Courchevel, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty Metres ABOVE the Sea

Starring
Susan Jelly as Wee Suzie
Paul Jones as Bones
Pascale Moray as Scali
Tim Helyar as Earle and Largo Winch
Karen Naughton as Kaz
David Corbett as Corbo
Erin Golding as Eggs
Kate Golding as Goldos
AND special guest star... Sam Ervin as Sambo "Calamari Club" Ervos

Six days in Courchevel during 2005 was...
Hearing Ervos' verbal guitar riff - "eeeooooow!", toe side/heel side, finding untouched powder aka pow pow. Am I goofy? Am I natural? Definately goofy... no maybe natural... The relentless pursuit of "first lift tomorrow fellas", the Skiworld staff - wasted Bex, Jo, Tom, and Jen. Croissants, Le Patissier, bread and cheese, red wine. Crazy tobogganing one night. Sore bums and bruised knees from rookie mistakes. Abandoning profanities for the much tamer "Oh gee!" when I ruined my knees. On piste/off piste. Am I goofy? Am I natural? Definately natural... no maybe goofy... Stacking it royally in front of super cool snowboarder dudes (of course) whilst trying to disembark from the chair lifts. And hence always opting for the gondola where possible. Late nights, too much bread, cheese and red wine. Absolute exhaustion. Being surrounded by vistas fit for an Evian marketing programme. Damn "hippy vegetarians" and some guy with a "It's time to free Tibet" sticker on his board. The Playstation airgames featuring a kid breaking his fall with his head. Mixing new and old friends. Am I goofy? Am I natural? Definately goofy... no maybe natural... English lads throwing bananas in a bar - leading to the creation of the Courchevel Civil Order Committee. Being surrounded by English geezers despite being in France. Largo Winch, someone to whom we all aspire to be. Frozen toes and fingertips. Fresh bread, cheese and red wine. Runs turning to ice in the sun. Confusing your ambition with your very limited ability and having to use your butt rather than your board to negotiate a particularly steep Red Run. Experiencing a face first fall style known as The Scorpion, does it need an explanation? Corbo's busted kidney. Freezin' on the bus between Lyon and Courchevel. Am I goofy? Am I natural? You decide, because I certainly cannot.

What a fantastic week! Photos to follow...

Courchevel awaits...

It's 4am, we're waiting for Earle, Scali and Ervos to come and pick us up in a mini-cab. They'll be here in half an hour. I've had approximately 2 hours sleep and now I find myself in the loungeroom watching a re-run of Melrose Place. It's an early one - before Amanda, before Micheal Mancini went bad and had the affair with Kimberley. Matt's still gay and Allison is still a nerd. Hurry up! Hurry up! (said like The Blackboard from Mr Squiggle). Cannot wait to get to France. Cannot wait to hit the slopes. It's going to be SICK!

All my friends are having babies!

Everyone's procreating!

Congratulations to my cousin Brenton and and his long suffering wife Danielle!
Congratulations to Nicole and Paul Fenton here in London on the future addition to their furry clan!
Congratulations to my beautiful Knaggs and her darling Chan-man (thank you so much for the ultrasound images sweeties)!
Congratulations to Nat and Hannah on the birth of their twin baby girls, Lil and Issy!

Welcome to the world small people!

I think I'm lazy

I could not be bothered reading a full history of absolutely everything that's ever happened in the world - let's be frank who could, really? So, I thought "I'll read Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything". But then as it turned out I couldn't even bring myself to read that. Over the weekend I borrowed it on cd from the library and downloaded it onto my iPod. It is complete and unabridged - a whopping 16 cds containing 19 hours of.... the most ANNOYING guy in the world reading it!!!!!! Note to self: loading 16 cds onto a computer is an arduous task, in future listen to the cd before commiting it to download!
When we were kids we had this Golden Book called The Pokey Little Puppy it had an accompanying record (so old school!) where a guy read the story. I'm absolutely sure that the guy reading A Short History to me as I run on the treadmill in the morning here in London is the same guy who read The Pokey Little Puppy to me as a child in Lake Cargelligo. Small world huh?

Happy Birthday to Ya

Happy Birthday to Nichole (a fellow JET alumni and sweet sweet friend) and Michelle (my brand new digibrain friend).
Hope you two both had a great day,
One in the UK,
And the other,
The US of A.

See Nichole's blog @
http://nvb.factorypond.com/blog2/