Wednesday 9 Jan, 2008

We are all definitely getting used to skiing because getting ready in the morning is getting a lot quicker so we met George at 09:30 at the bottom of the button lift where Kirsten and Carl had dropped the kids and George had dropped Nathan.

We had decided to go over to Plaine Dranse which is quite a nice area for skiing but I have found it a bit nerve wracking firstly for the ski into the valley which can only be done on some quite steep red runs and the ski out is on this miserable blue run which I just detest.

The red run into Plaine Dranse was steep but manageable and Kirsten, Carl and myself find ourselves on the brink of being able to ski red runs rather than survive them but I suspect that it may take some time to get over the brink. The run from Plaine Dranse down to Pre La Joux is absolutely fantastic and we did it I don't know how many times and enjoyed it every time. I think that it was particularly great because, while it was snowy and dull, the conditions underski were great.

It was really nice to go whizzing past beginners at what to them must be a great speed and feel totally in control. Before we knew it, it was 11:30 and George, Kirsten and Carl had to head back to pick up their respective offspring while I stayed behind to do a couple of extra runs. The one, La Perdrix Blanche, turned out to be like a long super tube which was actually quite fun but by 12:30 I had done enough and I headed home.

The dreaded blue lived up to my memory and I didn't enjoy it at all, I did however survive and made it home where everyone had kindly kept some lunch for me.

The weather had deteriorated so we spent most of the afternoon reading or if you were Caron and the van der Riets, sleeping. Kirsten and I were sitting in the dining room when a very grumpy Caron burst through demanding to know why we hadn't answered the person knocking on the door. Problem was that there wasn't anyone and she must have been hearing some other flats door but this was enough to put her into a bad mood for a few hours so everyone did the sensible thing and avoided her.

In preparation for the evening supper we went to shopi to buy some provisions and on the way met an enormous great dane which was tied up outside shopi and would periodically bark which would echo through the shop. The french, like the english seem to have a love affair with dogs, even taking them on holiday. Besides the great dane we've seen greyhounds, huskies, jack russels, saint bernards and many other breeds for which I don't know the name. You've actually got to be careful in some areas because of the dog shit and quite where the owners put them overnight is a mystery. We're in what is considered an enormous, palatial apartment and it is only just 50m2.



George, Yvonne and Nathan came over for supper and some action scrabble but unlike home where you just kind of assume that you have enough chairs, crockery and cutlery, this is not an assumption that one should make here so we ended up sitting on bedside tables and step ladders. The table fortunately expands but although we had enough forks we were shy on the knives and plates. After a very enjoyable supper of macaroni and cheese or macaroni and bolognaise sauce we played a couple of rounds of action scrabble which everyone seemed to enjoy. Caron, Megan and I were playing as a team and Megan must have lucky fingers because we got both the wild cards in both of the hands that we played.

We had bought some pre-cooked crepes from shoppi for pudding which turned out to be less than successful but was saved from disaster by big dollops of Nutella.

I think everyone enjoyed the evening perhaps because it gets some outside interaction and personalities into the mix which is always, at least mostly, a good thing.

Tuesday 8 Jan, 2008

A very unusual start to the day. Normally I am up first and Megan shortly thereafter but this morning Carl was the very first one up. Of course there was a reason, it was 08:00 which meant that Megan and I had overslept by 2 hours which meant that I slept for a whole 10 hours. Thank goodness for the skiing because otherwise I would be an insomniac and arrive back from holiday as sleep deprived as when I left.

The start of they day was a little rushed between getting kids ready, breakfast and the daily diary and backing up of photographs and GPS tracks but by the time the kids school started, we were all ready for a trip over to Switzerland with Kirsten, Carl and myself. I forgot to turn the GPS on so the track only starts at the top of Ripaille but the route there was Tour, Prolays, Mosette, Mosette Chairlift, Abricotine and an unnamed run down to the bottom of Ripaille.

The Ripaille runs were so enjoyable that we did them both several times and a couple of times we took video footage of us descending which is very revealing as to how well one ski's. From there we headed down to Les Crosets but stopped on the way there for some Vin Chaux, served by a very good looking waitress, and ended up talking to a couple from Strassburg which none of us even know in which country it is. They were very friendly and it was great chatting to them. They noticed that although we were speaking english, we didn't have the normal accent so they wanted to know where we were from.

We did the crosets red run which I went down way too fast, not quite out of control but damn close to it. From there it was up Mossettes and down Abricotine and back home for lunch. It was an absolutely fantastic day out with bright sunshine and quite good skiing albeit a little bit icy.

After lunch things got interesting because I decided to do the Marmotte field which is a blue mogul run. When I got to the top I had a choice of a red mogul run or a blue mogul run, almost all the people were doing the red one but since this would be my first mogul run, I took the blue. This was a big mistake as I very soon found out. At the altitude that the mogul run was there had been quite heavy snow and then with the rain there was a nice crust of ice on top which my weight was just able to break through so I was actually skiing just under the top crust of ice and if I put any more weight on the downhill ski in order to carve, the tip would simply go under the crust and sink which means that I was catapulted forward head first into the snow/ice. After the fifth dismount within about 200m I had had enough and I took the ski's off and trudged down to the red run and sulked while I got my humour back. After a while I put my ski's back on and coped reasonably well with the remainder of the red run. Depending on how I feel tomorrow, I might come back up and do the red run from the top. Maybe.

Headed over to join Kirsten, Carl and the slinky chain of two kids on super-morzine for a while before calling it a day. Carl saw a t-shirt which had an arrow pointing up and another pointing down, the one up was labelled “The Man” and the one down “The Legend” which led to all sorts of mirth after supper with Carl making a memorable comment about “Not wanting to blow my own ...” as his voice petered out when he realised what he was saying.



While I was taking this photo, I could hear the waitress behind me cackling with mirth at this tourist, I mean, taking a photograph of a t-shirt! Really!

No tobogganing tonight but we did pop out to get some crepes for pudding for the adults. The kids had been spoilt by Caron at lunch time with two crepes each. Lucky things.

Monday 7 Jan, 2008

It's raining! After a really good day or so, it is now raining which means all that nice powder snow is turning to slush which doesn't make for the most fun to ski on. The weather is still pretty miserable so we all stayed indoors until after lunch when it cleared up a bit. The weather predictions are amazingly accurate.

In spite of the inclement weather the children were bundled off to ski school and Kirsten and Carl retired to the flat where they proceeded to fret over whether they should have send the kids out when they themselves weren't going out due to the weather. Eventually they were feeling so bad that they went to fetch them and they arrived home dripping wet. I'm not looking forward to tomorrow morning when all the water will have frozen and it will be slippery as hell.

