Snowboarding is awesome!

As a complete surprise, P. has taken me snowboarding at Xscape! It was amazing.

Never done anything like it in my entire life... Not even properly skiing. The snowboard, by the way is massive! I mean, you know the skate boards that kids have and they pass you on the street with it... well, it's nothing like it.

It's very big, very heavy and very slippery. The only way to control it is to control the edges - the toe edge and the heel edge. That's what we got taught in the first lesson. Basically at Xscape, you need to have 4 lessons before trying out on your own.

Which I think is more than realistic, since the first time I stood up on the board felt like I was a complete thumble norris! Your feet are completely stuck on the board, so you cannot move them - to escape, to move to do anything. All is done in the balance that you achieve, with bending your knees and controlling the edges.

So, as I said, the first lesson is on the toe edge and you're basically going down backwards, without seeing much, then putting your toe edge into the snow not to slip, then let go a bit, slipping and then doing it again.

I absolutely loved out snowboarding instructor and the facilities were fantastic. You go into the Xscape and all looks normal as a big retail centre would look like. Then you get into the Snow area and all people are dressed with thermal wear. You get changed into the boots and get your boad and go through 2 doors. From outside the 2 doors you cannot see anything, but as soon as you go in, the size of the slope (the main one, not the beginners one that we were using) is impressive to say the least. People are skiing and snowboading down a massive slope, then on each side, you have the ropes taking you to the top.

And the snow is really good, absolutely freezing, but you get warm quite fast from the effort you put in. But the sheer size of the space, quite open and very high it simply takes you to another world. I actually thought I was in some mountains, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, on a holiday.

I can tell you that coming back to the real world is not easy. Especially with work today and getting up in the morning, I was exhausted!

But all worth it, we have already booked for the next lesson !