hard core extreme sport of snowboarding, man. Our instructors are constantly comparing injuries in the bar over pitchers of beer - snapped collar bones, shattered knees, various operations on joints and muscles. And now I can now hold my head high as I impress my instructors with the story of how I stubbed my toe on the corner of the sofa. I cannot describe the pain, but it's a tough and dangerous sport my friends, and I will ride [View Full Entry]

---

---

At last! Temperatures are now a positively boiling -16ºC. For the fist time I walked to the local bar without wearing a face mask. But despite the Caribbean like temperatures, the local "snowdragon" is still spreading deep fluffy snow over the whole area and we're now up to about a metre in our back garden (our mini kicker park has well and truly disappeared!) Week 2 and my legs are still working. Maybe not to the same extent as some of these youngsters, but none the less, old Lappin is still hangin' on in there. Lesson are getting a lot more [View Full Entry]

---

---

Finally! A spare few minutes to myself! Sorry for the delay in emailing but it's honestly been non stop since I got here. Firstly, a massive, massive thank you for my bionic watch, Canadian cash, AMAZINGLY flattering video (cheers Andy!), and especially, ESPECIALLY, that card. It is quite simply a work of genius, and should be in some kind of design book. Seriously, the time and effort that has gone in to that card is very humbling. So an extra big thank you to main man Mike (man love to you too mate!), and lovely Lisa for her photography skills (lady [View Full Entry]

---

---