Jamie's blog

There was once a little girl called Spirit.

She was on orphan which meant she had no parents, and she had very little to give apart from her kindness which to some is everything.

One winter day she saw a young Robin Red Breast who had no food.  So she shared her last piece of bread with him and they ate happily together.

Spirit and the Robin Red Breast

Whilst walking along a frozen lake, Spirit saw a fawn fall through the ice. A fawn is a baby reindeer.  Spirit slid across the ice and pulled the fawn out.  It was very cold and its nose had gone red so she took it to her friend Father Christmas who would take care of it.

Spirit and the fawn

Father Christmas was very happy to look after the reindeer and gave it a very special name that I am sure you all know. He was always happy to see Spirit as every time he saw her she gave him a present.  On this occasion she had given him his best friend.

Spirit giving Father Christmas his best friend

On her way home it began to get warm.  She saw her friend the Snowman but he was crying tears because he was melting.  Spirit made a coat of icicles to keep him cold until the coming of the night.  The snowman stopped crying and began to smile again.  Spirit had made him very happy.

Helping the snowman keep cold

There was an old lady who lived on the hill.  She was lonely in the dark winter nights because she had nobody to talk to.  Spirit and the snowman decided to fill her with joy by standing on her doorstep singing carols.  The old lady was so overjoyed that she began to sing too.

Spirit and the Snowman carol singing

Spirit loved Christmas and she woke to find a single present sitting at her feet.  Inside the paper she could feel that it was very soft and light.  She was very excited but managed to peel back the paper slowly so that she didn’t damage the present within.  When she looked the gift was white and made of feathers.  It was a pair of wonderful wings.

This is how Spirit became an Angel.  She is now known as the Spirit of Christmas and spreads joy and kindness.  Perhaps we can be like her too.

Jamie Wardley ©Sandinyoureye

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Ice Dolphins swimming with Tuna

It was a delight to introduce Andy Moss to his first Big Ice Project in Zwolle, Holland at the kind invitation of Huib Joor. Here there are sculptors from all over the world coming together to make a massive ice project. Of course, we landed fashionably late and had to try and catch up with everyone else who had already been there for three days. This was a lot easier to do with the help of Dutch carver Ludo Roders who rushed in to offer us support.

Together we made Dolphins and fish float in the air which was a very technical challenge for us but made easier by my new Japanese fusing saw and silk murderers gloves that give a little dexterity in these tricky -10 Celsius situations. Ice is an extremely strong material that allows you to do extremely dynamic sculptures and optical illusions. Fill your boots Mr Moss. It is only the beginning.

Jamie

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The snow castle and the moomins

The alarm goes off and I wake up with a start.  The light switch is above my head, I look over the way to where Sergey Tselebrovskiy my room mate is sleeping and say “Lights on.”  The light goes on and Sergey announces “Ghood Mhorning in his thick Russian accent which I am glad to say is beginning to have a hint of Yorkshire now and again.

Sergey Tselebrovskiy

On the first morning that we shared the room Sergey then rolled out of bed and proceeded to undertake some sort of exercise ritual right before my eyes, surprising enough to me as it is usually myself that is doing this, but not as soon as I have woken up.  Astonished I watched on in disbelief through my groggy eyes whilst Sergey began to roll his fingers, then wrists, shoulders, waist, knees ankles with unanticipated agility liveliness.  Not to be outdone I quickly joined in and found myself doing squats, 10 press ups and leg raises.  Since that first morning we have for the last two weeks performed this morning ritual together to wake up our ever more ailing bodies in the morning.  It is like performing the children song “Heads, Knees and toes,” even more so as Sergey is learning English and we say the name of the body part that we are exercising:  “Fingers, hands, elbows, shoulders, waist, knees, ankles,” again the squats the press ups and the leg raises.  All of this is of course done in true style as we are dressed only in our underpants. I feel if tickets were available we would have a very nice sideline.

Uldis Zarins making Wolverine, photograph by sandis

For two weeks now we have been making the hotel and I think it has all come together rather nicely.  I was a little perturbed by our schedule and all of what we had to do in the beginning, but it is a credit to the boys, the girl Sue McGrew, and the planning of Jukka Likealickalot that everything has gone very smoothly.  The theme this year was comics and we have had some fun recreating boyhood heroes even if Uldis from Latvia had pretty much never heard of any of them:  Who is this Joker person?   I have been able to play with my moonwalker or Polygon jib again which is a delight as I’ve been able to enjoy the fresh air and views from it which is a sharp contrast to spending all my time in a freezer as in England.  I must say though, I’m not sure the blizzards, driving wind and extreme temperatures are quite necessary, also, why the jib has to sway and occasionally stop leaving me stranded in the air I do not know.

