so yesterday it snowed, and snowed, but now it’s sunny and gone.
we had our end of season work dinner, which was nice, it took the guys 45 minutes to agree on a wine for dinner! connoisseurs
so I’ve packed the car, and Nic and i will leave within an hour, so no more internet, Verbier, snow, and most of all home:

so good bye all this, and on to more adventures.

the plan is, today nic and i will visit Chateau Chillon and then i have to get her to teh airport by half eight. i’ll stay at Lilliane’s tonight,a nd tomorrow drive down to florence and spend two nights there.
then on Sunday/4th I will drive to Paris. I will have net access by then and can update later!

ciao ciao xx

fun video:

which reminds me, i’d really like to learn to parachute, i always did as a kid, but never got round to doing it, so maybe it’s 10 years since i decided i wanted to, and it’s about time i did it. so maybe that is a goal i should try to achieve this summer!

today was spent recovering from last night, toooooo much red wine along with various shots. but still been skiing, the weather was still lovely and sunny, and teh water slide was going, good fun:

free beer and raclette made it a good relax.

i’ve been doing big jumps and stuff, skiing is unbelievably easier than snowboarding, but hell i’d not stop snowboarding, they are soo different.

another aim is to swim in devil’s pool, victoria falls.

interesting read: dear god

i really like this guys photography

so in the last week I’ve done things far and wide.
i shopped in Martigny, and so now i have bought three items of clothing since leaving London, which is record, and each of those items is small, a pair of underwear, belt and bandanna, though it’s called something else.
i then started clearing myself out, well my room, and managed to chuck a whole 2 black bags of stuff, to lighten my load as i continue to travel.

i managed to fit a lot of stuff in my snowboard bag, to take back to england, to lighten the car. the guy in the airport only charged me for 2 extra kg, even though i was nearer 10Kg over, so a charge of 50Sfr which wasn’t bad, my snowboard bag came to 26Kg, so my car will be much happier!
the flight with swiss air was niceish, the seats were much roomier than easyjet for sure! but i was tired and wanted to sleep, and there were 4 crying babies strategically placed around me! so no sleep.
the idea behind flying to London city airport was partly for convenience. after stepping off the plane, i managed to exit the airport in under 15 minutes. but then i found the DLR was closed for the weekend. no problem i didn’t mind taking a rail replacement bus, it would save me money, and mean i wouldn’t have to carry my Heavy bags around. but just near canary wharf, some idiot cut the bus up, going from the inside lane of the roundabout and turning off, so we had a crash, so that took 15 minutes to settle. then the bus finally came to it’s end, almost 10 minutes walk from bank station, so it half killed me walking to the station with my gear. the remainder of the journey wasn’t too bad, except that all of the walking, the snowboard bag knocked my glasses out of my pocket, so now i have lost them so a wonderful welcome back to grey wet London!!!!!

it was ecstasy to take the snowboard bag and leave it with Zoey and Anne at their flat.
i got to see a very hungover Zoey. then went to Camden to pick Izzi from work. Izzi n i went to her nice new flat in Brixton. i later went to Ben and Harry’s where Anne n Ben’s sister were drinking wine and talking of scary movies. and stayed at Anne’s.

Sunday i woke up, went hunting around Palmers Green and managed to find the Yasar Halim supermarket, so i got me some ace humous :D. walked to wood green, accidentally bought some shoes, but they can replace my tatty old trainers. went to orange, and found that the sim card i had, and couldn’t work out why my phone didn’t work, was not even my sim, go figure, how did i lose my sim and end up with another? so went to Camden, and had lunch with Izzi, then to Sebastien’s. later met Anne, and chilled in the evening.

Monday morning I caught the train to Grantham, met with dad, Allison and Nam, and off to grandpa’s.
grandpa and i mowed his lawn while the others went shopping. we all went out for dinner, which was interesting, all of the remains of our family round a small table.

next day up early, though the funeral wasn’t so early. many many people, and in dad’s speech he made a point to the whole chapel, of me ‘the one with the funny hair’! hehe. it was odd having a vicar for the funeral when granny wouldn’t car for such things. so outside while we left first and then everybody came out, I did not know a person there except those who i had dinner with the night before! they all seemed to know what i had been doing, and were asking about Verbier and the snow?
food afterwards in a country house was cool. after the bulk of the people left, there were just Cowley’s and there were more Cowley’s in there that I didn’t know, than I had ever known. Most up to the same sort of things, running various businesses. one interesting one, Looby Cowley. so they’ve all arranged a family gathering sometime in May or June, but it’s quite unlikely I will be in England.
back to London, had a nice meal in Henry’s in Covent Garden with Anne. we stayed up and watched black sheep, because it’s out on DVD in England. my favourite film for years. the DVD has a whole load more included than the copy i saw on the airplane from LA, or the downloads I got last year.

we headed to City airport in the morning, with plenty of time. had breakfast with Anne, and then I waited in the lounge. I had expected them to announce the plane being ready for boarding, so i waited and waited. and by the time I started wondering what was going on, the board said that boarding had closed. I had listened intently to every broadcast on the speakers, but the guy didn’t speak English, so i couldn’t understand a thing. as i was at the information desk, i saw my plane heading off to the runway, great :@ ! i was forced to buy a new ticket and wait 3 hours. it could be worse, the hardest bit staying awake until the next flight, not wanting to miss another!

I’ve been chilling out back here in Verbier.

