Snow report with saucy diversion

You want the saucy diversion first, don't you? Here it is, the tale of a Dutch couple who, er, coupled on the bonnet of a police car. With the incredulous police sitting inside. It says something about the Dutch that they only got in trouble because they refused to leave!

The snow was beautiful, even if it's in the process of melting. It was a long uphill push to the nice bits, by the end of which our lesson had ended. We caught our breath, then took off along the path to a section called Panorama. Here's a shot, some more, and a trail map for the hardcore.

Compared with alpine the skis were hard to control in the downhill stretches, but that kept things exciting. And the other bits, as Zoe suggested, were just like bushwalking. Only faster and better.

The views were heartstoppingly beautiful, and there was about an hour out there in the backcountry where we didn't see another person.

I had one of those amazing days where you don't feel down or angry at all, from 1st coffee to last waking moments snuggled up watching rage, drifting off with a smile on your face.

It's my birthday today. I'm 33. In addition to the skiing, and a fantastic dinner that night in cute alpine Marysville, I'm gettin a wine appreciation course and copies of Dispatches

"...wrote about the Vietnam War for Esquire magazine, gathered his years of notes from his front-line reporting and turned them into what many people consider the best account of the war..."

and the Tyrannicide Brief

"..a life of John Cook, the bravest of barristers, whose bowels were publicly burned as punishment for sending the King to the scaffold."

Sweet. Nice when people get birthday book-buying bang on the mark!

UPDATE: Spoke a wee tad too soon. 'Dispatches' arrived, and had somehow morphed into a travel book called 'Unquiet Vietnam'. Hmmm, well, I guess I can't complain, they tried. And I'm sure it will be an entertaining read.

How can you get those things mixed up though?