Jamie carving the moomin with the moonwalker, photograph by Jukka

So we will finish shortly and I will prepare myself for the biggest challenge of all which is getting through the mens sauna party on the opening night alive; the Finnish like to drink.  Last year I was so thoroughly intoxicated that I almost fell asleep in the snow on the way home which is a sure way to meet your maker.  Luckily the chap that had spiked my drink with consent was there to wake me up.  How fortunate I am to have such good friends to take care of me.

Jamie

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Morning Light as the tunnels emerge

As I stepped out of the hotel the blast of cold hit me. The Finnish know how to insulate their homes.  There are no cold drafts seeping in through the windows and you can quite happily walk around in your shorts if you want.  You find yourself getting a false sense of security as usually the temperature in my house in Yorkshire is a sure indication of what it is like outside.  But not in these Lappish countries; do not be fooled I warm you!

I could tell it was going to be cold at breakfast as I saw the trees swaying in the wind through the window.  The temperature was much warmer than yesterday which was -24, but even though it was only -14 today it was with wind and yes the wind really does chill.  I felt it as soon as I stepped out.  I had left my balaclava at the Ice Hotel the previous day and so my face was exposed.  I have deliberately grown a ginger beard to protect me from the touch of Jack Frost but it has been to no avail.  Immediately his hand wiped over my face and left a minute film of ice that I could feel crack when I began to talk to Sergey. Sergey is an old Russian friend of mine and on this occasion my roommate.  He is perhaps one of the best ice sculptors in the world and is able to make sculptures from ice that you simply would not believe, what’s more his skill is matched my his kind gentle nature.  I just class myself as a student out here which suits me fine as learning is one of the virtues of life.  As Sergey and I chatted on our way to work Jack Frost began to pinch my ears, I pulled down my hat, still not satisfied he began to blow his cold breath into my eyes which began to water.  I put up my hood to shield myself.  I know from experience that if I am out too long icicles grow from my watering eyes and impair my already strained vision.

But today I was not to be outside as such.  We walked towards our haven which is the shelter of the Ice Hotel where we are working.  The hotel is embryonic at the moment and just a shell of what it will grow to be.  For now it belongs to us, a series of tunnels and domes that grow every day as the construction team use their big machines to make a myriad of passages reaching off in all directions to reconverge like a vast maze.  It is our job as sculptors to breathe life and identity into these tunnels by making sculptures and decoration, in return the hotel protects us from the blowing wind and snow outside.  I feel privileged that I am able to see it come alive even if the ice hotel does express its growing pains in my aching body, shifting tonnes of ice each day is by no means easy work; especially for someone with my bird arms.

Sue McGrew and Sandis Kondrats

It is however one of the joys of being a sculptor that you are able to be part of the journey where an inanimate object gradually evolves from being nothing to becoming something that is potentially wonderful.  And that the essence of the Ice Hotel, it is after all only snow and ice, yet people come from all around to see it.  They will drink and be merry, they may have a bite to eat in its restaurants and eat off tables made of ice, they may sleep in the rooms there, and they may even get married in the ice chapel that we are yet to make. But before that, today and for the days to come, the ice hotel is growing, and we are here to guide it and enjoy it coming to life.   Jack Frost may cheekily nip my cheeks from time to time, but I will forgive him as it is he after all that keeps it all together.

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I approached the check in desk at Manchester airport with trepidation.  My luggage allowance was 20 kilos with one bag and I had at least 40 kilos with two bags.  I have in the past been charged over £200 for such mistermeaners.

“May I have your passport?” said the chap behind the desk.  I then cracked a joke about how early he must have got up this morning and that I was up at 4:30 am.  “I was also up at that time” he replied, “What, every day?”  I looked upon him with empathy as he nodded; we were now best friends.  I think subconsciously I was trying to hypnotise him as I have been watching too much Derren Brown, we were building ‘rapport’ and he was not totally under my control.  I was tempted to throw in a few suggestive words there as well when I disclosed that I had a second bag with tools in.  He frowned “…..Errrr  One thing I will miss about the UK is that it is so LIGHT, AS it is so dark in Finland.  Luckily I have A warm Feather coat.” The scales did not agree: 20 kilos.