By this time, we'd all been cooped up in the flat for it felt like ages and I was starting to get cabin fever. It's this uncomfortable feeling and you just don't know what to do with yourself, this is simply solved by a good dose of outside activity – weather permitting of course and therein lies the dilemma.

We decided to go for a walk and SMS's george and yvonne to find them at a cafe quite near our building so we joined them for a drink.

We joined Kirsten and Carl for lunch and then we were back on the slopes. We decide to try bleue do arare with the kids but it was terrible. It felt like it was my first time skiing, I was all over the place but fortunately so were everyone else and in these conditions everyone decided to retreat to Super Morzine where we all know the runs well and we wouldn't have to contend with difficult conditions as well as poor visibility.



We had a wonderful afternoons skiing where the poor snow conditions were compensated by the ease of the runs and there was a fantastic sunset to bid the day farewell as we made our way home, cabin fever a thing of the past. Having it for only a day, I can understand why Sweden has the highest suicide rate in the world. I just can't imagine being cooped up for 6 months of the year.

After a supper of hamburgers, or in my case, fish burgers we all dressed up and went out tobogganing again and this as surely as day follows night led to a snow ball fight. The problem was that with all the rain, some of the snow balls were more like ice balls and there were a few injuries. Kirsten and Carl were hiding behind some mesh which made them awkward to aim at. Nevertheless I managed to get Carl on the ear with the remains of a snow/ice ball after it had penetrated the mesh. Of course I managed to get Megan in the mug again which produced a small amount of tears before she once again decided that getting even was much better and started throwing with real anger.

We wanted to have crepe's for pudding but the creperie was already closed so we retired to read and drink.

Sunday 6 Jan, 2008

It's still snowing which means that it has been snowing for almost an entire day and there is about 15cm of new snow on the ground. Unfortunately is isn't the greatest snow being halfway to sleet so it turned out to be a bit slushy. It seems that in snow, like in so much else, there are subtleties that aren't apparent until one actually experiences them.

While Kirsten and Carl were dropping the kids at school, Caron and I went shopping at Shoppi which is the local supermarket about 50m from our block of flats. It was amazing how many brands we recognise, we just can't understand the labels so thank goodness for the pictures. Overall, I think that food prices are maybe a little more expensive than home but some things are cheaper and some more expensive so it really depends on what you are actually buying. Kisten bought their whole family really nice polar fleeces which were just over half of what they would have paid for the same article in Johannesburg.



After Kirsten and Carl had dropped the kids at ski school we headed out with the intention of going up Mosettes and then skiing the Abricotine but the mossettes lift was closed so we headed over to ski Le Crot instead which was quite nice if a little slushy. By the time we got to the bottom of Le Crot, it was getting really wet and there were patches of water on some of the flat spots near the cable car. After Le Crot we decided to do Bleue de Arare which proved to be quite difficult because we ended up skiing in a near white out which, if you haven't done it a lot, is very disconcerting. You can't see just about anything, you can just make out the edge markers of the run as they whizz by but you definitely can't see the slope nor any moguls so it makes it ultra important to be skiing properly. If you're doing it properly with parallel curves and your weight and your knees correct then it is amazing how you can soak up the unexpected bumps but if you get it just a little bit wrong , it starts to be spectacular. After one run Kirsten and Carl decided to call it a day and went home, I did one more before doing the same.

Found Caron still at home having sensibly not ventured out so we had lunch and then spent the afternoon reading and relaxing but towards the end of the afternoon we all started getting a little bit of cabin fever. Kirsten, Caron and I went for a walk, ostensibly to go shopping but on the way we popped into the information centre and discovered that there was going to be a dog sled race in and around town which would explain all the barrier tape that people have been putting up.

We returned and fetched the kids to take them up to where there was an Indian village with teepees and huskies.



Took some nice photographs of Megan and one of the huskies which was totally white with these pale blue eyes. I think it was love at first sight for Megan and I can see some awkward discussions ahead between Megan and Carl about taking the dog home.



Also took some nice photos of the sisters, I think, dressed up like squaws that were part of the display. I tried to bring her home, for Tony of course, but she pretended to not understand english and I just didn't know how to put 'mail order bride' into french!



At about this time things went pear shaped for Alistair who projectile vomited all over Kirstens hand and beyond so there was this patch on the snow of evidence but before long people were just walking all over it. Kirsten went home with Alistair while we watched the start of the dog race. The sled dogs were all lots smaller than I was expecting but you can see that they really enjoy the run because 4 hours later when they were finishing, they were still game to run.



After supper we, those that weren't sick or nursing sick people, dressed up and went tobogganing as well as watched the end of the dog sled race. Megan is really taking to the art of snow ball fighting, she even carried a stash on her toboggan so she could lob them at Carl as she went past. Of course that invites retaliation and I hit her with two snow balls on the head as she skittled past. I don't think I've ever been that accurate, my ability to throw accurately is normally abysmal. The second snowball was right on the nose and you could see the start of tears before she sucked it in and decided that getting even was a much better plan. The tobogganing was great fun but you have to really watch out because they are really only under marginal control and we saw a number of spills which kept us all amused, especially when they wrapped themselves up in the kiddies rope lift.

We watched the end of the dog race which seems to be a really big thing because it was on national television with live coverage of the end of the race. I think Kirsten and Carl are going to be hard put to get out of buying an entire dog sled team for Megan.

Home for coffee which Carl made which was very nice of him and bed.

Saturday 5 Jan, 2008

The morning started as every morning has with me writing up my diary while the coffee percolates and the water boils for the morning tea. It has traditionally been my time of peace and quiet but lately I've had two savages who hide behind their door and as soon as they hear me making any kind of noise, like opening the door, they are out to come and watch me. They have been inordinately fascinated by my fishtank screensaver which they can watch for ages. Alistair has been amazed at how fast I dial which translated into adult speak means type.

Today is travelling day for Heidi and Darrell and my parents which we don't covet at all for two reasons. Firstly, it means that the end of the holiday is nigh and secondly travelling just isn't that much fun. Kirsten and I went up to help with the luggage which is just as well because they had an amazing amount of it. Once most of it was down I phoned the taxi service, picked up the last little bit of luggage and by the time we got outside the taxi was already there. That is too efficient for words but I think that it was more coincidence because about 5 minutes later another taxi was wandering around outside obviously looking for a party.

We said our final goodbyes and they were off, the wrong way so we waited outside for a few minutes before we saw them tearing up the road on the other side of the village centre heading in the right direction. A last wave and they were gone.

