Frozen water based activities

So we finally managed to attempt a spot of cross-country skiing. Took us a while of trekking around, carting skis and sticks, to not find and then find a suitable nursery area for us skiing sproglings. It was beautiful hiking around the snow-covered wonderland. With the forests and the lighting and the sparkling diamond snow, it felt exactly how I imagine I would feel in Narnia. Absolutely divinely pretty!

View from front of van while driving

Front and back view at the same time!

Later in the evening, we headed out to do a spot of ice-skating. It was a completely different experience to in England. No queue at the boot hire place, no rush to do things quickly, enormous amounts of space on the vast outdoor rink. It was also pretty cheap compared with England - around £6 for as long as you wanted.

There were also no barriers to crash into, so I had to remember how to stop. The surface of the ice was smooth and quite frightening to start, but I quickly realised how much better my skates were - longer, sharper blades that cut smoothly into the ice. It was a beautiful sensation, almost like flying, and completely effortless.

While we were skating in an inner ring (much larger than UK outdoor rinks and marked only with mounds of snow) or around the outside of the inner ring, the speed skaters were racing around the outer edge of the large outer ring. Eventually Santa arrived and the littlest people disappeared to visit him, while the larger kids and adults vanished into the club house for prize giving from the skating races. This meant that Damae and I could rebelliously skate on the speed skaters' patch - an even smoother and cleaner feeling under the feet.

With toes numb and frozen, I eventually decided I'd had enough and I went indoors to the club house, where fresh waffles and jam were being served with hot drinks...and then they started to give the last waffles away for free, so I had another!

A satisfying and enjoyable day.