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Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your viewpoint, Passepartout is into snowboarding and I have been convinced to try my hand (legs?) at it. The hope being that if I am not a complete no-hoper I can progress to an alpine holiday.

And so it was that I found myself at an indoor ski slope last Friday. I didn't know such places even existed. I am sure it was all dry slopes last time I checked, but now you can pay to be in a big fridge with real snow. Well, not real real snow, but artificial real snow. It is like cheese. Real cheese is real cheese. Yellow cardboard is artificial cheese. Kraft slices are artificial real cheese.

I did lessons one and two, which were thankfully very basic, and I can now slide down the hill backwards on my toe edge and forwards on my heel edge. I can't actually aim the board downhill and let God decide my fate. That sort of crazy behaviour can wait until I am in the Alps - if I am going to die strapped to a plank of wood, I want to die somewhere nice.

Of course, now that I am a snowboarder I am cool. And rad, dude.

I need to stop drinking tea and start drinking Mountain Dew while listening to the Lo-fidelity All-stars. I need to talk about half-pipes. I might even need to start smoking half-pipes. Or maybe what I really need to do is buy a snowboarding dictionary so I know what all this weird shit means.