Humor: Rubbing snow into old wounds

Rubbing snow into old wounds

I am feeling a little guilty because yesterday I received my first Christmas card for the season.

Sheesh, is that the date?

I have not started writing cards yet.
Until yesterday, I had not even thought about starting to write them.
And, to be honest, the senders of my first card would not have been on my list even if I had.

It is not that I do not like them.
It is just I detest the very earth they stand on.
Um, well, not the earth exactly. The snow.

The Christmas card came from the owners of a lodge on the fringe of the Snowy Mountain ski-fields in eastern Australia, about two hours' drive from here in Canberra.

I HATE snow. I mean really, really HATE it.

But every July/August I get outvoted by the family and end up going to the ski-fields. We have been staying at that lodge for some years.

"You'll be fine," my family tells me.
"We'll go and build snowmen, have snowball fights and ski, and you can sit in the cafe and drink hot chocolate."

This is a fine plan. But there is a flaw.
There is only so much hot chocolate one man can drink before running out of money or exploding.
Sooner or later, he must sloosh and waddle out into the snow where a happier-than-should-be-allowed-in-freezing-conditions family member will inevitably shove a snowball down the back of his neck and laugh as if it were funny.

When I was a little boy, my family took me to see the snow on the top of Mount Barrow in Northern Tasmania and I decided there and then that, with respect to snow lovers, what looked good on postcards and Christmas cards was not all it was cracked up to be.

It is wet and it is c-c-c-c-c-c-cold, especially shoved down the back of the neck.

I was travelling in Europe when I was 17 and happened to be in Innsbruck, Austria, during the 1976 Winter Olympics.
But it was much, much, much too cold to venture to any of the venues to see what it was all about. Instead, I stayed by the toasty open fire in the youth hostel and watched it all on TV.

Coincidentally, one of Australia's skiers at the 1976 Winter Olympics is now one of the owners of the ski lodge we go to at Jindabyne on the fringe of the Snowy Mountains, and her name is on the Christmas card I received yesterday.

I fear that the card is some kind of reminder that she knows what I did that winter.

Of course, it is summer here now and there is no snow, even at the high altitude of the Snowy Mountain ski-fields, so perhaps I am overreacting.

Our climatic situation does not stop us sending each other Christmas cards adorned with snow scenes though, even though we know we will probably be sunning ourselves around the barbecue, eating prawns and salad, for Christmas dinner.

I am even thinking of sending a few of those wintery cards to pals in the Northern Hemisphere. I will not mention the sun and prawns. I'll just write "ha-ha-ha-ha-ha" everywhere and let them draw their own conclusions.

NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it