The one where we nearly achieved warp speed on a sledge
There had been plans to wander into town this morning in search of a new mobile phone. Somehow that plan got relegated after looking at my other half (who had promised to take the kids out to a nearby hill on their sledges). Ten minutes later I was the one stood in the hallway with walking boots and a warm coat on, waiting for three little people to find waterproof trousers, snow boots, hats and gloves.
Half an hour later – after a trudge through town and a chance meeting with the local builder who was doing exactly the same thing with his children – we climbed through a farmer's fence, and found ourselves at the top of the favourite local sledging hill.
Miss Seven went first, and caused us all to laugh out loud as she sat on our “supermarket special” sliding equipment, and shot down the hill like some kind of bobble hatted missile. Sure, she wiped out spectacularly halfway down, but our laughter caused her to laugh too, and suck up the inevitable bruises.
I watched each of the kids complete their runs, and then saw a couple of Dad's going too. I hadn't planned on taking part, but thought “what the hell”. Miss Twelve was preparing to set off down the hill again;
“Shall I get on the sledge too?”
“Will you fit?”
“Yep – scoot forward”
And so it was that I quadrupled the weight of her sledge as we began sliding, tucked together like sardines as she snuggled between my legs, and lay back against me. More by luck than judgement we drove a perfectly straight line down the hill, and picked up huge amounts of speed on the hard packed, fast snow. I'm sure there was a moment like Star Trek IV, where everything started happening in slow motion.
After surviving the amazed stares of children battered by our shock-wave on our way down the hill, I had to think about slowing down. I dug the heels of the walking boots into the hill, and showered both of us with a cloud of snow. It went in our eyes, our ears, up our noses, up the legs of our trousers... everywhere. While spitting it out of our mouths, we couldn't stop laughing.
“That was SO cool Dad”...