The Most Beautiful Time of Year

GUESS WHERE I WAS YESTERDAY.
okay, so most of you know, but i was in LAPLAND. yes, as in Lapland, Santa's home. Every year, the Edinburgh charity FACE (Fighting Against Cancer in Edinburgh) take a group of children who've been battling cancer to Lapland for the day to take their minds off the sh!t they've gone through and to treat them. It was beyond exciting, especially as it was the first time I've been out of Scotland for 10 months; which is the longest I've ever ever not been on holiday. (my family are holiday fanatics) so I'll give you a bit of an insight, because i know you're all dying to know.

So at 5am on Sunday, i was rudely awoken by my father telling me we had to leave in 20 minutes. ..not helped by the fact I got to bed 3 hours earlier. SKITE-MARE. We went to Edinburgh airport to find our flight was delayed. At around 8.30 we eventually got on our plane headed to Kittila, in Finland. The plane was around three hours which was passed very slowly as the children were singing christmas songs through the inter-call. definitely not needed at such a disgusting hour.

When we arrived in Kittila, we were given thermal snowsuits and snow boots into which we changed and we were ready to go. We split into groups and got a 'motorised sledge ride' into the Lapland resort. (when i say motorised sledge, i very much mean a wooden box driven by a foreign woman on a snowmobile) however, it was extremely fun..for the first twenty minutes. By then i was sure i had at least one frost bite and couldn't feel my face in the -35 climate. Finally, after about forty five minutes of being numb, we arrived in Lapland where we were greeted by my new soon-to-be best friends; Santa's elves who handed over hot chocolate and took us into a cosy log-cabin with a fire.

After much debate about whether we should venture back out into the arctic, we left the log cabin and headed straight for the Huskies. There are no words to describe this. Riding in a husky-pulled-reindeer skin-sledge. wow. It was literally unreal. 10 small huskies pulling two of us around a course. Definitely something everyone should put on their bucket list.



















We then struggled through the deep snow to the Reindeer rides. again, too amazing for words. Being pulled in, again, a reindeer fur sledge by reindeer. like..real reindeer! The little girl, Eve, i was with was telling me how the reindeer we had was Blitzen because (s)he is the fastest. But Rudolf was in the North Pole sleeping so she couldn't see him. she was close to tears whilst facing the fact she wasn't going to see Rudolf. bless her cotton socks.


As we were cold, we needed a huge adrenaline rush. so off to the snowmobiles we went. unreal fun. Whizzing around at 80mph on a bumpy snow track around a frozen lake. Snow flying in your eyes, not being able to see anything, getting frost bite, again. wow. adrenaline rush: check.

We were then a bit chilly (aka frozen numb) so decided to get into a mass snowball fight. Clever, huh? So we had a snowball fight and went sledging and then we literally couldn't move so waddled inside the 'resaurant' for some 'food' (note: inverted commas meaning it wasn't very edible) and had a wander around the far too over-priced shop.

After chilling for a bit we joined the queue for SANTA. whilst waiting, we had banter with the elves who taught us a dance and believes i was famous in the UK for singing and dancing..lol. So we got to the front of the queue for Santa and got to go into his grotto. i kid you not, after that encounter, Santa is real. all you haters can believe what you like, but the man exists. He had a long white beard with long white hair, an oversized beer belly, and he knew everything about me. Officially a child again.

So that's a short summary of my Lapland experience. Please, if you've never been before, GO. you will regret it if you don't. such an unreal day, very surreal; it feels like it was a dream. SUCH huge thanks to John Maccauly and his team at FACE. AYYO.

So apart from Lapland, it's a very exciting time of year, i had my end-of-treatment diagnostic scans last Tuesday, had my sixteenth (woo so old ///) on Thursday, moved house on Friday, birthday dinner and Errington skite on Saturday, Lapland yesterday, Georgia's birthday skite on Wednesday and pupil entertainment and PANTO on Thursday before we break up for CHREEEESTMUUUUSSS. So, in the case of me not blogging until Sunday, i hope you all have an amazing Christmas. However, if you don't believe in Santa, it's simple, you won't.

Ho Ho Ho!