Don't try this at home......

Just thought I'd share a couple of local pass times with you.

See the hut on the snow? That is actually a tent on the ICE. Yup! At about this time of the year the lake freezes and various super hard core fishermen satisfy their angling addiction thus: they cut a hole in the ice, erect said tent over the top and hey presto fishing in the winter. It is rumoured that they make themselves nice and comfortable with cushions, heaters, and yes, Chris, I'm sure, coffee pots! In fact the tents have a moulded plastic base, with chairs attached, joined onto the frame so that it all pops up quite easily. And of course when it's all folded down, the plastic base doubles up as a sled.

our question is:  how do they choose the bloke to go out there first to test the ice? Makes you wander how many incredibly gullible people there are in the village: "Go on, mate, it'll be fine, I'll shout you a beer if..ahem, when you get back....."

Here's another doozy of an event that we will gladly let you borrow the car for if you ever fancy going!

The Snow Mobile Association Uphill Racing Championship

It is as it looks - drag racing up a black slope on a ski-doo. In the dark. Anyone can enter, all you need is an automatic cut-off switch on a lanyard and a snow mobile and you're away. Winner goes through to the next round. And if any of the audience are still in the process of freezing to death (as opposed to having already achieved ice block status) I'm sure they'll be very pleased on your behalf, and then they'll go back into the bar to defrost.

2011 already.....

I'm back. A short holiday from the blogosphere, as is traditional at this time of the year (!) does even the most fervent blogger the world of good. And for those extremely lazy bloggers amongst us it is a jolly good excuse to do nothing. And for those of us who don't normally need an excuse....well, let's just say it's a marvel that I write anything at all.

So, Christmas, a quick update. We all had a fabulous time - there was ski-ing, sledging, skating, snowballs, sub-zero temperatures - basically, we had it all. And as you can probably tell, a very White holiday season. So White in fact, that our visitors couldn't come, then they did, then they nearly couldn't get home again. Quite terrifying for all of us at various times!

New Year's Eve, my special bah humbug moment (enforced jolliment - won't do it), was spent practising for future years: I watched TV and Jodi snoozed on the couch while we waited for our resident party animals to phone to say they needed collecting from the local hostelry. I'm afraid to say that the prospect of a ball falling in Times Square did not hold the appeal of the Sydney fireworks, even when accompanied by the dulcet tones of Jodi's snoring, and I retired at 10.30. Luckily the partying Tates managed not to upset any locals and our porch was mercifully devoid of poo the next morning!

We had a brief thaw in the New Year and the grass appeared for an all-too-short day and a half. Since then, however, Mother Nature has been making up for lost time and we have had more snow than you can shake an icicle at. And it has been cold. So very cold. 3 degrees the other morning. Not too bad? Well, remember this is Fahrenheit we're talking. That's a super freezing -17 degrees C. MINUS SEVENTEEN AT NINE'O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING.

(Quick comparison for you though:  Jodi is in North Dakota as we speak and was on the receiving end of a Public Weather Warning this morning along the lines of:  don't go out with any flesh exposed as frost bite WILL set in. Wind chill expected to reach -40 degrees. Guess I should consider myself lucky.)

We built Finn a bobsled track in the back garden, and the wee chap was actually game enough to try it out. We can release the second trial run to the public - that's the one after Jodi built a snow pile at the bottom to stop Finn disappearing under the trees into next door's garden! I will do my utmost to attach said video here...

Meg is on the move: commando crawling with purpose now and really covering some space. The knee is starting to come up and the arm strength is definitely there so it won't be long now before she gets her wings and really starts causing trouble! Again, have some video.........

And so life continues into 2011:  hockey practice, gymnastics class, swimming lessons, Volunteer Fire Brigade, driving tests, triathlon training - I'll let you guess who is doing what!.

Dickens, in pictures.

 

Mr.Charles Dickens

   

Ebenezer Scrooge


 

Take heed, Mathews children!





A quick run through the story...



..outside the old Masonic building.

 Some

'period characters"



The ghost of Christmas present - and a policeman.



Queen Victoria, Jacob Marley and another ghost



Carols in the bandstand.



Guess who showed up, giving children candy?



A very chilly piper and drummer



Bah! Humbug!











