Two plastic sticks and two plastic planks
What can I say? I was alone and bored when sisters were in school, father and brother were doing things that involved tractors and getting more smellier and mum was in some sort of 'how to treat your calves better' and it was such a nice day, sun shone from clear sky and I had been up since half past seven because I had to see dentist (two holes, one of which got fixed and now my tongue hurts because I haven't been able to stop messing with the fixed tooth) so... yeah, I went to ski today. And I mean skiing, not that cool thing at some cool place where you merely find one way or another to get down the hill and then some lift takes you back up, repeat a few times and have a cup of hot chocolate in after-ski bar when you get bored and want to meet other cool people. No, I mean the actual business.
Skiing is some sort of natinal sports here, because all the snow we tned to have and unless one is one of those (un)lucky bastards in Southern Finland whose snow is more like ice and dirt (instead of the pure white cotton candy -snow the rest of the Finland have), we generally learn to ski when we start our school, or sooner. We learn how to tie the skiing boots (whatever they are called in English), how to put left hand forwards the same time with the right leg and the other way round, push yourself in motion, how to get the hills up and down and in the meanwhile how to ruin the perfect trail when falling down on one's butt. Yeah, those at least are pretty sensible things to learn but for reasons unknown we also had to turn around in the most bizarre way in history (I suppose it was only because to save some time if one ends up to be some great skiier who accidentally ends up in wrong path and has to turn around, no real person ever has the need to do so. Except perhaps some clowns.) by turning one leg 180 degrees round and then making the other feet to do the same, the skis still fixed in those funny shoes and if one didn't end up falling down, it was some miracle (that practise was naturally done in a place so slippery and hard that falling down wasn't very pleaseant or avoidable, especially since when one lost balance one generally had feet in one big knot). And then when the skiing was done in school we had to take the skis back home in a school taxi. 15 pupils with their long skis made a nice stack and one had to be almost Tarzan in order to get out of the car.
You perhaps got the correct feeling that I don't recall those times with golden glasses?
It was somewhat a surprise to me when I found myself enjoying the sun on two plastic planks as I have been avoiding skis ever since I was allowed to do so (a.k.a. when the P.E. was totally over) but once again it was a proof that things, esp. excercise are not fun when you are forced to do so. Our younger dog was also with me so when I grew a little tired I just watched how the doggie played in the snow or got the sense of some mouse under the snow and all that was visible of it - the dog I mean - when it tried to find the mouse was the butt and the tail, the rest of the dog was under the snow. Yeah, it was just fine. But I think I'll have very sore legs tomorrow, and possibly sunburn face...