We took our time having breakfast and getting ready before we all headed out. We happened to meet Jean Paul with another student from South Africa who happened to live in Hurlingham, a stones throw away from us. The Van Der Riets soon left us far behind so I spent some time trying to help Caron start parallel turns. I think that the problem is that she is terrified of going out of control everytime her ski's point downhill which is every turn so we tried doing J turns where for a brief moment her ski's point downhill. It sort of worked but I think Caron will have to practice loads.

We met up with the Van Der Riets at Carons favourite crepperie where everyone bar myself had crepes and either hot chocolate or Vin Chaux which is becoming a firm favourite. Had some fun with the video camera filming the expressions of delight as people munched their way through their crepe nutellas.



We all headed up to Coombe a Floret which would be Carons first real run outside of the Super Morzine area. This proved to be a mistake and it almost scared Caron witless and it took almost 45 minutes to complete the run which normally takes less than 5 minutes. Very frustrating but I can remember standing at the top of the same slopes thinking that this can't possibly be the slope but it is. At one stage, caron was side stepping down a steep portion but then later on skied down an even steeper portion. Very unhappy camper and that was effectively the end of Carons skiing for the day.



By this time the weather was really coming in, loads of snow and fairly strong winds so along with Caron and the van der riets headed home while I headed out to super-morzine where I know the runs fairly well which makes it much easier when you can't really see where one is going.

I did Tetras and Zore and Les Germes I don't know how many times. I kept on getting to the top of the lift and thinking that I'd do just one more and then I'd go home because the conditions really weren't great. For some reason I seem to enjoy it when the conditions are a little challenging but it sure makes you have the correct posture because without having the correct posture, it is just impossible to ski. I finally dragged myself home at 16:30, I'd thought that it was about 14:00 and I had promised to help Caron with the washing. Needless to say I was late and as Carl put it, I'd better prepare for some words.

I had a brief bite to eat before heading down to the laundromat. There isn't much to actually do using the laundromat but I think that it was more for moral support rather than actual help. Walking back in the snow was interesting because walking in the pisten bully tracks it is obvious that they exert far fewer kilograms per square centimetre than a person does.

Had supper before we played individual scrabble which I am not really that good at given my spelling inability. I should really play it more often because I am sure that it is good for the brain.

Crashed at 22:00.

Friday 4 Jan, 2008

Everyone woke up really late, I was the first up and I only woke up at 07:30 so everything ran really late. Darrel wanted to do yet another marathon but it wasn't to be for me so he left for the day on his own. I think that he is really savouring his last real day of holiday because tomorrow is a travelling day and travelling with three kids doesn't sound like much fun to me.

After getting children off to ski school which has to be just about the best invention as far as parents are concerned, Carl and I ventured out for the first time since he put his shoulder out. We ran Coombe a Floret and Prolays several times without incident and Carl coped quite well. It's not like we were motoring down but we weren't exactly going slowly either. I think Carl really enjoyed Coombe a Floret even though the end of it is a bit icy and nasty. I think that maybe I should be starting to speed up a bit instead of being so cautious.

We all met Jean Paul on the plateau and we were off with him leading and showing us little things that make the difference. In particular keeping one's body straight and more or less upright and bending one's knees forcing them into the front of one's boots. I did my boots up really tightly today and it definitely felt a bit better. We were on the ski lift and Jean Paul was speaking to a friend of his and wished him “bon chance” which apparently means “Good luck on getting laid” which started Carl off laughing which extracted a guilty look from Jean Paul. "I see you understand a little french!" he said after the call was finished.

A couple of hours of this and we were all tired so we retired for the afternoon. Caron arrived back from her mornings ski just before us so she was quite tired as well. It sounds like Caron is ready to take the next step which will be great.

During the afternoon, apart from Darrell taking Alex skiing and the Van der Riets going off for a little while, it was famdamily afternoon. Heidi and my parents were very worried about the lift from Avoriaz to Geneva because I hadn't received the confirmation SMS. I phoned three times during the afternoon and each time go the same reply that they were still working on the schedule until finally at about 18:00 we received an SMS confirming the pick up time.

At about 16:30 the children went down to the ski school to get medals which turned out to be quite nice and surprisingly, only about half the children received medals. I really would have thought that all the children would have received but the instructors obviously really do watch the children's skiing and only dish out medals to those that crack the grade.

Supper was a combined affair with the whole family eating pizza's and the children watching “Happy Feet” for the I don't know how many time. Darrell seemed very grumpy and only arrived when supper was just about finished and kept pretty much to himself.

By 21:00 I was ready for bed, my eyelids closing involuntarily.

Tomorrow should be a really good day because it is change over day so the slopes should be relatively empty.

Thursday 3 Jan, 2008

Woke up quite early this morning and by that I mean at 06:00 so I had some time to really catch up with writing and transferring GPS tracks as well as photographs which was quite nice. I must have been really early because Megan wasn't hiding behind the door waiting for me to turn a light on. She seems to have very different sleep patterns to Alistair.

I wasn't intending on doing another marathon day today but Darrell definitely wanted to go to Switzerland and it is always much nicer skiing with company so it was off to Switzerland we went. We left at 08:30 which means that we had to wait for some of the lifts to open. The one button lift picked me right off my feet before hurtling me forward. The route that we took went over Cubore and the run down the other side to pick up the chair lift to the top of Grand Conche is appropriately named Mur du Cubore which means “The wall of Cubore” - it is *&%^ steep, by far the steepest red run I have seen. I sort of fell on the way down but it was really more like a lie down.


Me with the dreaded "Mur du Cubore" in the background. Yes, it really is that steep.

On the button lift there was one section where you were basically hanging off the button and somehow Darrell go his ski's mixed up and ended up being dragged the remaining 25% of the lift. Very funny from my view as he bounced his way up the track. The run down the other side into Switzerland brings back very bad memories. I did it the second or third day last trip and that meant that it was basically my second or third day skiing and it is very narrow and icy with a nice drop on the one side. This time it was a walk in the park, it wasn't as icy and I think just having done more skiing it was very easy. Amazing.

Once in Switzerland we spent some time going up and down Ripaille because we enjoyed it so much, these blue runs are really fantastic with some nice bumps in the middle to speed over. This was our first encounter with T-bar lifts this year and true to form, one of us, in this case Darrel, got his jacket hooked and almost wiped out. Great fun and once we had done these a couple of times we did the Grand Paradis run which was absolutely fantastic. We stopped at this tiny crepperie half way down the steeper section which was the antithesis of the commercial crepperies. Very cute and picturesque. The rest of Grand Paradis was a bit of a dog because it involves lots of polling but because the entire valley is always in the shade there was loads of snow on the trees and very pretty.



