I am a bad man v2.

I rather evilly sloped off to go for a day's snowboarding on Saturday, rationalising the fact that if I were to go on Saturday, although I'd miss Antonio's birthday lunch I'd at least see both him and Estelle that evening at her party. If I were to go on Sunday instead, I'd probably have to miss Estelle's party so I could get up early enough.

With my conscience thusly fooled, I dragged myself out of bed about 7.30 am and headed up north to Glenshee. The Capp's screenwash, of course, ran out a couple of miles outside of Perth and none of the local garages for local people on the way had any left. This made for an entertaining drive, to say the least. It's amazing how much grit a minivan travelling at a road rage-inducing 15 mph can throw up.

Most of the best runs were served by T-bar lifts ('T' standing for 'torture', at least for boarders) and my right leg was killing me by the end of the day. I made the mistake of taking the Carn Aosda T-bar at one point, 'Carn Aosda' being Gaelic for 'Bugger Me, It's Windy Up Here'. After having to keep my toe edge dug in the whole way up - the entire lift path is at a slight oblique angle - so that my calf muscles were aching mightily, it was so windy at the top that I had to unstrap my board to avoid being ripped bodily off the side of the mountain.

On the up side, the lee side of the mountain had a reasonable cover of semi-fresh snow. Fresh snow is great; the confidence inspired by a forgiving surface is better than any amount of practise and I had an enjoyable hour or so caning down just a couple of runs. All in all, a 6 out of 10 on the Roquefort Files' official Scottish Boarding Day scale.

Unfortunately, my legs are now stiff as a board and I appear to have the cold. Rats.