Fernie so far......

Hello me again,

So where were we ah yes Fernie, well it's a lovely little town with no commercial things like McDonalds or starbucks it's great :) just little coffee shops and lots of board shops and the odd grocery shop here and there. It's nesteled in the valley of the Rocky Muntains in Beautiful British Columbia. The hostel is nice, the people are more our age range, no youth club activities of an eve, they do have a bar and a big kitchen where we have our free pancake breakfast before we go boarding, i'm liking bananas with a drizzle of maple syrup, it's quickly burnt off after several hours boarding.

So the boarding well the snow is better than Banff but still not great, It's really nice to have new places to explore and the mountians are great here, they have so many bowls to play in, which i did most of yesterday with a young chap we met at the hostel who lives in Ruislip Manor, so just round the corner from where we used to live, and that's not the weirdest coincidence there's a guy here (Mac) who not only used to live in Ruislip Gardens but also now lives in maidenhead and used to work downstairs from Tim (in what was WRL!!)... and now works with Chris Pether for those that remember him! Also, another guy (Gavin) who last year went on a canoeing trip from Glasbury-on-Wye!!!!! VERY small world or is there some sort of pull for people like us to Fernie?

So back to the snow, we do seem to be chasing the powder somewhat (that is not a drug reference!), we're moving on again on Thursday 3am, we love those early starts, to a tree hugging, hippy cool place called Nelson which is VERY laid back, it'll be great :) Also the hostel looks lovely and we get to have a twin room, (we might even nudge the beds together). From there we can board to Whitewater ski resort which will be new and interesting :)

Poorly Tim's ill again, he has a cold, honestly what is he like the one time we get to have fun together and he's in bed! Tomorrow i'm wrapping up warm and getting him out for a walk if it's the last thing i do. So this morning while he was asleep i went for a great run about 8 miles along the frozen river Elk with the bright sunshine on my back, I didn't see any wildlife apart from lots of beaver dams and dog walkers, which was nice:)

It's really nice here everyone say "hello" when you pass them in the street, my dad would love it :)

So we saw our first hockey match live the other night, with foam fingers and everything, OMG! that was an experience we went with the guys from here who are all avid "Fernie Ghost Riders" fans, so with neither of us knowing the rules apart from my favourite which is if you're still standing you can keep on fighting, and i mean real fist fighting with the refs watching until one hits the floor.....it really was an eye opener. My other favourite thing was the locals, where on entering the hockey stadium you are welcomed with a raffle to win the biggest most evil looking cross bow killing machine, but what was nice was that it was set up just next to the candy vending machines, (kids love'em!)
At half time they had mini hockey players, who were great, with mini carnage, it was like we'd moved back a mile or so away from where we were sitting and things had been put into slow motion.

We sat and watched Canada loose to the USA in the olympics last night, the room was very quiet, i must say they don't seem to fight as much as the Ghost Riders do! So i see we got a gold a medal, honestly you wouldn't know it - if it's not Canadian it's not on the TV, our favourite bit is if they win silver or bronze they don't bother with interviewing the other gold medalists:) Sorry but we won't be popping up in the background of any of the BBC interviews as we're won't be there by then.

So that it i think, Tim has fallen asleep on the sofa, (this is a recurring theme in any hostel we seem to visit so far), unfortunately no roaring fire in this one!

we'll be signing off now, over and out from the travelling marshs :)