The Grand Paradix ski lift was awesome, very unlike the typical Swiss lifts. It even had a perspex bubble canopy which encloses the entire chair keeping the elements at bay. I will have to revise my blanket statement about Swiss chair and button lifts.

Once we had dropped down into Les Crosets we couldn't help but go up and do the run under the chair lift which was fantastic. We saw some slalom skiers on the next run practicing, they make it look so unbelievably easy and the speed at which they descend is quite amazing.

At the top of the Abricotine I had an awkward incident, I was going down and this kid forced me to go straight down. I had a big drop on my right about 2' away, and the kid on the left also about 2' away and I couldn't slow down even using a snow plough because it would have knocked the kid over. Normally you just speed out of these situations but there were quite substantial moguls directly ahead and I didn't want to take them at speed with limited manoeuvrability but in the end I didn't have a choice. I was shouting "left, go left" at the kid but he obviously didn't understand me. Darrell, about 2m, away was killing himself laughing.

We got home at about 13:00 having done close on 50km of skiing, including chair lifts of course. Quite knackered so I spent the afternoon with Caron relaxing on the deck chairs and reading. We also spent some time looking for gift for the kids at home.

We were all going out for supper but before that we took the fireworks that caron had purchased and went up to the plateau to set them off which the kids seemed to enjoy. Actually the adults seemed to enjoy it as well jumping around doing the spitzen sparkelen firework dance.

The supper was absolutely fantastic, a cheese fondue in the these surroundings just seems to be the right thing to have. The cheese that they use is called Vaucherin and we are going to have to find some at home. Heidi and Darrel came back to our flat for some coffee afterwards but by then I was so tired that I was nodding off so I retired to bed and left everyone else to enjoy the rest of the evening. Darrell was a bit tense at supper because he, like it seems everyone else, spends the last couple of days of a holiday winding up for work.


The view at the very end of Grand Paradix

Wednesday 2 Jan, 2008

The day of the big trek over to Morzine. Darrel, Kirsten and I decided to go all the way over to Morzine to check out the skiing there so we were pretty much the first people on the lifts and the sun had only just risen on the higher points. It was great being the first down the runs and it was just an absolutely fresh beautiful day.

It took us and hour to get from Avoriaz to the top of the lifts in Morzine where we decide to have a look at Les Gets which turned out to be an absolutley fantastic days skiing. We even did a few red runs which aren't quite as severe as the red runs around Avoriaz so we coped with them quite well by which I mean, we skied them rather than survived them.



We stopped for lunch at the top of La Rosta which was great, great view, great food albeit a bit expensive. It worked out to be 24 EUR for 3 panini's, two hot chocolates and one Vin Chaux. For some reason things seem more pricey at Morzine, probably to catch all the brits that seem to have invaded here. I was talking to one who told me that he had purchased an apartment for 500 000.00 EUR. Ouch, although I find it hard to believe.

The one red slope we all enjoyed so much that we did it twice, the second time a bit too fast. I went flying past Darrell on the edge of control but managed to keep it all together long enough to slow down. By 13:30 I was starting to get tired and I know that the accidents happen when one is tired so I and Kirsten, thankfully, were keen on heading home. Darrell, on the other hand, just wanted to keep on going and going. I think that he sees his time here running out and he want to do as much as possible so it was a little tricky to cajole him into cutting the afternoon short.

We met everyone on the plateau where Megan and Alistair were practicing on the kiddies slopes. Once the kids had finished we all went over to Le Yeti for some crepes and Vin Chaux. A crepe and a drink each cost 50 EUR and there were only 6 of us but it was very good sitting out there watching the sun go down sipping my Vin Chaux and snacking on a Nutella crepe.



The Vin Chaux went straight to my head and when we got back to the flat, Caron forced me to have another glass so by the time we went up for supper at Heidi and Darrell's I more or less rolled up where I was offered yet more wine, how could I refuse. I should have known that there was going to be an intellectual discussion regarding religion, started by Heidi I might add. I only seem to have these interesting discussions when I am barely able to string two sentences together and now I have to try and spar with both my father and carl who can both more than hold their own even when I haven't been handicapped by the red menace.

After supper all the adults, the younger one's at least, went for a walk around town which looks fantastic at night. They light up the mountain so you get this wonderful scene where the mountains for a backdrop behind the brightly lit town.

Carl and Darrell were looking for a restaurant to take us all out to tomorrow night. I don't want to see this bill but they have been warned. We had a bit of a running snowball fight, again started by Heidi which relieved some of the tension built up earlier during the discussion regarding religion. A restaurant was finally selected and we all buggered off home.

Tonight has been the first night that I haven't been desperate to get to bed by 21:00 and I was still merrily reading “The Long way Down” after 22:00.

The following is Caron and my bedroom, note the wall to wall mattress!

Tuesday 1 Jan, 2008

Another year rolls by, I don't know whether to be happy or sad that they go by so quickly.

The morning started at about 06:00 which is still pitch black here with some inconsiderate moron who can't tell the time setting off a whole lot of crackers.

We had breakfast and then Caron and I headed out and down Proclou and up the Sarusseaux chair lift. I ran Q'mont while Caron went down Tetras and we met at the crepperie for a hot chocolate. We must have been the first customers of the day and we sat on the balcony in the clear morning air and looked out over Morzine and sipped out chocolate. Quite fantastic.

I left Caron to her own devices and went off to meet Jean-Paul for our lesson and was standing in the queue and bumped into Kirsten and Heidi who just happened to be standing in front of me.

Taking lessons is one of those dilemmas where what they tell you, you can read in a book but what they show you, you definitely can't. Especially the little bits of off piste that they show you, Jean Paul showed us a great area near Lindaret which was great for some relatively easy off piste mogulling. Very benign and loads of space which always makes things much easier.

Kirsten distinguished herself on one of the chair lifts when Jean Paul asked me :
Par les voux francaise?
To which I answered :
Non!
Jean Paul then looked at kirsten who answered :
Un petit pour.
Which translates to “a little pea” which had Jean Paul chuckling away although we didn't see the humour until much later.

Now I just have to try and put into practice what we were taught which is not as easy as it sounds.

The lesson finished at 13:30 and Kirsten, Caron and Carl went off with the kiddies toboganning while I spent some time trying to practice, careful this afternoon to get back well before the sun went down. The sun here is weird, it never really rises properly, it just sort of skirts the horizon between 08:00 and 16:00.

