Another early morning to catch the bus up to the remarkables ski fields. It was to be Ashley's first day of skiing and my first day of snowboarding.

My introduction to snowboarding was a little frustrating, after mastering the clips on my bindings I found that I had no idea how to stand up. I attempted several times but achieving nothing but a prematurely bruised bum. In this time Ash had clipped on his skis and started down the beginners slope.

A little disheartened I checked in for a much needed lesson, confident that by the end of the day I would be not only standing but ready to tackle a slope a little more challenging than the "magic carpet" runs that must have had a whooping 2' gradient.

There was about eight people in my lesson from all over the globe. We were taken to the bottom of the magic carpet run where it was dead flat to practice scooting around on one foot, gradually lifting the other foot onto the board, but without bindings. We used the heel or toe of our unbound foot to drag in the snow to control our speed and direction.

After an hour or so of this it was up to the top of the snow to bind in both feet. This presented the challenge of standing up from a sitting position, something most of us needed a hand with. We practiced digging our heels in to control our speed, then some simple traversing. Throughout this we fell over numerous times bruising both butts and knees.

After lunch break our diminished class (one girl had fallen and dislocated her shoulder, the other two girls had given up) regrouped and practiced some more. It was a triumphant moment that I managed to stand up on my own. We did some "C" turns and finally some "S" turns. By the end of the lesson I was convinced that my entire legs and buttocks would be black and blue the next day and looking longingly at skis that would enable me to go up a real lift and actually see what sort of runs existed up there, runs I hoped to become well acquainted with over the next months.

I caught hold of Ashley who was loving the skis, he wanted to go up the first chairlift, I encouraged him and saw him on his way, then knowing that my body had taken all the abuse it could handle for one day returned my hire gear and went to get some food and a drink.

I'm glad Ashley had a good time and did a few beginner runs, glad that I convinced him to try skis and not snowboard. Yet I am determined to learn snowboarding, it looks so graceful, so easy when done properly, I just need a few days to master it.