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This morning, KSP arrived bearing croissants, three plain and three stuffed with chocolate. We had them with coffee and a very long farewell morning with Avery and, eventually Ella. I’m going to miss our very short term stuga guests – dare I say new friends. Such lovely people. Of course, poor KSP had to go to work afterwards, though she put it off as long as she possibly could.
But, eventually, tempus flew as tempus invariably does, and I was left, alone, to work on some horrible taxation figure collection. My only break was taking the girls up Mount Trosa under a beautiful blue sky with temperatures harking back to summer.
This time of year, there is always a harking back to when the side of the mountain was a ski slope as it is literally littered with snow business equipment, some I understand, a lot I don’t. For instance, what is this?
There are at least four of them either side of the ski slope. This one is in the perfect spot to sit and flick the tennis ball for Emma but, other than that convenient use, I can’t figure out what its real purpose is.
They have been installed by TechnoAlpin who deal in the production of artificial snow, the same company that has supplied the snow blowers which we witness adding snow to the slope every winter we’ve been here. These are clearly some sort of infrastructure structure but what they are designed to do is beyond me.
The metal box with the flap at the front is over a big hole, the bottom of which is invisible from where I was sat. The metal box at the back is equally mysterious, given it has a tiny hinged section for access and a big section that doesn’t appear to lift at all.
New construction aside, these next things are dotted around the place looking like something from a defunct roller coaster and I can’t figure out what they are used for in the winter.
And they come in different colours. There’s also a yellow one on the opposite side of the slope.
These are not new, clearly, but there use is equally a mystery. To me, anyway. I half expect someone to comment and tell me I’m an idiot because it’s really obvious. Of course, my comeback would be that I grew up in a hot place where snow never fell and everything is designed to make you sweat. Idiot? I think that’s rather harsh, even if I do say so myself…and I just did.
Anyway, those things aside, the purpose of this third thing is possibly more obvious.
I’m guessing it would be better running into these than a big old tree. Though I’d rather run into neither after hurtling down an icy slope having sort of done that before without the rubber wrapped protection.
Anyway, enough of that. The rest of my day was, as I said, full of boring numbers and spreadsheets. Until Mirinda returned home from her uni field trip of course. Then the world returned to normal.
