Sunday 26 October 2014

Weekend Supplement Delusions



Workshops are the thing these days . You can try anything crafty ; felt making , jewellery , papier machè , screenprinting , upholstery ....  A few years ago , my great-aunts , then in their mid-eighties , started painting plates for their many relations after a workshop on pottery painting .... before they turned to ragdoll making after another .The trouble is I don't really want to do these things . Nor do I want to want to become an online fashion editor courtesy of a Guardian media course , 99 Pounds , book included ... I haven't got the clothes for it . 
But after reading the Volkskrant weekend supplement yesterday ,  I was entranced by a workshop offered by skibuilding.com . In the space of two days you learn enough to build your own wooden skis . Pepperblue , a German company , give weekend courses in Beieren or Innsbruk . It woke all my old Chalet School fantasies .
Actually I've never skied and if I really wanted to , I could buy a pair from Zai in Switzerland or Ronning in Norway ... but I've never fantasised about Norway ....

While I was Googling to find a vintage Chalet School cover with skis on ( YD having taken all hers with her when she moved out ) , I was astonished to find that there's a fanclub www.chaletschool.org.uk . Perhaps I'll just join this instead .

P.S. At Friday lunchtime a student , cycling past back from the college , was singing Queen's I Want To Break Free very , very loudly .  Whatever class he'd had hadn't gone well ...

4 comments:

Friko said...

do they also teach you how to build a ski slope?

SmitoniusAndSonata said...

I thought maybe leaning a couple of planks up against our balcony would do , till I got the hang of it ?

Annie Cholewa said...

Is there a second workshop teaching ski pole making?

I'm taking beginner Poi lessons ... I like the idea of fire poi, but that's the advanced class.

Lucille said...

My friend and colleague introduced these books to the English market as reissues back in the 1980s. She was a huge fan of Elinor Brent-Dyer.