Oh! ChristmasTree!






Take a cart, then....pick your tree





This one?



No. Keep looking!

This is the one. Now....saw it down!

Ta Da!

A bit of help to tidy up, then it's off to the professionals for......

a haircut.....

a hole in the bottom .....

for the stand, then.....

in she goes......

and hey presto, a bound tree ready for home.

They even help you load her up!



And a quick family photo for the album!


Done.



What the Dickens?

'Tis a funny old thing in this part of the world that ne'er a morsel do you hear of Christmas until the day after Thanksgiving then Bam! It's everywhere. And nowhere is this dramatic change more noticeable than in downtown Skaneateles.

For it is here that the local AmDrams like to thesp it up to the max and dash about town dressed as characters from A Christmas Carol. Yes, every weekend from now until Christmas Eve, various Cratchits, ghosts and even old Charlie-boy himself can be seen promenading the streets in full period costume (freezing their extremities off, no doubt) and greeting passers-by in English. And by that I mean English accents. Most of which, it must be said, fall into the Dick Van Dyke 'Cor Blimey Guv'nah' school of regional dialect, aiming hard for Whitechapel but hitting Dublin square on. Shocked they are indeed when answered in the Queen's own RP, and never entirely sure whether one is joining in with the charade or taking the, erm, mickey.

Anyway, the point is that they perform little snippets of the story at forewarned times of the day, and add in little extras like High Tea with Queen Victoria and a Carol-Off in the Bandstand. Much hilarity ensued on the opening day when an Urchin relieved a Gentleman of his fob watch and was chased down the street with a "Stop thief! In fact I felt doubly privileged when the Ghost of Christmas Present wished me Merry Christmas twice within the same hour. On the 26th November, no less.

This is the 17th year that Skaneateles has hosted such an extraordinary event and the tourists love it. This year the opening speeches were accompanied by flurries of aptly timed snow, and it was definitely fun spotting the characters, but the whole thing has the potential to get a little, how shall I say? annoying, with  its  persistent merriment and olde Worlde charm. Yup, I'm with Ebenezer on this one. Bah! Humbug.        

Beautiful baby, fabulous clothes, and our high chair, at last.

Finally

The Big Day dawned bright and sunny and a suitably filling breakfast was ordered to prepare us all for the next American Adventure. The morning was planned down to the last minute and, for once, the whole family was packed and in the car dead on time.
Having arrived (unusually) early, I spent the time psyching myself up. The half hour of pacing and mumbling flew by. It could not be put off any longer and it was with damp palms, a cold sweat, churning stomach and a general all round paling of skin that I prepared myself to.......


...watch Finn take to the ice for the first time.


My heart was in my mouth, I couldn't speak, I nearly left Meg in the foyer.

Finn was fine.

Really excited in fact, as he padded up and proudly pulled on his number 50 jersey. (I didn't see any of this, having been banished from the changing room due to exuding excessive levels of fear - Jodi thought this might put Finn off, for some reason.)

The first I saw was him tottering on unfamiliar blades down the hallway, clutching onto Dad for dear life, then finding himself being unceremoniously propped against a wall while Jodi shared a joke with the other hockey parents. (Obviously some of the other Mums were doing a much better job of keeping themselves under control than I was).

The word was given and the thirty or so teeny tiny, helmeted, padded and skated hockey tots were led one by one onto the ice.

It was instantly clear who had hockey parents, as some of the little girls and boys made a passable effort at skating over to some padded benches placed on the ice and sat down. Then there were those who had never before set foot on the ice and were given personal escorts to support them over to their places. Then there was the small Australian boy who wasn't really sure what ice was and looked more than a little surprised at discovering that it was actually quite cold.

I won't go  into too much detail as we have video, lots and lots of video, but progress was definitely made. The coaches were fabulous and let the kids find out a lot of things on their own but leaped in at speed if it looked as though despondency was setting in. One of them spent five individual minutes with Finn and he re-joined his group smiling - upright and smiling. He had started to move his feet and get up by himself and he was loving it.

Suffice it to say that the little boy who stepped off the ice practically skipped back to the locker room in his skates with not so much as a held hand and didn't stop talking about his hour on the ice all day. If that is not a roaring success then I don't know what is.