After glancing at the scale he then looked up and at me amiably and smiled. This is not the usual way that people at the check in desk ask you for £200   “Did you know that we have a relaxation lounge?”  I must have looked bemused.  “…..you can go there and escape for a while if you want. Also, you are on Fast Track so you can just pass everyone else and go straight through, no need to wait around.  Have a nice flight Mr Wardley.”  Derren Brown eat your heart out!

The plane was quite late in departing which was a little worrying as I had a connecting flight. I didn’t do the Fast Track thing as I just don’t think I’m quite ready for it yet, far too racy for me.  I also passed on the Relaxation Lounge, there was something a little fishy going on and I wasn’t sure I wanted to chance it just yet.  As I queued in the tunnel to go on the plane I looked at my ticket for my seat number.

1F

Mmm, there must be a mistake.  I had never sat on row one before.  I looked away and then back again.  I could cope with the F as that means I am by the window which is what I asked for.  But I didn’t understand this 1 business.  And then I saw it at the top of the ticket. “Business Class.”  I was for the first time in my life in the elite.

As I turned the corner my throne awaited me.  There were no other people of my status there that flight so I took all the glory myself.  My personal airhostess leaned towards me with a beaming smile:  “Financial Times?”  I have never had anyone offer me anything before in such a want to please way, and the words that came out of her mouth were ‘Financial Times’.  As she did the demonstration I then felt it my duty to watch her, she kept looking over me to make sure I fully understood everything and would occasionally crack a few jokes.  I think she was trying to hypnotise me.

During the flight she offered a silver plate with a blob of some description on it.  I took the lemon scented delight to be something marvellous to put in my mouth.  I took the plate from her and was about to indulge before she pulled back the plate and said “Err, it is for your hands!”  Ah, a hand towel. She then asked me if I wanted an antipasto before my meal and I floundered.   I don’t think it took her long to realise it was my first time.  But to her credit she was not discouraged and continued to hang upon my every whim like my own personal angel.  At one point she said with deep regret “I’m just going into the ‘tourist section’, but if you need me just press the button.”  I made a deliberate slow nod of understanding.

On landing I queued at the door and I and the airhostess had a brief little chit chat about how cold it was in Finland and how much it has snowed.  This became evident when she opened the door.  I gave her a look and didn’t know whether I should embrace with her but thought better of it.  It had been one of my best flights ever and I walked away with a bounce in my step.

Unfortunately, it was a very late best flight and I missed my connection to the north.  She had definitely hypnotised me.

Jamie

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Sitting on the fence on our flooded street

After the great flood and fog of Roermond in Holland had subsided we were able to get back to our nice cold tent and resume ice carving, but not after wading in the freezing water and doing a little game of knock a door run around the floating houses which doesn’t work so well when you are wading through knee deep water in your underpants.

Shaving Rex

Rex was waiting for Rodrego and I with his big menacing drooling head looking all handsome but without a body.  That was to be our task over the next days, lots of hacking at snow and then piling up like bricks and cementing them with water and slush.

In the meantime there was T-Rex’s friend Raptor waiting in his block of ice to be carved and given life.  Been a simple square block of ice, no matter how big doesn’t suit the style of a leaping dinosaur. He was to be screaming at Rex, not happy that he wasn’t going to share his food which was to be a rather unfortunate triceratops still alive but half eaten.  But you have to watch these velociraptors, they are so fast and athletic that even Rex may have problems.

To save time I started to carve Raptor whilst my partner in crime Rodrego Ferrari finished off Rex and gave him some cute little arms.  I had made a design where raptor was in mid-leap twisting towards Rex in a threatening manner.  The tail of this creature is much longer than his body and I was to raise it in the air in a confident and defiant gesture that was to illustrate his balance and grace.  The arc would frame Rex’s face nicely and also had the additional benefit of making our sculpture the highest one in the tent, just piping the transformer Optimus Prime by a foot much to the displeasure of its maker Michael de Kok; which means Michael the cook in English to clear up any ambiguities.

Dinner

Actually making the tail was a totally different matter of course, it looks so easy on paper.  It got a little embarrassing at the amount of scaffolding I had to keep asking for.  “Just a little more please,…….oh, could I have another set on this side,…….do you think we could perhaps have a third level?”  And then when I had to climb up it I must say I felt a little weak in the stomach, I think it was a combination of vertigo and the constant swaying.  It is a daunting feeling when you are five meters up in the air whilst sliding a narrow piece of ice that is almost my body weight onto another small pillar of ice. What’s more, because the tail was so delicate I had to carve in a downward motion which meant I could only look down for the entire day, the scaffolding swaying gently each time i carved the ice.

