Lac Curran

After a quiet but enjoyable Christmas, we were invited up to the cottage of one of Elli's bosses, Rick. His cottage is on Lac Curran, a little west of Montreal, and right on the edge of the lake.

As we mentioned previously, it's been a pretty disappointing winter so far. A tiny bit of snow at the start of December, and then nothing until after Christmas. Rural Montreal, however, looks like Narnia in the grip of the Snow Queen. The place was swimming in the stuff; easily the most snow I've seen in my life.

Rick, his future son-in-law Gabriel, Ceasar the dog, and myself

We spent two nights up there and had a great time. We did a bit of cross country on the lake (on the lake!) on the first night, before retiring to the wood-stove-heated house for a delicious steak dinner, complete with fantastic Italian wine brought by Heather, Ricks daughter, and her Italian fiance Gabriel.

The lake itself was incredible. At one point we crossed the entire lake on skis, although we did hear some ominous cracking sounds (which the natives assured us were normal).

Some people had watered the ice during the night to create little ice rinks for skating.

We also went downhill skiing at a place called Morin Heights, which was the best fun I've had for ages. My only other attempt at downhill skiing was on a blue run, at night, with cross country skis and one broken boot. Needless to say, not very successful. This time, I had brand new downhill boots (Chrissie present from Elli) and some decent downhill skis. By the end of the day, I was doing entire green runs without falling! I was very proud of myself, despite the fact that I was completely out of control the entire way down.

As you can probably tell, I am a woeful skier

Elli finally had a chance to test out her 'snowblades', tiny little skis less than a metre long, which her father had given her a couple of years ago. She quickly got the hang of them and basically looks like a pro; turning on a dime, the works. I am most displeased.

On our last morning, Rick took us for a good long cross country ski, pretty much a perfect end to a perfect couple of days. Rick, Heather and Gabriel were incredibly generous the entire time and we probably had the most fun we've had thus far in Canada. Definitely a good Christmas break!