Jan in action

Cold (-14°C) and sunny with new snow covering most of the grit, it seemed to be the ideal day to take the "spark"s, the kick-sleighs, out for a trip.  In the picture you can see just how they work. Jan is standing on one runner and scooting along with the other leg. On the downhills you just stand on both runners and let it go. There's a certain amount of steering because the runners are flexible. Braking is dragging a foot, not very effective.
In the extra you can see how useful they can be if you want to sit in the sun, which felt lovely on this day of no wind and even a little warmth in the sun. Jan also blipped about the kicksleighs.
I went on to the end of the road today, where the forest is being logged. The tree harvesting machine seemed to have broken down and there was a little camp of vehicles around it with a fire burning in the center and three men working to fix it. That looked a very cold job!
On the way back, as I set off down a hill on my kicksleigh, I suddenly found myself holding the handle that had detached itself from the rest. This made steering problematic but fortunately I wasn't going too fast. I pushed it back on and tried to hold it in place as I journeyed homeward.  Now my kicksleigh is in the cellar, warming up and drying out so I can glue it together once more.  My modern one does this fairly regularly, while Jan's, which is much older, has never disassembled itself in this way. Modern ******!
We do live in a very lovely place, and we are very grateful that we found this corner of the world and are so happy here.