"Worse things happen at sea"

Well this will probably be the final entry. It's my last night and I leave for Geneva around 9am tmrw. By the time most of you read this I'll be home and midway through a mammoth washing session.

Just to underline the fact that it really is time to go home I punched a hole in the base of my new (and now only) board on the last pitch of the last run of the season (the face). BOLLOCKS!

Still look on the bright side, I have my BASI 3 qualification and I have all my limbs and ligaments intact. "Worse things happen at sea" my gran always said. Not entirely sure about the relvance of that to snowboarding. Suppose I could have had my board bitten in half by a great white or been dragged to my doom by a giant squid so maybe gran was right.

The big question now is : what next?

Well, now I'm qualified I could potentially work next season or even over the summer (in exotic locations such as NZ, S.America or Milton Keynes). i'm not sure the life of an instructor is the one for me. At the moment I'm enjoying my "real" job too much. Of course that may all change after i go back to the "PROJECT FROM HELL"(tm).

Anyway, It's been fun over here, hard work, harder than most of you could imagine. A seson sounds fun but 7 hours a day, 5 days a week plus weekends is pretty tiring. I'm looking forward to a nice comfy bed, mum bringing me cups of tea and a telly that has stuff in english.

See you all soon.

No, It really is over...

...

Well just when you think things are going well fate and human stupidity kick you in the spuds.

Having applied for the "Italian Job" as a snowboard instructor and being told that I had the job if I passed my BASI a small flaw in the plan has emerged.

Despite them being told that I was a snowboarder, the job that was mine if I passed was as a ski instructor. Can anyone see whats wrong with this picture?

Apparently they couldn't until I checked up with them yesterday.

So with no job and nowhere to live I am heading back home on Sat. Still the snow is disappearing fast over here, It was 17C in the village yesterday.

And just to cap everything off, I went to my board locker this morning to pick up my old board etc so I could pack it for my trip. At some time in the last month some pikey mo'fo' has broken into my locker and nicked it!

BASTARDS! I know it wasn't the greatest board but it was good for powder. I was trying to build up a stock of boards so I could match the board to the conditions. Now I'm left with my Squad which is a great board but at 159cm long it's not grreat in powder or slush for that matter.

I hope the fockers bust themselves up real good on MY board. Something requiring uninsured long term medical tratment would be good.

Anyway i'm off to get my passport so I can report the theft to the Police (who despite working in a resort with a large UK presence don't appear to have anyone who can speak english)

See you all soon...

They think it's all over.....

It is now,

I'VE PASSED!!

That's right folks! Muggins over here is now a qualified snowboard instructor (except in france where I am merely a legal grey area). That means I can rip your riding styles to shreds with authority.

I have to say it was a pretty stressful last day with me having to show all the elements that I was weak on. We had a mere 4 hours to strut our stuff. After 3hours 40 mins I was told that I had passed. If you think that's cutting it fine poor Gary was made to do the face twice to prove his ability on steep terrain. Apparently his legs were like jelly afterwards.

This is the final week i'm in Val and I have to say the weather is not great. The temperature is now touching double figures and the slopes have turned to mush. Added to this the fact that it's raining below 2500m and it's getting pretty mucky. Still I'm not ;etting it get me down this week is all about chilling out and relaxing. And that's what I'm doing.

Sarah has popped over for a holiday with her sister, Jen and I'm whipping them all over the mountain to get their techniques up to scratch. Having Sarah over here means that for the first time in over 10 weeks I can get what only a woman can give a man..... a decent meal. I know I've mentioned this before but I think i've forgotten what good food is like. Say food to me and I conjour up images of burnt lasagne and flacid chips garnished with a bill for E15. Considering the French laugh at us English based on our supposed ineptitude in the kitchen they are skating on pretty thin ice up here.

Now that I am the proud owner of a new instructor licence I may well head over to italy to the resort of Aosta/Pila for two weeks. I guess that I'll be helping out with the Easter rush so my days will probably consist of herding sugar crazed kiddies around the mountain or hauling overweight city boys of their arses so they can get "extreme". Still it will be a change of scenery and some experience plus they will pay for my ticket home On the minus side the snow there is 40/30cm and most of it man made apparently.

After the two weeks I'll probably head back to Blighty to chill and gorge myself on over boiled veggies and lumpy custard and all foods english.

Lord of the Runs - Return of the thing

Another brusing day on the slopes with our trainer, today we worked on central theme stuff in the morning (side slipping, falling leaf and all that gubbins) plus some carving.

Then in the afternoon we met up with the other board group to do some steep and bumpy stuff. For once I had some good runs with it all coming together so I put in some pretty good perfomances and was nice and happy.

Tomorrow is the final day and i have to pull everything together. I've been given a hit list

a) Side slipping - More flexing
b) Carving - Finish my heel side turns off more (I would if some prick on blades would stop getting in my way - they really are a plauge on the slopes, they breed like rats)
c) My fugging arms! - Christ, how tired am I getting of this one? I've solved the robot arms problem but now the trecherous bastards are crossing my body and getting in the way of my rythym (is that how you spell it?)- if they weren't so damn useful for other things, like opening doors and carrying boards, I'd get rid of them.

On other matters I ripped my bloody trousers on wednesday on some shoddy french lift equipiment (a sharp corner at shin level, wonder how many unsuspecting victims that ones had?).