Placing the Tail

It pretty much took me over a day to make the tail, I could not use the chainsaw as it was so delicate so I had to carefully chisel away gently so that the tail would not sway and break.  After that it was cool running’s and Rodrego joined me for the final hurdle of finishing up, carving like crazy with ice chips flying everywhere.  It is still early days for Rodrego and ice sculpting and he made a comment on how beautiful the sound is of the chisel cutting through the ice and then the crystals falling to the ground was, each one a musical note.  It was indeed one of the things that most mesmerised me when I first started, I must remember not to forget the simple things.

Our pets

Rex and Raptor were eventually finished and we all gathered to celebrate the finishing of the project by banging on the floor with crowbars for two hours to remove patches of ice from the pathway so that nobody slipped.  After that inspired interlude we upped the game to celebrate with our traditional glass of champagne curtosy of our hosts sculpture events.  It is always a great pleasure and honour to share the company of so many talented and wonderful people for the short period of time that we spend together each year and I am very grateful for it.  I salute you my friends!

Jamie

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The boys waiting for the boat to pick them up

Myself and Roders have just been in the freezer tent in Holland making our 4 meter T-rex that is undecided on whether it should freeze or melt as the temperature is fluttering between -2 and +2 C.  As a consequence I as any Englishman of our humid Island can emphasise, was thoroughly damp and cold.  But I was not alone in this resplendent condition; there were 30 other carvers from over the world stood in our damp cloths whilst we waited for the special announcement.

“We have a little bit of a situation” said Huib our director, he is of a typical Dutch disposition with his tall height, blue eyes and fair hair.  But he was not standing tall this moment, he was slumped against the table whilst he addressed us, not defeated, but certainly fatigued. “As you know it has been raining hard,” it was this torrential rain that had been causing the freezer tent to be so warm. “It has been raining so hard that the roads to our houses are totally flooded.”  This was not a good thing to be telling 30 people who were hungry and rank with damp, desperately wanting to eat and shower.  “But although we cannot get there by car we can get there by boat.”  The adventure was about to begin.  “…..this has not happened for ten years.”

With the excitement of an adventure and boat ride we changed our cloths and hurried to the cars, driving down country roads to find our passage.  Awaiting us was a boat to take us to the restaurant on the mariner.  But it then dawned on us that our actual houses would be flooded.  Furthermore, my friend Ludo had left her car beside her house apparently now bathing in water.  I hate to say this Ludo, but I won a bet on the whether the authorities would take your car from the flooded area.  They did not and so I won.  Whilst we ate, Ludo managed to drive her car back from the houses onto dry land through the water, apparently not knowing where the road was as it was immersed.

on the boat

But I reluctantly confess that the Dutch are clever fellows even for a country that is even smaller than my own, rather unfortunate if you consider that they are all so big.  They are so clever in fact that we ate our tea with growing enthusiasm and excitement at what was to come with not even a hint of despair. They are used to water problems with all their dikes and irrigation systems, but they have not stopped there, they have even now built the ultimate defence against the risk of flood, in England we try to control the rivers with our clumsy sand bags, but no, in Holland they just build houses that can never get wet because they simply float.

The floating street, madina oolderhuuske

No, it is not a boat or a boat house, it is a floating house, a house that goes up and down in the water and is attached to a simple pole so that it doesn’t float away; that would be very confusing.  When you are in it you can occasionally feel it bobbing around, it has a concrete base, a chimney, a roof, windows, a front door and a balcony.  In fact, it is not just one or a couple of floating houses, but a whole street, with street lights and plants, playgrounds for kids to play in, and instead of having gnomes in the garden they have ducks of all different types; they seem to be having the last quack.  The only real problem with the floating house is actually getting to it.  But the Dutch come up trumps again and just throw another boat in the equation. But then this has not happened as aforementioned for 10 years and the boat driver is not so accustomed to driving his big boat down narrow watery streets, so you can forgive him for crashing it a couple of times along the way, especially in the ‘hurricane winds’ that are the cause of all the rain.

