Milan - 12 to 14 April 2008 - Part 1

And not content with just having had a ski break, we're off to Milan for a wee surprise weekend for Laura's Birthday. The less said about the trip out the better for the Ryanair flight (a two and a half hour flight) was delayed (also by two and a half hours) so we didn't get to Hotel till 3.00 am.

So to the Saturday. Up a the crack of ten o'clock, swift brekkers at our rather nice and, unless of course Laura asks, not too expensive hotel the Hotel Brunelleschi and we are off for a wee wander round the nearby Duomo area. The Duomo being Milan's whopping big and, much as it will shame my presbyterian forefathers to hear me say, impressive Cathedral. We then meet the bold Sally and Mark for a beer/coffee at a rooftop cafe in the equivalent of John Lewis. Now I know that don't sound too appealing but actually very nice and in has views over said Cathedral. Further wandering then followed, old school european city streets and nice big parks, with a brief climb up the umpty numpty steps to top of, yes, you guessed it, the Cathedral. Oh. And another stop for beer and coffee, although this time we did have some food to try to hide the real purpose of the stop.

Great weather and very pretty city for a not particularly purposeful wander about, and that's in a good way.

Peter

Morillon Ski Trip 2008 - Parts 4, 5 and 6.

Somewhat belatedly, the continued exploits of the Morillon party.

Day 4

A new plan is hatched to get us all more easily to the abundant slopes of flaine. The ladies take the patmobile and drive round whilst we blokes take the more conventional up hill and down dale ski across valleys approach, which is an admittedly tiring and time consuming schlep.

Less chore than before today as the long runs in to the connecting chairs are well groomed fresh snow and we once again have brilliant sunshine.

Watches have been synchronised with vin chaude o'clock set for 11 at the top of the main gondola when both parties regroup.

An group slide followed on the previous days top run, today a little more cut up with moguls left by peeps with no sense of rhythm, but still pretty good. Then a couple of runs, me and the lady. Then another vin chaude. Life is tough.

Then, well, lunch!

Closed in at this point, so careful radar navigated can't see hand in front of face run down, then the girls hit the car and we start the trek back. Clears a bit as we go then one or two nice big runs on way home too.

Day 5

The lady decides this is her rest, sleep, read and keep murphy company day, but for the rest of up it is another lightning start at the crack of quarter to ten. Well. Would have been had mr j not had to take a quick run back to collect mrs j's pass. Good warm up never did anyone any harm.

Group split in two once again. Two pats and a burns went in search of powder in high flaine whilst the jones twins and I sampled the delights of samoens. To be honest, just same as before. Brilliant sunshine, great snow, well groomed pistes. Also, quite quiet, the masses preferring flaine. Oh. And vin chaude as well. This did not suck.

A meet up with the group for late lunch again, a couple of runs then the drift back again as once again things close in in the afternoon.

I see I have made no mention of food, a clear oversight. The partial catering, ie they cook it, deliver it and we reheat when ready, provided by the kandahar kitchens, the people through which we also booked chalet, has been top notch. This night is worthy of note as a trip was made to the tourne pierre restaurant to sample some local cuisine. A fine meal was had by all, even if shug didn't get his fondue.

Day 6

Last day, so not much to say. Other than got up at 7 to find the up to this point green valley in which we had been staying now had 4 inches of fresh snow.

On the day we leave.

Bugger.

Morillon Ski Trip 2008 - Part 3.

Day 3, fan...
...tastic.

Our party split in two, with late starters and early(ish) risers as things looked somewhat overcast once again. As part of the latter earlier group, it saddens me to admit my father was right when if said that you can never tell in the valley, you have to go up there. Sho nuff once we got up to flaine proper, and on higher slopes, blue skies, brilliant sunshine and both powder bowls and well groomed piste, for the purposes of the hammering down. Then lunch with the good lady, doing better than the jones twins who made it not out the village, and a restorative beer.

A further roam in the ante meridian, the lady joining up for one or two. Full morning left one, if entirely honest, a little tired, but still didn't hit the pub post last run till about 5 bells local time.

Now rather tired and preparing for dinner. And perhaps some wine. Sleep will this evening I suspect not present a challenge.

Your french correspondent.

Morillon Ski Trip 2008 - Part 2.

And on the second day, they made it to the land of flaine. Rather than flowing with milk and honey, it flows more with 1960's concrete monstrosity. But the slopes were fine and dandy and the snow was good. Visibility could have been better but hey ho. Lunchtime beer helped and i now sit with the vin chaude prescribed by both my dentist and the party's resident doctor.

Peter.

Morillon Ski Trip 2008 - Part 1.

Nice wee village and homely wee chalet. First day ok. Bit windy, so can't get to main resorts. Also overcast and snowing. Still, under foot snow in good condition and good cover, only bit slushy when at lower slopes.

Would in other words be a great day skiing in Scotland and probably just the very dab to break us all in with a take it easy day.

There has apparently however been a strange temporal shift. The low pressure system that has brought the poor overhead conditions as moved beer o'clock forward somewhat. We may well call this lunch as well.

Peter.

I post this email not as an endorsement of its sentiments but rather a warning note to us all as to the rampant misogyny against which we all need to be vigilant.

I have removed the name of the sender to protect him from potential reprisals, and although he is not on facebook, Gregg Swan need never worry about me disclosing his details.

Peter

Subject: FW: IT problem



Dear Technical Support,


18 months ago, I upgraded to Girlfriend 1.0 from DrinkingMates 4.2, which I had used for years without any trouble.
However, there are apparently conflicts between these two products and the only solution was to try and run Girlfriend 1.0 with the sound turned off.
To make matters worse, Girlfriend 1.0 is incompatible with several other applications, such as LadsNightOut 3.1, Football 4.5, and Playboy 6.9.
Successive versions of GirlFriend proved no better.
I tried a shareware program, Slapper 2.1, but it had many bugs and left a virus in my system, forcing me to shut down completely for several weeks.
Eventually, I tried to run GirlFriend 1.2 and Girlfriend 1.0 at the same time, only to discover that when these two systems detected each other they caused severe damage to my hardware.
I eventually upgraded to Fiancée 1.0, only to discover that this product soon had to be upgraded further to Wife 1.0. While Wife 1.0 tends to use up all my available resources, it does come bundled with FreeSe xPlus and Cleanhouse2005.
Shortly after this upgrade, however, I found that Wife 1.0 could be very unstable and costly to run. Any mistakes I made were automatically stored in Wife 1.0's memory and could not be deleted.
They then resurfaced months later when I had forgotten about them. Wife 1.0 also has an automatic Diary, Explorer and E-mail filter, and can, without warning, launch TurboStrop and Multi-Whinge.
These latter products have no Help files, and I have to try to guess what the problem is.
Additional problems are that Wife 1.0 needs updating regularly, requiring ShoeShop Browser for new attachments and Hairstyle Express which needs to be reinstalled every other week. Also, when Wife 1.0 attaches itself to my Porsche 911 Convertible hard drive, it often crashes.
Wife 1.0 also comes with an irritating pop-up called MotherInLaw, which can't be turned off.
Recently I've been tempted to install Mistress 2003, but there could be problems. A friend of mine has alerted me to the fact that if Wife 1.0 detects Mistress 2003, it tends to delete all of your Money before uninstalling itself.
Help requested please

Regards,

See link.

So.

This is admittedly (hands up) a geeky blog site, and so written by geeks for (mea culpa) geeks.

However.

I can find no hint of irony here.

Surely we have not now hit the point that "get diary, write it down" is considered noteworthy (sic)?

Peter