And so I went skiing again. As with last year, I spent a drunken christmas with the family and set off shortly after. This time it was 26/Dec, thus managing to miss that entire dead-zone between christmas and new year.
However, unlike last year I didn't spend 8 hours in the plane to find myself greeted by a cute girl in Vancouver. No, this year I spent 1 hour in one of EasyJet's finest (yes, I am cheap. I'm not proud) and found myself greeted by a hairy French customs guard, which really wasn't the same thing at all. This time, of course, I'd brought a cute girl with me instead.
We nearly didn't make it. One of our party had partaken of the bar at the airport a little too freely and thus the following exchange took place at the x-ray machine:
"Oi! You! Mate! I've got a bomb in my bag" (giggle) "Oi!! Look!! Bomb!!" (snigger)
And so it went on, right up until a well placed elbow delivered a bruise and a warning. The warning not being that continuing in this way would result in ejection from the x-ray queue and some quality intimate time with a big man called Alan and a rubber glove he calls "Betty" but that The Lovely B was reaching the point where a targetted knee would cause the witty rant to continue in a much higher octave.
I, alas, could not calm my nerves in the usual way (pills and alcohol) - I had to drive. In France. In the dark. In the snow. Up A Fucking Mountain.
It didn't start well - I got lost in Toulouse leaving the airport. Yes - Toulouse, the current record holder for most car torchings in a month. Not really where one wants to get oneself lost at midnight. The French don't really go in for road-signs that show up in the dark. Or many streetlights, it would seem. Which is my excuse for hitting a speed bump at 60 miles an hour. Every light came on on the hire car's dashboard. And then went off again.
I chose not to tell my passengers. The Lovely B was attempting to decipher a stereo so complex it could only be fitted to a car from Japan while The Boy M sat in the back, drunkenly humming to himself. No need to worry them. Hertz might be a bit upset about the bent front suspension though...
Tomorrow - how I managed to freeze toothpaste, and when 50 percent isn't 50 percent at all...
(The picture somewhat gives away the fact that we made it... nice view isn't it?)
