4 weeks later

It's been almost a month since my 30th birthday, and what have I been doing?

Basically, anything I've never done before: so far, almost every week I've done something that I've not done in my previous 2 decades of life: skiing, dentist, hospital (not in that order). It's been fantastic!

My Almost Brilliant Career as a Ski Bunny
The most exciting thing I've done was go skiing in Cervinia, Italy with Li and her friends! And for all those of you who are now asking "how many bloody holidays can this girl take?" the answer is 28 sweet, sweet, non working days.

I've been skiing once before for a grand total of 2 days, about 12 years ago (god that sounds old), however that didn't work out so well for me.. I spent one day learning how to stand skis and how to fall on our skis. The next day we went up the biggest mountain I'd seen in Australia, where I was completely paralysed with fear of death, and had to be helped to snow plow down by a very unimpressed ski instructor. This time however, I refused to be gripped by fear and after 3 hours on the baby, baby, baby slopes, I was convinced that a life skiing was definitely one for me. I had decided then and there that we were all going to be going down the big blue run within 2 days - all part of my "just go for it" idiotic attitude I'm planning on taking now I'm in my 30s.

On our second day, Li, Mary (the girl I was sharing with) and I, who were all beginners, enlisted into ski school - which is just like primary school but for adults all acting like Bambi on ice. Within 3 hours, we were all snow plowing our ways down, and I was loving it. With my mantra of "knees bend, feel the boot with my shins, legs apart" I was plowing my way down the second level blue run. Snow plowing, which is the beginner skiers best friend and life saver works by keeping your knees bend, and your legs apart so the edge of the skis can slow you down as you go hurtling down the mountain. Unfortunately for me, I find doing this properly quite hard - my legs simply refuse to stay apart and my knees keep forcing themselves together - I guess 13 years of a catholic education with nuns really have driven home the idea that good catholic girls keep their legs firmly shut...

At the end of our second day, this is where I decided that a ski bunny life was the life for me: ski all day, party at night, get a tan whilst lying on a deck chair in t-shirts in the amazingly hot sun with snow under my feet. So on the mountain, next to the Matterhorn I called Dr D and told him to tell our boss I quit:

Dr D: Um, yeah she says she quits... yeah she says she wants to be a ski bunny... yeah I don't know what one of those is either..

So am I going to properly quit my day job and become a fully fledged snow follower? Hmm I'm not too sure... our 3rd day skiing down the insane run to the village almost killed me - if my fear of flinging myself off the cliff wasn't enough, then perhaps the constant falling over as snow boarder after sodding stupid brainless snowboarder smashing into me kinda took the edge off it... My second last day I was tempting fate and honestly was expecting to break something - unfortunately for Li, she took the bullet for me. On our way down from the top of the mountain, her skis crossed themselves and snap she micro fractured her femur, and tore the ligaments in both her knees. Clearly not a girl for doing things in half's. I personally reckon this was all a master plan for her to pick up the burly Italian paramedics who skied her down the mountain in a sledge... she might not see it that way, but she was getting an fearful amount of attention from the Italian boys when she was upstanding, so I reckon her damsel in distress should have had them flocking to her!

This brings me nicely to my next "I've not done this before" of my 30s:

Attaching my feet to my bike and peddling like a falling stone
As I'm doing the London to Paris cycle, I thought it was high time I learn how to ride in cleats - pedals that attach to your shoes. Having got a pair for my birthday, the Sunday I got back from Cervenia Calv attached them to my bike and off we trundled to the local park so I could learn how to ride - again. Cycling round the park, I was really getting the hang of it.. the whole "feet attached to moving bike, twist my feet to get them out of the cleats" thing seemed like a piece of piss. That was until I went round the gentle bend, saw a man and his massive german shephard, slammed on the brakes and in slow blurry motion went crashing into the ground, smacking my head into a metal bar fence, and seriously hurting my hand..

Thought I'd dodged the bullet of hurting myself by not breaking anything skiing eh? Yeah, well fate really hates me..

I ended up for the first time in my life in casualty not just visiting but getting my hand x-rayed cause it hurt like crazy. Calv said the worst thing that could have happened was that I broke something in my wrist. I said no the worst thing that could happen is that we go to hospital and they find nothing wrong with me and me looking like a total baby. You know what? I could have been a psychic. The nurse looked at my x-rays and say "well, it seems you've only sprained your hand.. you'll be fine in a few days". Bloody crap - Li fractures her femur. I, like a hypochondriac go to hospital with a sprained hand. And by the next morning it started to feel allot better. Definitely that's the worst thing.

Not yet paying for his kids college education
The next thing on my "not done this before" tour of my 30s: seeing if I can help the local dentist send his kids to Eton.

Strictly speaking I have been to the dentist. Twice. But both times were those "first check is free, but after you're addicted to the pain of having a sadomasochist ripping into your mouth, you'll have to pay" visits, which I don't really count because they didn't do anything other than say "if you want that chip in your front tooth fixed, we'll have to remove your back 4 teeth" (Why?). However seeing as I am now in my more, ahem, mature 30's I thought it was only wise to go and get myself checked out... So you can imagine the amount of abuse I got when I said I'd not been in 16 years. My dentist told me before I opened my mouth he was expecting to find lots of problems, and then proceeded to tell me off for not having been before (well I can't imagine why not..) Fully expecting root canal or all of my front teeth needing to be replaced and being forced to live with the nickname "gummy" forever, I was shocked to my core when the dentist said I nothing wrong with my teeth. At all. GET IN!! I'm not "big book of British smiles" yet!! WOOHOO!!

Tomorrow: Cooking, cooking, cooking
I have wanted to go to Le Cordon Bleu cooking school for about half a decade now. Finally, thanks to Calv, C, Dr D, and The Magic, I am going to a 4 day course starting tomorrow. I'm frankly shitting myself. I'm insanely nervous but looking forward to like you wouldn't believe!

So that's the cliff notes version of where I've been, what I've been doing, and were I'm going.