Had macaroni cheese for supper and were in bed by 09:00. I'm getting so much sleep that by the end of the holiday I should have a lot in reserve. Carl is coping much better with his shoulder and the possiblity that his holiday may have ended than I would have.

Monday 31 Dec, 2007

Caron woke up feeling sick, it seems like the same virus as Megan had yesterday so hopefully it only lasts a day because Megan is feeling much better today.

While Kisten and Carl sent the kids off to school I went and ran Bleue de Arare a couple of times and really enjoyed it, particularly the second time when I knew more or less what to expect. I am going to have to have some lessons to learn how to control myself on the steeper sections, I think I may not be leaning far enough down hill so the downhill ski isn't biting into the snow enough and I am sliding rather than cutting uphill to bleed off speed.

When Kirsten, Carl and Darrel joined me we ran Bleue De Arare again followed by Bleue De Lac which took us over into another valley where we ran Fornet twice and then Chavanette twice.


Kirsten and Carl - Pre Fall

We were all a little tired so we agreed to run Chavanette a last time before stopping at the Crepperie to have something to eat before heading home. I was skiing next to Carl on the flat about 100m before we were due to stop when something went very wrong and I just saw ski's going left and right. I stopped and could see that all was not well by the way that Carl was lying and sure enough, he had dislocated his shoulder. When I got back to him I helped put it back which was surprisingly easy but it was a horrible reminder of how easily an accident can happen. Carl has a bit of a history with this shoulder because he has dislocated it about a dozen times previously so maybe an operation is in order in the future. The problem at the moment is that we're all in this wonderful skiing place and you can't, according to the doctor, ski with a dislocated shoulder . That would be the sensible option but also the most heartbreaking one especially considering the costs involved in getting to Avoriaz.

Carl went to the doctor and they did some xrays on it which showed up the previous injuries and the recommendation was that he rest the shoulder and NO SKIING. Carl wasn't a very happy camper but has coped quite well with the disappointment thus far. I would have been far grumpier and depressed.

We took the children skiing in the afternoon which didn't work out that well. The queues for the Serussaix and the Proclou lifts were something to be seen to be believed, it must have taken about 30 minutes to get to the front of the queue with loads of pushing and shoving. I couldn't take the queues and buggered off to where the queues where less, much less.



There was a fireworks display at 19:00 which we watched from Heidi and Darrel's flat which is on the eighth floor and has the most fantastic view over Avoriaz and onwards to the valleys below. The fireworks display was good but nothing fantastic. Darrel said that it wasn't even a patch in comparison to the one on Christmas eve.

We all had dinner together in Heidi and Darrell's flat, roast chicken and potatoes, fish fingers for me. Very nice meal but by about 20:30 we all realised that most of us weren't going to make it to midnight to see the new year in but the children were very excited about it so when no children were around the clock was doctored so that midnight was actually at 21:00. A much more reasonable time at which to celebrate the new year in.

We all retired but new year was to have the last laugh. At the correct time there was a two hour long explosion of fireworks which kept everyone who had south facing rooms awake until 02:00 in the morning so everyone was a little sleep deprived the next morning.

Sunday 30 Dec, 2007

Megan woke up sick during the night so K&C didn't get such a good nights sleep and she was unable to go to ski school for the morning so the fogies were drafted to child mind.

Our room has bunk beds in it so we were intending on sleeping in separate beds but Caron had other ideas and we slept in the same single bed like a couple of teenagers. Not too bad for one night but I'm not going to be able to do it for the entire two weeks so the first order of the day was to rig up a proper double bed which turned out to be surprisingly easy.

Caron and I went off to do Proclou while Kirsten and Carl booked Alistair into school. Caron is still slow but actually looks fine, I still struggled on the last section of Zore which is icy and mogully. Tetras is still a great run. We had about 50mm of snow overnight so the runs were absolutely fantastic. Darrell went off quite early and ran Bleue de Arare which must have been quite fun so early in the morning and with the new snow. Judging from the steeper sections of blue runs I wonder how I managed the red runs last time I was here – maybe I just struggled down them instead of skiing them. I definitely prefer the less steep runs where one feels like one is actually skiing rather than just surviving. The weather was quite cloudy which made for absolutely fantastic views as the day wore on.



During the afternoon, we took all the children skiing which was interesting. It's a pity they don't understand what a privilege it is for them to be having this experience so early on in their lives.

We went out with the children in the afternoon which was quite fun but after they went home I ran another run which was a mistake. It was after 17:00 by the time I did the last little run into avoriaz and I couldn't seen the moguls at all which resulted in a spectacular nose first dive into the snow. Fortunately it was dark enough that nobody could really see.

Caron made vegetable soup for supper which combined with a bottle of wine was absolutely delicious. We retired early again.

Saturday 29 Dec, 2007

We landed at Zurich at 06:00 after circling Zurich for 30 minutes because the airport only opens at 06:00, weird but true. To take the internal flight we had to go back through a security check was turned out to be a bit traumatic. Firstly, Darrel's christmas present which was to have been a 1l bottle of Amarula cream was confiscated which was very annoying but when Megan's scissors were confiscated out of her pencil box - there was a real tantrum from Megan. The security person was unmoved and tossed both items into the trash. Carl's deodorant was also confiscated so we are looking forward to the next few days with some trepidation. We had our passport and visas checked this time which made me feel a little better about the 120 EUR that we spent getting the visas. Last time we went to Avoriaz, they weren't checked even once.


This is us trying to get used to paying staggering amounts for a simple cup of coffee.

Took off for the 30 minute hop from Zurich to Geneva and spent most of the the time coughing and blowing my nose. I desperately hoped that this would clear up soon because it definitely isn't conducive to an enjoyable holiday. Landed in Geneva and collected our baggage which all arrived safely. The taxi to Avoriaz was waiting for us which was great and we arrived in Avoriaz at about 12:00 – 20 hours after leaving home. All of us were feeling a little worse for wear – even those of us that had spent the night in relative luxury.

The fogies, Heidi and Darrel and assorted children were all waiting for us at the car park so there was a big welcome and by 15:00 Carl and myself had our ski's and poles as well as the ski pass organised so we headed out with Darrell for a couple of hours of skiing. With hindsight, it probably wasn't such a good idea because Carl and myself were quite tired and when one is tired, one tends to make mistakes which is what I did and I was very lucky not to have injured myself. I really struggled in the icy, mogully runs and I actually didn't really enjoy it very much.

We went over to the Bergesens for supper which was spaghetti bolognaise and very noisy as a family of 8 adults and 5 children in a 20m2 flat should be. By 19:30 Caron and Carl had had enough and we retired gracefully to our cave and were in bed and asleep by 20:30 exhausted.

Christmas Holidays

I've spent the last two weeks partly sick due to, I think, an accumulation of stress at work. While I wasn't feeling totally off, I spent some time destroying the flowerpot at the front entrance that holds up the roof over the entrance. The original builders of the house spent much too much time on the flowerbox, it has a substantial concrete foundation not to mention double brick walls so it took quite a while and lot of sweat too. In the end, I think the new support which is a double pole of laminated saligna looks much better and I'm glad that at last it is finished.
Many thanks to Jan, our friendly painter who turned up unexpectedly which solved my problem as to who was going to do the plastering and ended up touching up many parts of the house which were starting to look a bit tatty.



Other than spending time feeling sorry for myself and in between spending a few hours a day keeping up with things at work while everyone else is away it was great to have a little time to read and relax, exercise when I wasn't ill and just generally get myself right in preparation for skiing. I think that a sign of finally relaxing is that the days appear to get longer. I can remember as a child they days taking forever to finish whereas as an adult they go by in the blink of an eye.

Friday 28 Dec, 2007

I think for the first time in my life and probably Caron's as well, we were completely packed and ready at 13:00 for the flight which only left at 20:30 so we spent a couple of productive hours not doing anything at all which was a great way to start the holiday. We went to work at 16:00 in order to print out one of the reservations only to find that Jeff was in the basement leaving and he was the last one to go. While the cats are away, the mice certainly do play. Kim picked us up from there and took us to the airport at which we arrived way to early so we just went and sat at the news cafe. Phoned Carl and Kirsten to find them ensconced in the luxury of the Diners club lounge – a good reason to go and get a diners club card. Our check-in luggage was just below the maximum weight of 46kg's, even more that Carl and Kirsten and they have two children as well to pack for. Of course the entire bookshelf of books that are buried in our luggage might have something to do with it.
We boarded the plane and were sitting in our seats when a family arrived and wanted to know why we were sitting in their seats. We, of course, thought that they were our seats and after comparing their boarding passes and ours it was clear that there was a big problem as we really had both been allocated the same seats. One of us had to go and it turned to be us. Go to the business class section that is. Yee ha – upgrade, how lucky can we be. It would have been way too adult like for me to have just sat there and not gone back to cattle class to rub it in with Kirsten and Carl. Particularly the morning after when we had been able to more-or-less sleep on the flat beds in business class. Kirsten and Carl had an awful night, not only just because it is genuinely uncomfortable in cattle class but having two children that kept on twisting and turning on top.

A childs view of marriage

My niece aged 3 years came home from playschool the other day and told her mother that jonni's mommy and daddy live together. "Now isn't that funny!" she says.

Depending on your personal convictions, this may or may not be an indictment of modern society that a child thinks that it is normal to only have one parent living with him/her. Since more than 50% of marriages end in divorce it seems to me that normal is no longer a couple with their biological offspring living together and that our vision of normal may need some revision.

Holiday Sickness

For some reason, both Caron and I have this very unfortunate habit of falling ill within about the first 3 or 4 days of a holiday. It is the most incredibly annoying habit but on the bright side, it is always a cold so it is over within a couple of days and definitely within the week but if your holiday is only 2 weeks long it effectively obliterates the first half of ones' holiday.

Knowing our track record we try and spend a week at home before heading out on the real holiday. That way you can be sick in the comfort of your home and not have to worry about the expense and lost opportunity while you suffer in bed while the snow or sand beckons.

This pattern seems to be quite well known because a number of people I have spoken to just say, "Ah, yes - it's the stress coming out" but basically it means that somehow, your immune system takes a holiday at the same time you do. This sounds like an interesting topic for some research - I've done a couple of quick googles for it but haven't found anything interesting.

It would really be interesting because if there is a causal link between the onset of holidays and illness and that the the sickness is due to a lack of stress if effectively means that stress keeps illness at bay instead of causing it as we are so often told.

On arguments ...

"Don't raise your voice, improve your argument."
Father of Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Police Brutality ...

Woke up to my morning fix of news websites to the following report where it is clear that Jackie Selebi and spokesperson were delighted that 11 would be robbers had been killed. The twelfth is in a serious condition. That's 12 out of 12 as far as I can read from the article.

The general feeling amongst people both black and white that I have spoken to is that the robbers had it coming to them and that rather this than that they get off on some technicality or in the miniscule chance that they don't escape custody and actually go to jail - that they get paroled in a few years. Harsh but true.

It would seem that society and very definitely the police have past the point of letting the rule of law take its course because it isn't seen to be taking its course and if justice is not both seen to be done and done - eventually people will take it into their own hands. Methinks this is a wake up call for the courts and legal system, sort crime out or society will take charge in a manner which is not going to be fair, just or even handed.

Of course our politicians haven't exactly helped to uphold the rule of law and serve as role models have they.

A little adventure

We started riding at about 8:00 which is pretty late for a long distance ride but graeme had to help get the kids organised before he was allowed to abandon the family for the day. The weather was pretty grim and we had no reason to expect it to get any better but riding in the rain isn't so bad so we pressed on regardless.



We hadn't ridden more that about 500m before we realised the value of the GPS, it is surprisingly easy to wander off the path down a dead end road or worse, a road without a dead end. The first part of the ride was fairly flat and it was great riding in the cool weather until we came to a 10' high electrified game fence. We could see what we thought was the path that we wanted continuing on the other side and it didn't look like the road that was on our side of the fence was going to be the right option. A feeling that was later confirmed when I looked at it from google earth again. It would have been a VERY long detour with numerous opportunities to get lost. From this I have learnt three things :

• 10' high electrified fences don't show up on satellite photographs.
• What looks clearly like a track from a satellite isn't always quite so clear on the ground.
• Once you have decided to use a GPS route, you can't just head off in another direction so easily.

Getting over the fence was tricky but luckily graeme is 6'6" so he was able to squeeze the bikes between two gateposts. I was the lucky one to check if the electric fence was on which it wasn't, thank goodness. Trespassing, even when there is nobody around gives one a bit of a creepy feeling - you keep on expecting the farmer to jump out from behind something and let loose with the shotgun. This is not entirely an unwarranted feeling - this is South Africa after all.

Once we had crossed the farm and climbed out the other gate we rode through the most beautiful countryside complete with herds of game roaming around. I have no real idea but I suspect that they are just wild because there aren't any fences to keep them in. This was a particularly beautiful area.