But we sculptors were not perturbed, quite merry after a few beverages and all ready to test our new sea legs, we rallied upon the boat and then searched for our houses in the dark, scrambling upon our balconies with a cheer from our brethren on the account of not falling in the water and drowning.  But now we are all safe in our floating houses, the rain cannot touch us here.

the flood and the floating house

…..two days later.  The water may not have got us, but the fog has.  We are now stranded in our floating houses as nobody will sail the boat in the fog that descended this morning.  We have one pack of muesli, three bananas and a bottle of single malt whiskey between the four of us.  Now the fun begins.

Rationing in the fog

Jamie

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Last week I got a message from the Sand in your Eye Team.  This is great as I didn’t even write it.

“So have your balls dropped yet?”  This was the question Andy Firth asked of me when I was just thirteen years old, it was my first week at the Big School.  In that first week I had auditioned to be in the school play for a performance called Blood Brothers and had somehow landed a great part of the younger Mickey.  I at that time was very small for my age, very skinny and very ginger, a recipe for disaster.  Fortunately I also had quite a good singing voice which kind of saved my skin in this hard nosed comprehensive city school called Butter Shaw Upper.

Andy’s reference to my balls was a very direct way of making a comment about my voice and physical maturity, half jest to the fact that I was still very much just a boy and half compliment as my singing back then was quite something.  I never really knew how to answer this question that Andy seemed to always ask me, but I knew it was just a gentle brotherly jibe.  You see, he had got the part of Mickey as well but at an older age, we were playing one and the same person.  Andy at this time was in his final year at school, five years older than me; dashing, tall, blond, and with all the girls swooning over him.  He looked out for me in that first year and when ever he saw me again afterwards he would always ask: “So have your balls dropped yet?”

During my final year at school I landed the part of the Dentist in the musical ‘Little Shop of Horrors’  I by this time was very comfortable in the school and was no longer short with high voice, although still very ginger. I had spent many a good year performing in the school plays which set me out with fantastic memories and the wonderful tool of self confidence which is indispensible in public environments .  In this final play I performed as the character of a masochistic womaniser and took great pleasure in thrusting my PVC clad pelvis in front of 300 people every other minute to their horror.  My unfortunate sidekick was Helen Tidswell who played a nurse.  We had to perform an evocative salsaesque dance to show just how sexy I was.  My balls were in fine order by this stage.

It is some years on now, and Andy and Helen now have a family together.  At this moment the three of us are sat eating Fish and Chips, our most glorious and world famous British cuisine that outclasses any Oyster dish.  The occasion is our weekly meeting to discuss the Sandinyoureye world, as Andy and Helen are now very much part of it. You see, they have agreed to help me run my modest business which will reduce the rattling that often goes off in my overcrowded brain.  When someone makes an enquiry, Helen answered it in her husky tones which varies depending on whether she has been singing that weekend.  When a sand drawing needs to be done, then Andy the Grid King takes over.  I am extremely lucky, as not only are they great at what they do, but I trust them implicitly from our performance days.  This is harder to come by than any shiny orange metal.

So to Helen and Andy, welcome and may we enjoy!

Jamie

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I lay there in the snow on my back a little bit worse for ware.  It is 1am and I have been well and truly Finned, my attempt to walk home has encountered a temporary glitch in that I have made it no further than across the road before having to lie down.  This is my second attempt at walking home but the last time I forgot my camera and with great effort had to walk back and get it. ‘Being Finned’ is what the Finnish do to each other on a regular basis, and what they take great delight in doing to foreigners.

As I lay there I began to make a snow angel but then the effort exhausted me.  The main culprit of my situation comes over the road to look at me.  “Jamie, what are you doing in the snow?”  Tero is a delightful chap and the head electrician of the snow castle.  He is such a friendly guy and said that I have always a place to stay if ever I want to come here on a vacation, anytime.  “Yeeees, Jamie, in Finland we get very nervous when people lie in the snow…. because they die.”  Fair point, it was -14.  Still, lying in soft snow is a very seductive pleasure when you just want to go to sleep.  But as Tero pointed out, in Finland that could be for a very long time.

