I'm sitting in an internet café in Waverley station, waiting for a train that doesn't leave for another two hours. The webcam saga took a final twist the very day before I left for France, necessitating a trip down south to make some last minute alterations to the setup.

I had written a vast, rambling, Moby Dick-sized indictment of the whole bastarding process. I then deleted it, because the red mist died down and I could, in the cold light of day, see that it was self-pitying crap.

So, instead: week 2 of boarding. I was getting frustrated with my Donek Incline towards the end of the first week - it holds a line like it's on rails but the stiffness that lets it do this is incredibly tiring to use, and makes it a handful at low speeds. After a morning looking around board shops, endlessly asking questions subconsciously intended to delay the spending of a big wedge of cash, I settled on a Ride Mickey LeBlanc Pro 156. Endless names and marketing wank aside, it was a much softer, wider freestyle board that I couldn't wait to try out. Unfortunately, I found myself with a metre-and-a-half long, sail-like plank of wood to get down, somehow, a hundred and fifty metres into a different valley.

That was an interesting journey, I can tell you.

I got down in one piece and lo! the board was great. That very day, it started snowing and then just kept snowing for the rest of the week. Off-piste areas were covered in successively deeper and deeper powder and the board was absolutely right for it; where the Donek would nose-dive and fail to turn, the Ride floated over it all and was a much more forgiving to use. It all culminated in possibly the best day's boarding I've ever had, with the Thursday afternoon entirely consisting of tree-dodging, flat-out charges down powdery off-piste steeps and caning along perfectly groomed runs.

At that was basically it; add in five nights consumption of beer, ham and cheese, and you have week 2. I'm left feeling not a little flat after an 8-hour, 4 am journey home and the prospect of going back to work. Ho hum. With any luck, I'll do something A) interesting and B) non-boarding-related soon, else this little diary will descend into even more mindless tedium that it has henceforth plumbed...!