Grandma Invasion & Crazy Weather

Only one week now until Baba Luda arrives from Russia for an extended stay, up to 2 years. The language situation in the house could get a little complex, as I should speak to Lara - and Dan - in more French really, and there will be no escaping Russian for the foreseeable future. I need to start practicing too!

Then in a month, Grandma arrives from England, fresh from her own house move from Radcliffe to Portishead. It'll be great to have them both here for a month over Christmas and New Year - let's hope for a genuine White Christmas!

Thinking of White Christmas, and snow, we've had the polar opposite recently, no pun intended. For the last week or so, and predicted for the next 5 or 6 days at least, we've been subject to a Chinook, meaning the daytime temperatures have been very high for the time of year - here's a photo of our thermometer I took last Friday afternoon - it peaked at 20 degrees C:

This doesn't bode well for the start of the skiing season - we're supposed to be at Nakiska this coming weekend for Lara's first training session in the U10+ group, complete with her ski racing suit. I think there's enough snow high up on the mountain for her to train, but I don't think the rest of us will make the effort to join in. The weekend after Lara has training at a different resort, near Banff, and that's a lot higher, and has a lot more snow already, so we'll definitely be skiing then.  I've had to turn part of our attached garage into the family Ski Tuning area, where I'll be sharpening edges and waxing bases during the week, especially for both Lara's pairs of skis: