The end of my much anticipated season as a ski instructor came yesterday and as a result, I'm back home in my comfy lounge writing this, whilst I wait for Jennifer (now the household breadwinner ;-)) to get home from work!
I couldn't be more happy to be home and in the comfort of my home, my friends and my family. As fantastic as the season was (I'll get to that in a minute), my body was telling me that it couldn't cope with any more skiing this year so I knew it was time to come home!
Yesterday's journey was a very efficient one, until I landed at Heathrow (ahead of schedule) at which point it took an hour to park the plane and then an hour and a half to get the luggage off! Fortunately Jennifer was there waiting for me and I got a long expected hug and kiss on arrival.
The season has been long and hard physically... much tougher than I anticipated. I arrived in early December feeling relatively well after just about getting over a nasty 2 month virus. I then had a week of free skiing before starting work at the ski school. At this point I started to meet the people that would become my buddies throughout the season. People like Dan, Claire, May, Beata, Paddy, Andy, Daniel, Melissa, Kurt, Rob, Duncan, Simon (the list goes on... a lot!).
Christmas and New Year was hectic with lessons but also with Jennifer's first visit of the season. This was an awesome time though and I managed to spend as much time (if not more) with her than actually teaching ski lessons.
After Christmas, the lesson demand slowed down so I slashed the number of days I was scheduled to teach and got into the training. My main focus of training was the level 3 prep days in anticipation of doing the CSIA Level 3 course and possibly exam. Through this process I made more friends in George, Lian, Mike, Marko and Yovona. Leading into February, we all (apart from Yovona) took our Level 3 course and our skiing really progressed noticeably. Mike's skiing in particular was spectacular and out of all of us, he was the only person to pass his level 3 in the next exams in March. I decided that I wouldn't take my level 3 exams until I had resolved my boot alignment issues and ultimately ran out of exams to take before coming home. Not taking the exams is about the only thing that feels like unfinished business this season but I guess it just gives me a reason to go back.
After Darren visited and made strides with his skiing, then came Presidents week; the holiday week that is the busiest for the ski school saw me manage to blag the week off. When every single ski instructor was put to work, I was skiing with Jennifer who was on her second visit to Whistler. We also managed to hit Vancouver during the week, where we went to see Tenacious D and generally treated ourselves to a high class evening by staying in the 5 star Sutton Place Hotel.
Unfortunately, I'd got ill during Darren's visit and so wasn't so active during Presidents week. I felt a bit better by the time Jennifer left (typical!) and then enjoyed probably my two favourite days on snow this season. Firstly there was level 3 prep with Guy, when the usual trainees told the trainers that we didn't want instruction... we just wanted to ski. So we skied powder through all sorts of terrain on one of the best powder days of the season. The second memorable day was "Epic Tuesday" which saw a bunch of us rip around Whistler mountain skiing great powder and jumping any cliff we could find.
Since "Epic Tuesday" there have been a few great days of skiing but I think it will be a long time until I enjoy a day as good as that on snow again. Unfortunately I've been getting more and more tired as the last few weeks have progressed and I've been skiing and teaching less and less as a result. Finally the decision to come home was made and then the end of season partying began.
My departure was marked on Monday by post-work drinks in the Cinammon Bear. I was stunned and delighted by the number of people that showed up to say goodbye to me. This made me realise what a large and great group of friends I made this season. After the drinks, a bunch of us went to the Keg for a farewell dinner. It was great to enjoy a quiet meal with some of my favourite people from the instructor community.
Then yesterday, before heading home, I got out on the slopes for one final time to ski some fresh powder on Blackcomb with Dan and a bunch of others. After lunch I headed off and the guys all gave me big hugs to see me off and I was pretty choked by the whole thing. There's no doubt in my mind that I'll meet these people again, and in a number of cases I know that I've made long term friends.
I popped into the ski school hut to say bye to Daphne and Melissa. Daphne has been my saviour this year by giving me so much time off to spend with Jennifer. She highlighted this in front of Wade, my supervisor, but he himself gave me a great send-off and was openly keen about getting me back to work in the ski school again.
Jen and I have discussed it and one day, when the opportunity and the money is there for us to do it, we'll go back for a season... but I'm definitely not going over there without her again.