Thursday, I went to a meeting at my work place, to help make sure that the web developers are on course and the new website for the company will do everything necessary, and we all went for dinner. a repeated comment was that i need to be there next winter to get the office running.

yesterday Nic and I went for a walk, which was nice, she was hoping to get a sun tan. we sat at the top of a cliff for 2-3 hours and had a pic-nic. so i ended up sun burnt, which became more and more apparent into the evening. Nic picked me up after work, and we went to Jo/Nini/Abdu/Luis’s for dinner. it still amazes me how late they eat, rarely before midnight!

I ordered a GPS for the car online, it’s wonderful how you can order things online in Switzerland and pay upon delivery! I have been moving money between my accounts and can’t pay until then! I think it would be wise to have GPS help to travel around Europe on my own, it will save map reading while driving! I went for the Garmin 250W, I hope it’s good! reviews say better than Tomtom.

so today is partying on the slopes. i don’t have my board as it’s now in London, so i am going to give skiing a go, though it has been art least 6 years, so this could be interesting!!!

so this turned out a bit long, maybe I should update more often!

Yesterday i had my first proper day off in a while, not considering Austria, because that was action packed, so stayed in bed until lunch. cleaned my room, and vacuumed the house. Eva shaved my head, then i went shopping with Nic. this town is crap for shopping which is great as i bought one small item, and have no desire to do any more shopping!
i picked up the transfer, and contact from Toto (have to have post sent to his shop as post never seems to arrive to my place?!?!
Met Nic and her kids she babysits every night (Claudi 7, Dinar 10) and watched 3 local marching bands in town, as they paraded to big tent by Centre Sportif.
In the big tent there was more band action, followed by the ‘Big Fondue’. There were 2 pots for making fondue, 4 feet deep and 3 feet wide, I’ve never seen so much cheese in my life, never even in any of the fromageries that I have visited. So we ate, and this morning I have a big round belly.
Claudi took a liking to my camera, so when he was running this way and that with it I think Nic was having a heart attack worrying he may destroy it. So I didn’t get many photos, but it will be interesting to see what he photographed. You should have seen all the little girls pretending not to see the camera, while sortting their hair and making sure they were posing!

I checked flights back the England for Granny’s funeral which is on the 22nd of April. Seems that Swiss Air is the cheapest, followed by Air France, with Easyjet being on a par with British Airways, and all the while I thought Easyjet was cheap!
So I will return to England for a short while, which I have mixed feelings about, especially London. But at least I will get to see my family and friends briefly.

I have just been checking the website for planning road journies around Europe, so I think I’d like to drive to Barcelona and stay with Marta for a bit, then as it is too far to drive directly to Stockholm I will stop by Paris and hopefully see Agota. Then on to Stockholm to see Alice. Then back to Paris to hang with Anne, then on to England for a short while.
The difficult thing about this would be setting a date for each person, as I’m sure they wouldn’t be so happy with the idea if me just turning up. I really don’t want to set a time limit, so I have begun messaging these people, and then I will work it out.

It was a little sad saying goodbye to Lilliane at work, even though we only worked together for 5 weeks I enjoyed working and speaking with her. Even if she is over double my age we got on. She suggested that she will try and get me a job around Bordeaux. She spent a lot of her life running wine chateaus around there. And when she has sold her house in Lutry, near Lausanne she will return to Bordeaux to buy another chateau and I am welcome :). So she will try and find me a job in the wine industry or estate agent industry, which would be interesting. Great to experience different jobs!

So today is my last day of work. I expect there to be nooooo work to do, so will take my laptop, and get uploading pictures, and maybe watch some Britas Empire!

so it’s taken me almost 4 months to get this going. thus there are 3 months of me being away that are missing, maybe I’ll have the time to sort this out and write up my life. not likely, i can’t even keep my flickr up to date, i must be a month and a half behind.

so for now my blog will be me and my travels, and my photos and ramblings and whatever else falls out of my head, and i don’t even imagine anybody paying attention, la la la.

it’s the end of the season so the seasonaires partying is going to get into swing (i hope)

so i don’t imagine I’m going to bother too much with punctuation, especially capitals.

so today i have returned to work, which is totally not busy, as there are barely any people in the resort any longer, so the day is mainly spent messing around on the net, so maybe I’ll have time tomorrow to write more to this. but my job will be over by next week, and then what? i wish to travel.

for ages I’ve spoken of going to New Zealand, but i haven’t organised anything, and have no money at the present time. not to mention the fact that i really want to learn more French, and that wont happen down under.

so maybe i will drive around Europe a bit, see Alice in Stockholm, Marta in Barcelona, Agota in Paris, and maybe Anne in Paris.

what’s more i don’t want to go too far, as i wish to see somebody who i wont get to see from far afield, which is a silly idea, because it wont be traveling, if I’m not traveling, so maybe I’ll stay close to home for the time being.

so maybe i could stay in the south of France, practice ma francais and maybe learn some water sports. i have not even tried water sports really, coming from growing up in the middle england countryside, though i am good at climbing trees, mountains and the such like that is land based.

before anything i have to go back to england, to see my friends who i miss, and haven’t seen in months.

well i will have to see what happens in the next few weeks.

so on a different direction, nic and I went to Snowbombing last week, which was ACE. but i think i should write up about that when I have the photos to go with it.

don’t expect much from this yet, as i don’t know how to use Wordpress yet, but I’ll learn!

well that’s it for now, i need to bath.