We arrived at Hartbeesvlakte ruskamp which was disappointing mainly because it was derelict. I wonder what happened to the Fanie Botha walking trail which used to go through there. Immediately after the ruskamp we had the one and only serious ascent - 40 minutes of grind ascending 200m. It was wet and very slippery so there were a few anxious moments.

From the top it was downhill for a long way which would have been more fun in dry weather. In the wet we had to keep the speed down because it was very easy for the front wheel to slip and we had several occasions the front wheel would hit small innocuous looking rocks and you would suddenly be travelling at 45 deg. angle to what you were doing. Some of the descent was very tricky due to the river incorporating the road into its path, as you can see from the concentration on graemes face.



Up until now we had been going for about 5 1/2 hours and had tried to phone caron to tell her that we were late, very late since we were expecting to complete the whole ride in about 4 to 5 hours.

Next came another big lesson about satellite photography, they don't show cliffs in addition to electric fences so we found ourselves perched on the top of a 20m cliff with the invisible thin blue line (gps) running out from the bottom of it. It was only metres away but there was no way to get there. We contoured around the top of the cliff hoping for a break in the cliff face that we would be able to scramble down and as luck or in graemes case, divine intervention would have it - we found one. Actually graeme found it while I was particularly worried that this was just a route down to another cliff but given the choice between about 6 hours of riding back the way that we had come and 30 minutes to scramble the cliff, I took the 30 minute option. The terrain we were scrambling through had recently had a severe fire, so severe that in addition to burning all the forest and bush, the rocks that were exposed had burst so there were razor sharp shards of rock everywhere and holding on any rocks was fraught with danger because they tended to come away in your hand.

Scrambling down the scree slope we could see up ahead a line that looked like another set of cliffs so we were really relieved when the slope carried on after the line. We were standing there looking at the slope carrying on when I realised that there was something decidedly odd about this line - it looked way too regular, in fact it looked remarkably like a road. In fact it was the road although it hasn't seen a wheel in maybe 10 years because there were small trees growing in the middle of it.

This was where I learnt yet another lesson. A small tree was lying over the path at about axle height. It was only about the thickness of my thumb so I thought I could just ride over it. This was not to be and it stopped me dead in my tracks and threw me off the bike. The ride was pretty easy from here on although very treacherous and slippery. Graeme's bike started making horrible grinding noises which was when we discovered that he had worn through his new front and back brake pads and that the brakes were riding on the aluminium rims. I was very close to having worn out my back brake pads as well.

On one occasion there was some deep mud and for what reason I don't know but I looked back to see where graeme was and lost my line and fell off slap bang in front of the oncoming graeme. He managed to stop with his wheel against my back, pretty innocuous in the end but it could have been spectacular.

We finally made it to the meeting point with caron at 16:00, 8 hours of very wet riding later. We begged to wash our bikes and ourselves at the local car wash which they kindly allowed us to do before we tucked into some well earned grub.



P.S. I didn't see a low pole and reversed the car into it bending the back wheel of my bike. (*&^(*&^*(&^^!!!!!

Themeda to Sabie

Graeme and Gill invited caron and myself to join them at Themeda which is very near Crystal Springs just outside of Pilgrims Rest in Mpumalanga for the first week of december for some rest and relaxation as well as some pretty awesome mountain biking.

The mountain biking was to be a backroads trip from Themeda down to Sabie which should be a cinch since it has to be almost all downhill. So we thought. Since there are literally hundreds of logging backroads we decided to use google earth and trace our proposed route and then download this onto my GPS so all we had to do would be to follow the dots. What could be easier. The first technical problem was to convert the google file to a .gpx file so that garmins mapsource could read it. Thanks to the gpsies this turned out to be pretty easy but what wasn't so easy was weeding out 4750 of the original 5000 data points so that the GPS had enough memory to hold the entire route.

By the time we started our planned route looked like this



At the time, I didn't think that having the 1:50000 background on the GPS would be that useful but in the end it turned out to be invaluable.

Power Not

Power is something Africa just seems to struggle with. When it comes to political power it is next to impossible to 'turn' off whereas when it comes to electrical power keeping it on seems to be equally impossible.

I sit here at work in darkness with a headlamp on so that I can see what I am typing. For a change, it is not Eskoms fault, one phase in the building supply has literally blown up so two phases work which has lead to some rather wierd goings one. Like, my laptop is still powered but not another plug anywhere. To make things worse, it didn't fail completely but gracefully degraded to a point that the UPS kicked in but that the generator didn't. Darkness in the server room, no das blinkin lights. ^*&^***!

In addition most of northern suburbs Johannesburg was without power for most of the day today while Eskom 'load shed'. I think maybe a ritual execution at dawn of Telkom employees is in order - starting with the top for getting us into this position in the first place. Load shedding sounds like Eskom is having a dump and it is us, those who pay their salaries, that the said dump is landing on. Load shedding also makes it sound like it is a voluntary exercise which it is most definitely not - at least not from my point of view.

Some pictures to illustrate -



We've just been away for the weekend and I think that I have seen the future of lighting in South Africa.



Gas Lights - at least they work and when they don't you know that the cylinder is empty and you should get a new one not some lilly livered excuse like 'load shedding'.

Northern Farm is EXPENSIVE

Jason, Vaughn and myself met for a few hours riding which didn't go exactly as planned. We were having a great ride out the back of Northern Farm and had just come barreling down a hill and through the river. I changed into first to negotiate the wet, soft sand on the other side of the ford only to hear horrible crunching sounds as portions of my derailleur were ground into oblivion by the cluster. A very expensive noise - that of carbon fibre being ground into dust. So there we were miles from anywhere with absolutely no possibility of fixing the derailleur so we decided that we would have to turn the bike into a single gear by shortening the chain. A good plan but none of us having done it before we were unaware of some of the issues. We definitely didn't appreciate the difference between such a thing as "high normal" and "low normal" gears, an explanation can be obtained here. We shortened the chain as best we could so that it was on the middle chainring and the lowest (smallest) sprocket at the back but as soon as I started pedalling the chain immediately changed gears up taking what slack there was and continuously trying to change up to another gear. This led to horrible sounds as the chain started to ride up on the sprocket and then because the chain wasn't long enough was forced down again and eventually this led to the chain falling between the middle and large chainrings which effectively put an end to my cycling altogether for the day.

From where we had got to jason and vaughn would push me on the flats and slight uphills and I would run up the steeper sections while they got their breath back. No joke trying to push someone up a hill - I could tell from the rasping breathing of the two of them.

