Good morning! Happy holiday weekend to my American friends – I hope you are having a restful, peaceful and contemplative Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. We have another blanket of snow on the ground here, although this one is shallower than last time’s, and pockmarked by last night’s freezing rain. I’m planning a cozy at-home sort of day, getting things done around the house, and hopefully breaking that up with a hike or ice skating in the afternoon if the roads aren’t too icy.

Backing up to Saturday, though – I had a big adventure. I took Nugget skiing! When I was growing up, my family skied almost every winter weekend, and I belonged to my school ski club. I love skiing – there’s nothing like the feeling of flying down a mountainside in the crisp winter air. Steve, by contrast, doesn’t ski or snowboard; he tried a few times as an adult, to make me happy, but it hasn’t taken. So it just wasn’t one of the family things we did with the kids, and I missed it. A few years ago, my dad started teaching Peanut to ski, but Nugget was such a baby at the time that going to the mountain as a family was just too overwhelming, and it didn’t happen. But recently, Nugget has been asking to go skiing (and he’s a very different kid) and I wanted to go, too, and I finally decided I’d just take him myself. If Steve and Peanut wanted to join us, great, and if not, we would still go. So, on Saturday – that’s what we did. I loaded Nugget and my ski gear into the car and drove us about an hour and twenty minutes north to Liberty Mountain in Pennsylvania. You guys. He did amazingly well – I was so insanely proud of him. First of all, I made the strategic mistake of taking him on MLK Day weekend, when the mountain was mobbed. It took almost two hours in line to get his rental skis and boots and the little guy didn’t complain once. Literally, I complained more than he did (I needed the restroom and was also feeling terrible about his first experience of skiing being standing in a two hour line before even setting foot on the mountain). Then once we got on the slope – finally – he picked up the basics right away and was flying down the bunny hill before I knew it! He loved every second – except that he wants ski poles and doesn’t like the wedge formation (he’s one of those kids that just wants to fly straight down the mountain) – and he’s asked to go again this coming Saturday. I didn’t touch black diamond snow, my whole afternoon was spent on the magic carpet, and it was the best mountain day ever because I made myself a ski buddy.

That was long! Sunday was much quieter and less exciting. The usual running around – weekly swim class, plus Nugget’s indoor soccer started up yesterday so we headed straight from the pool to the gym. And the rest of the day I spent finally cleaning up the living areas (there was a lot of Christmas detritus still laying around, plus piles of snow gear and boots, schoolwork, legos…) and cooking a roast chicken. The snow started to fall as we were leaving soccer, so we also got in plenty of time gazing at it out the windows and watching the squabbles at the bird feeder. Restful. (For us, not for the birds.)

Reading. ‘Twas another busy reading week! On Monday, I finished up Square Haunting, which is now neatly stacked up with Patsy and waiting to go back to the library (tomorrow, maybe?). Then back to my own shelves – I dipped into my Christmas stack and tore through the hilarious Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village. (It’s based on this CrimeReads piece, by the same author, if you want a flavor – but there’s added material in the book.) Next I picked up another recent Dean Street Press reprint – Mrs. Tim Carries On, the sequel to the wonderful Mrs. Tim of the Regiment. I loved it just as much as the first in the series. Then, I thought to pick up some nature writing to start off the year and grabbed H.E. Bates’ beautiful Through the Woods (although it starts in April, so perhaps I should have saved it for spring, but I’d already got it off the shelf by the time I realized that, so…) and then rolled through Amanda Gorman’s gorgeous and cathartic Call Us What We Carry. Finally, late on Sunday, I picked up another Christmas present – Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World (fact). I’m only about 25 pages in as of press time, but enjoying it immensely.

Watching. We continue to be basically English – wrapped up Winterwatch 2021 on Sunday evening, progress on recent Gardener’s World, and now thinking we’ll turn to older series of Winterwatch while we wait for the 2022 live cameras to boot up on BBC.

Listening. I am still making my way through Melissa Harrison’s beautiful 2020 nature podcast, The Stubborn Light of Things. I’m into June now and it’s lovely.

Making. Meh, just the usual. Lots of lunches and dinners for everyone (the roast chicken yesterday came out delish); many, many work emails; a clean living room, finally. Today I have designs on homemade chicken stock.

Moving. Y’all know what’s a workout? Teaching a six-year-old to ski. Lots of sidestepping uphill while towing him, hauling him to his feet when he fell, bending over (while on skis myself) to retrieve his skis after he yard sales… and 100% worth it, every single bit. Other than the obvious, it was the usual. Neighborhood runs.

Blogging. Part II of my 2021 reading retrospective on Wednesday, and back to the PNW with another travel post on Friday. Check in with me then!

Loving. I’ve already waxed lyrical enough about skiing with the little dude, but I’ll just give it a few more sentences; hope you don’t mind. It’s been years since I got a day on the mountain and it was amazing – more so because Nugget was there. I try so hard to meet my kids where they are and not force anything on them; his love of kayaking, and now hopefully skiing too, is all him. He’s just the coolest, best adventure buddy I could have wished for.

Asking. What are you reading this week?