Choose Ice

Unseasonal weather continues here in Vancouver. After being trapped under an inversion for what seemed like forever, the mist lifted and we have cold, sunny weather. The mist was very pretty when you got up on the mountains. On Friday Big Jon (I forget why he's called that) was in town,  flying an aeroplane from London to Vancouver and back. There was some snow to be found and we had a fun day of skiing on Cypress with one of his crew. Then we ate cake at the Savary Island Pie Company. Some time I will have to get a pie there.

Vancouver, poking it's head out from the mist. 

Photo credit: Sean's Girlfriend. I don't know Sean, or his mysterious girlfriend.

Something else I have at the moment is Emma the cat. Emma came to stay for a month once before when Jeff, Tracy and Isabel went on holiday to Europe. This time they only got as far as Portland, but I got to be entertained by Emma for a few days. Emma's favourite game is to sit on my stairs or windowsill and make threatening faces at birds. The birds so far remain unperturbed.

On Saturday, a few of us headed up to Callaghan to skate ski and watch ski jumping.  Despite it being unpopular around here to say anything good about the 2010 Winter Olympics, I really didn't feel at all bad about our tax money being spent on this place... the ski trails were great and seeing World Cup ski jumping up close was quite something. The winning jump was around 140m... which is a long way to go without touching the ground. The cold, clear weather was great for cross-country skiing, which is convenient as it's not so great for other kinds of skiing out there just now.

I don't remember what was funny...

Yesterday I got my first decent off-road ride, in a long time, on Burnaby Mountain. Paul, Pete and I enjoyed the fast, crispy trails and the odd patch of frozen snow. Well... lower down it was the odd patch. Higher up we enjoyed scrabbling around on the unrideable, re-frozen snow and the odd patch of trail. Well... I enjoyed it. 

On Friday 12 of us are off to the Kootenays to fly into Sorcerer Lodge for a week. Fingers crossed for snow!