“Yeees, Jamie, I almost forgot, I brought something to show you.”  This was Tero an hour earlier and I am a bit worried as he goes out of the room to fetch what I know to be some instrument of torture.  We had all been celebrating the finishing of the snow castle.  They had had fireworks galore and a choir opening  with “We’re walking in the air” from the snowman, and then somehow merging into “we will rock you” by Queen, and many of their other hits.  Slightly bizarre, but everyone was rather merry I think and thoroughly enjoyed it; I for one was singing at the top of my voice which can be rather loud.    Tero comes back into the room brandishing a bottle of clear liquid.  I was by this stage already feeling a little delicate.  I had made a mistake of sitting in amongst a circle of Finns.  Even though everyone already had a drink in hand, they proceeded to crack open a bottle of whiskey and then pass it round the circle until it was finished.  Peer pressure at its best.  The bottle wasn’t finished before it got to me and so I had to have a second round.  Taavi, who is the project manager of the snow castle grinned at me broadly and then introduced me to the next seven bottles.  So when I saw Tero sat next to me with his clear liquid who’s name I do not remember, I was a little worried.  Let’s just call it 80% as it is those innocent numbers that are burned in my mind.  Tero beamed as he took the cap off, taking a healthy swig and then offering over to me.  Not one to offend I took the bottle knowing too well that this was the end of my night and gulped back what can only be described as acid on fire.  I took it the best I could but began to choke, fortunately the 6^th bottle of whiskey was making a round and I grabbed the bottle to wash down the fire, gulping at it like water.  I have never thought that I would use whiskey to do such a thing.  Anti was so impressed that he then did the same pronouncing that “this is very bad” after a gulp of 80%, and then “this is OK” after the whiskey.

So you can forgive me for wanting to go to sleep in the snow.  Luckily, Kimmo and Tero got me on my feet and I ambled home to the hotel, only to dance for an hour to some blues band to clear my head.

And today I go to Sweden to see some friends who I haven’t seen for some years.  Oh dear.

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My unlikely riding partner is a thick set man with a full head of curly hair, he is Anti from Rome, Italy.   Anti is all togged up in a jump suite and me in my sculpting gear.  I have done this once before and remember that you can get pretty cold, especially whilst sat as a passenger on the sled.  But in this case, I was going to get a go at driving.

Our guide shipped us into the middle of nowhere, snow blanketing the ground and bending the trees, a mixture of whites and greys with a pink tint in the sky of the early morning.  And then the barking.

“They know that they are going to run.”  This was our guide Ula, a round faced Finn, quite plump but as I would learn exceptionally fit.  The barking grew even more intense as we approached, Ula then stopped us at a rickety looking sled on the path way.  “I will show you how to use the sled here so that you can here what I’m saying.”  This was a good call as an eruption of howling filed the crystal air.  “To turn the sled lean from side to side like with skis.  The most important thing is that for the first 500 meters to use the break as the dogs really want to run, they will calm down after a while.  And if you stop do not take your foot of the break as the dogs will just leave you.”  Stranded in the arctic tundra with an Italian, I think we would have managed somehow.

We walked to the dogs who greeted us with joyous barks, “they are very friendly, you can stroke them if you like.”  I took the queue and went to greet each of my faithful companions so long as I stayed on the sled.  These are very handsome dogs, real huskies with their blue eyes, but they wanted to get going and were not so interested in my greetings, so before we knew it we were on the sled, Anti ready to drive first and the dogs bouncing all over the place ready to run, tugging on the reigns, urging the brake to be released.

And released it was, we shifted like a bullet out of a barrel but with total silence; dogs do not bark when they run, but they do like to shit a lot and have seemingly mastered it on the move, some dragging their bums on the floor to help things along, occasionally taking in a gulp of snow to quench their thirst or cool down.

After we took a corner and then fell off the sled it seemed a good time for me to have a go.  The dogs do not like to stop and are so eager to move, ready to leave you stranded.  I wonder how far they would run without us.  After Anti had safely got himself seated I took my foot off the break and we sped forward with silent speed again, it is the opposite to motor travel, the faster you go the more quiet it is.  Occasionally you need to take your weight off the sled and run to help the dogs up a hill, and then hold on tight when you go down it at speed, taking care to learn into the corners and shout “Mush!  Good dogs now and again.”  I’m not sure you had to say that but I enjoyed it anyway.  Once past the hills we were on the flats again where you could take in the glorious scenery and contemplate that right now it is just us and the dogs and the crunching of snow under the sled.  The smell of poo was a little distracting.

We travelled 20km in total and warmed up with a hot drink in the tepee by the fire, the smoke spiraling upwards.  Here I saw an old dog come out of the shadows who had a rather regal manner about her and natural authority.   She strode up to me, pelt black and white, blue eyes looking straight at me.  She was the Alpha female Nina, head of all the dogs and I think Ula’s favourite, a companion of 12 years and still sometimes running, but only with Ula.

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