No biggy, I have some spare trousers and the repair would only be E15. So I get home, empty my pockets and take my trousers to the shop to get them repaired. |The one small wrinkle in my plan was I forgot to take my pass out of the trousers!. So next day I had to get a day pass so I could have my lesson. E41 for one day!!! For fugs sake, I only wanted to ride up a lift not buy a bit of one! For that price I expect lie flat seats, complimentary drinks and a head massage not surley lift attendents and germans farting in gondala cars (it's the bratwurst i think).

So all in that little sharp corner cost me E55 and a bunch of agro.

Anyway I'm off to get a good nights sleep ready to tear that side slipping demonstration a new arsehole.

Ray Charles on ice....

....well slush really....spring has finally arrived with temperatures soaring into positive figures.

Considering last week we were still below -10 and two weeks ago we were hovering around -25 this is a pretty big temperature rise and I'm feeling it.

So too are the pistes with slush everywhere and some worrying brown patches appearing. We could really do with one more dump of snow before the real thaw sets in.

On the plus side our BASI course is going well with us working on our feel for the board today.

There are a number of ways of feeling the forces acting on a board all varying in difficulty. One of the more difficult ways of "feeling the force" involved riding down a green piste doing smooth linked turns. No problem there you might think but just to add a bit to the difficulty we had to DO IT WITH OUR EYES CLOSED! Obi Wan eat your feckin' heart out!

All we had between us and certain disaster were the shouts of other members of the group (those with their eyes open) and, surprisingly, despite half a dozen blind snowboarders heading down a crowded piste there were no major incidents. Except when one of us got entangled in the guide dogs leash.

I'm proud to say that I only caught an edge twice.

Anyway now i'm off to plan for the lesson i've got to take tomorrow.

Long & Hard....

...is the best way of describing my week. It's been the first week of our 2 week BASI assesment and boy is it tough!

We are (obviously) required to reach a certain level of riding in order to pass as instructors. This week has been focused on bringing our riding up to that standard. As of right now I am pretty close to the mark, I just need to sort out a few niggling issues, namely my fucking arms - I'm bumbling down the piste and things start to get a bit steep or bumpy and my bloody arms either pop out into my classic robot pose or start crossing my body and generally getting in the way, Bastards.

Anyhow I'm going to be working on those puppies this weekend and by the time most of you read this I hope to have properly nailed the buggers and will have a super smooth style.

If I pass I may well go over to italy for two weeks where there is a possible job teaching. it will probably involve baby sitting screaming spoilt brats all day but what the heck.

If I don't pass I may well hang out here for a couple more weeks and work on my freestyle.

Either way I have to be back in blighty for May. Bugger that depresses me thinking about it. :-(

A Grand Day Out....

...was had by all. The XBox Big Day Out(tm) circus has just left town leaving behind hangovers and memories.

They built a custom park at the base of the face run then shoved loads of skiers and riders down it for the entertainment of the masses. The skiers undoubtedly had the edge on tech tricks with one guy landing a 1260 but the snowboarders held their own with some nice stylish 5's, 7's and 9's plus some front flips from the brightly clad Tyler Choltern.

Some of the hits off the hip at the base of the course were HUGE. This blurry photo doesn't do justice to the size of this guys jump...



The blurry lines in the background are the lift cables from the chair that runs up the side of the face. THat should give you an idea of the size. The hip was eventually closed by the pisteurs who were getting a bit jumpy about the possibilty of someone overjunping and hurting themselves or landing in the crowd.

So in true safety fashion the wall was set on fire and riders given a E50 incentive for hitting it.





Burn Skier, Burn!

Yesterday we said goodbye to Amelia who is off home to Oz after braking her ankle in a crash a week or so ago. Also going home is Rosie who managed to break her kneecap in two (wtf?!) on thursday. These two bring the total of season killer injuries to 6 out of some 40 odd who started (about 15%) plus all the other more minor injuries such as mere broken wrists, fingers and cracked ribs. Dangerous game this.

So to take our minds off the danger here's a nice piccy of Val at night

CentreArcs

I went on a little tour on Sat to go and see Steve n Jen who were staying in Les Arcs. It wasn't too bad a journey taking about 90mins and it was good to catch up with SnJ.

For thoses of you who haven't seen Les Arcs 2000 it is one of the ugliest places on the face of the earth. Only the french (or possibly the russians) could even think it was a good idea. It's like some 60's tower block like Hulme was plonked down in the middle of a fantastic alpine valley. Arc2000 is one massive building and it feels alot like one of those Butlins holiday camps. Not nice. To compensate the snow was good and the (natural) views were fantastic.

Since then I've spent my days with a mix of BASI and french instructors all working to get me up to scratch for my BASI and I've improved alot, still not as fast as I would like and my freestyle is pretty thin (just a few 180's and some nose presses) but I'm pretty happy with my steeps and slope style (the face holds no fear for me any more)

In the mean time the XBox Big Day Out is in town (technically speaking it should be big days out as it covers 3 days but there we go). They've built an enourmous park at the bottom of the face and various pros from all around the world have been taking turns to hurl themselves off the massive kicker for the crowds amusement. It's all a little bit gladiator really.

It all finishes tomorrow with the grand final then a massive party in the evening. I'll take my trusty camera and go pro stalking.