We're in a wilderness

between practices, and it feels weird. As soon as Doug gets back from Munich we're thrown into sessions every other night and the suspense is killing me. Will we prevail? Will we rock? Damn straight we will. Come along and join in the fun! Proxy return, along with 8 Million Ways To Die, and I've got a good feeling about this gig.

I managed to go boarding on Saturday with Ashley and Kerstin, after false starts, parking tickets, sold-out hire places and full to the brim ski areas all tried to stop us. We went to Glenshee in the end, arriving just in time for the weather to close in and try seriously to flay the skin from our faces.

We hiked along the ridge from from the top of Cairnwell chair and ended up coming down the race track area, dodging the burn at the bottom but somehow managing to get off to a reasonable start. Ash was particularly good given she hasn't skiied in the last decade, although I think the vicious conditions (and even more vicious Pomas) were a bit of a handful for Kerstin.

We got a few decent runs down Carn Aosda before fatigue, wind burn and rocks got the better of us. We must have spent something obscene like £10 per run all in, with gear, lift pass and petrol taken into account. I was so tired - as much from late nights, boozing and work as boarding, to be honest - to get all that worked up about this ridiculous excess, so we headed home with nary a self-righteous rant to be heard. After a copper had helped us get the Saab out of the snowy car park, mind you.

Talking of the Saab, I drove home to use Dad's shiny new garage to change the oil. I've never done anything remotely mechanical on a car before bar changing a tyre, and this was a whole new area of problems waiting to happen. Mercifully it went well; the sump plug came out and went in without any cross-threading drama, and after ten minutes of grunting and ligament stretching, the oil filter finally came loose. It's as if the designers decided, after coming up with ingenious solutions to every other design problem they faced, to throw in the towel on this most mundane part.

"Dammit! The øil filter wøn't fit anywhere else, Bjørn. Only a lubricated midget cøntørtiønist will be able to change it. What can we dø?"
"Ah, leave it, Benny. We must hunt elk nøw, and reminisce abøut raping and pillaging."

Still, the Saab (possibly to be christened the Trøll - other suggestions on a postcard, please) remains incredibly solid. Definitely the best £950 I've ever spent. Apart from that Cristal, Columbian marching powder and crystal meth fuelled, hilarious and ultimately fatal vomit-caked romp in Bratislava that one time. But that's another story.