Just back from the Alps -

Tignes, to be precise. "Le plus bel espace de ski du monde," goes its catchy slogan. In reality, it should be "Le fucking plus froid espace de ski du monde," but aside from the face-killing cold, it is actually a reasonable ski area. The various villages that make up Tignes are '60s ugly and the landscape, being above the tree line, is rather lunar at times, but at least the snow was good and the runs were okay.

Bizarrely I don't have much to say about the boarding itself - all my gear worked as it should (in fact I think this is the first year that I didn't 'have' to buy anything extra. Er, apart from a beanie, but that's just nitpicking) but my boarding wasn't great. Last year, having been training for the 10K, I was in reasonable shape but this year I just didn't have the same energy. Annoying, especially when coupled with my right foot's new and exciting tendency to go to sleep and/or become unreasonably painful after only a run or two. In the end I managed to improve my carving ability from non-existent to unreliably moderate, but in general I think I was a little uninspiring in terms of mad boarding skillz.

Also I managed to lose three (3) gloves. One and a half full pairs. Incredible.

The apres-board was slightly more consistent. We defrosted frozen beers in a bidet, drank beaucoup de la Kro, ate a cow's worth of barely-cooked meat and 'danced' - or at least I did, while Andy quietly threw up in a corner - in a typically dire ski resort club. Mission accomplished.