It's been snowing!  As usual we've not got it as bad as the rest of the country, but meh.

So being a responsible grown up, I went and built a snowman in my garden.  I had started one at work on Friday whilst waiting for anyone else to show up and unlock, but that one didn't get much past 'skittle' size/shape.

Two faces because I did the first one (on the left, with leaf tie/scarf), then realised you could only see it from standing inside the garden - hence second face on the other side, visible to the neighbours.

Later on I noticed I'd been completely outdone by a neighbour's children/grandchildren - but theirs fell over after an hour or so - so hah, I win.

I also tried tobogganing down the grass at the front of my house, which unsurprisingly didn't work, what with it being pretty much flat...

Anyway, that was fun with snow.. yesterday was less fun, and more scary driving.  Having foolishly assumed that it was ok to go out just after it had started snowing heavily again, because I only needed to drive on the main road and that would surely be gritted and clear... haha, nope.  Crawled back home a few hours later at about 20mph, with traction control warning lights flashing at me every now and again.

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Somehow I never got around to writing about our trip to Scotland last October. oops.

We went up for a whole week, for some paddling (of course!) and also for Sharon and Duncan's wedding

looking across Loch Laggan

I'm a sucker for autumn colour anyway, but the highlands were particularly orange and beautiful.  Not that it hasn't been just as pretty at easter, of course - just a bit more green.

Paddling wise, we were quite lazy and could have done more rivers if we'd felt arsed.  But instead there were hangovers, trips to the shops/pharmacy, and some faffing about driving up to Invermoriston for no real reason.

Anyhoo, rivers:

• Lower Nevis - bouncy grade 2 with a 4 right at the end. Lovely warm up for those of us with sore heads (everyone - though 2 of the 6 didn't make it into their boats...)
• Etive - yes, I found some balls and finally got on the Etive again!  Didn't entirely end well as I ran triple on my head (again) then had some spraydeck 'issues' (it imploded.  twice.) so didn't do the full run.  Next time, definitely!
• Arkaig - after aforementioned faffy driving about, they put on the Arkaig with not much daylight left.  I didn't paddle, and did the shuttle instead so they wouldn't have to get off in the dark.  again, next time..
• Pattack - carnage!  I'd looked at the final rapid and decided against it, then stood and watched a lot of other paddlers run down and get trashed.  Good decision!  But I'll do it at some point, because it looked good.

fishing my boat out of Triple

Then we headed down to Ayr for the wedding, which was lovely.  More sore heads the morning after, fixed by a huge fry up and a walk along the seafront (plus several large cups of tea).

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