Methinks that I have well and truly damaged the drive train so I am now going to have to replace not only the destroyed portions of the derailleur but the middle chainring and the cluster. While I am at it, I should probably replace the large chainring as well. Ouch!.

Such a tough Life ...

Most times work is well, hard work but every now and then one gets to doing something enjoyable while still being at work. At least officially at work that is. Last week barry organised a trip down to cape town, ostensibly to wine and dine our cape town clients as well as the banks staff. Considering the amount of business that we get via capetown, we don't go down there anywhere near enough - possibly due to the allure of all those vineyards.

So thursday morning we found ourselves outside the V&A Waterfront Aquarium which, as we were to find out later, is unique amongst aquariums in that it is completely privately funded. It has no government or other public funding at all and still manages to produce research, engage in environmental education as well as conservation drives. We had organised to do our first cold water dive in the kelp tank which at 17 deg C. is certainly cold enough. Fortunately the kit that they provided us with was quite good and certainly warm enough so I didn't notice the cold too much although my mask kept fogging up. I must have cleared it at least 20 times during the 30 minute dive.

There weren't any big predators which wouldn't have worried me but I was happy to know that there weren't any turtles which, from previous experience, bite like a pit-bull (Yes, I have been bitten by both). There wasn't actually too much to see in the tank but it was great just to get wet again. We got to feed the fish from a sack of small dead fish and it was surprising how stong and solid the fish were. I tried to hold onto a few bait fish but it was hopeless, they were simply too powerful. There were some really beautiful anemones as shown below.



It was kind of wierd looking out of the tank at the public looking into the tank. I tried to take photographs of barry feeding the fish but there was such a mass of fish that, when there was a gap, by the time I had pressed the shutter - you couldn't see him anymore.
There were also two leopard catsharks in the tank which have to take the cake for a lack of intelligence, unless you basically put the food into its mouth, it won't eat. They also tried to snack on barry's legs which are about the same size as the shark. A bit like a human trying to gnaw the leg off an elephant.



The following is a picture of a perlemoen or, as it is more commonly know outside south africa, an abalone. The strange thing protruding from the perlemoen is a piece of seaweed which it is busy eating at quite a remarkable rate. We have a real problem down here with perlemoen poachers due to the demand for them principally from asia I think.



As usual, the dive was over long before I was ready to get out but that is the way it is.

We spent the afternoon working remotely and the evening entertaining customers. This consisted of a guided tour around the aquarium by the aquarium director as well as a dinner at a VERY expensive cape town restaurant which shall remain nameless. When we arrived barry asked one of the local connoisseurs to choose the wine. Bad mistake and in no time flat the magnums started arriving - great wine it must be said but (*&^(*&^ expensive. Thank goodness we don't do this often.

The next morning we were up and off back to johannesburg arriving in time to at least spend a little time in the office before everyone buggered off for the weekend. My opinion of Capetown restaurants remains intact - very expensive with average food.

That time of the year ...

Freedom of speech - Not

Zapiro's take on a recent occurrence where a reporter was fired for presenting a point of view that differed to those of the some of the readers of the newspaper.



For an interesting debate see here

94.7+40

While mens ego's are generally blamed for the ills of society, there is at least one instance where it can be of some use. Some time ago, Jason (No peace be upon him), cheerfully suggested that we ride both the mountain bike race and the road race which takes place on consecutive days. Common sense and prudence instantly jumps into action and loudly proclaims that this is just daft. The ego on the other hand says cool lets do it. Hmmmm! The point is that without an ego, I would never even have attempted to do both races and I would never have been in the position that I now am where I was able to do both. Of course ego taken to extremes lead one into the land of survival of the fittest and the demise of the dumbest but in moderation it does lead one to extend one's boundaries.

So there I was on Saturday morning lined up in the pen waiting for the start when I saw andrea in the pen next to me. She is starting to show that she is pregnant so I was surprised that she is still racing but who am I to comment. The 40km course was great with the first 20 or so being quite hilly with some nice climbs and downhills not to mention a couple of vaguely technical sections. I must have done only about 10km before the leading ladies of the 35-45 age group came barreling past me, it is quite amazing just how fast they actually are and they're not even professionals. I managed the first 20km on my bicycle but the next 20km saw a couple of dismounts - unplanned of course.

The first was a tricky muddy section where the guy two in front fell to the left just off the path and the guy immediately in front of me fell to the right, again just off the path, leaving about 3" for me to get through. Needless to say, I didn't make it and fell on top of the guy on the left thus creating a tatoo on my hip where his chainring made 7 neat puncture wounds. Fortunately, you don't seem to feel these things at the time as much as one does later in the shower.

My next dismount was at the top of a very steep embankment where most guys baled between half way up and three quarters of the way up. Technically, I made it to the top after avoiding the riders that were in front of me but I fell over on the top. Damn, so close but at least all I had to do was get on and freewheel down the other side. Walking/running uphill with a bicycle actually isn't so easy.

Finished in a time of 2:27 which sounds ok until one compares it with Jason who did a 2:08 or even worse, the other Jason at 1:41 - although this was the winning time for his age group.

Sundays race was a very unusual one for me because my legs felt distinctly tired and for some reason I was starting in the C group which is way too fast for me so I let go of the bunch as we rolled over the timing mats. The whole race my legs felt like they just couldn't go any faster while my heartrate hovered around the low 90% which is fairly low for me. Not much to write about during the race, just chased one wheel after another. Saw kim, sage and aldon who had walked up the road to cheer me on which was greatly appreciated. I managed to stick with various groups up until the last 15km which I just ground out slowly. It was great to finish and a real sense of achievement at having completed both races. Surprisingly, my time was 3:08 so my legs seemed to have felt worse than they actually were.

African Sunset.

This was taken a couple of weeks ago while sitting on Kirsten and Carls verandah down at the Vaal dam. All I did was pick up the camera and snap - no cropping or manipulation of any kind.

Flying High

Every year at this time there is a recurring issue for smaller companies. What to do for the end of the year party? Of course we can't call it a Christmas party since we have numerous faiths or lack thereof in the company but I don't think that this is really fooling anyone. It is after all, the end of the Christian year. We've done the restaurant and the braai type thing so we decided to step outside the box so to say and take everyone on a "Canopy Tour" which is becoming quite popular here.

Of course we didn't tell anyone but subtly dropped hints that had everyone second guessing that we were doing a collective bungee jump which had certain sections of the employees in a flap. We are talking about programmers here after all - and don't even mention the Sales and Marketing.

A canopy tour, in case you haven't guessed, is a series of flying foxes or foofy slides, depending on where in the world you come from, that weave their way either through the tops of a forest or in our case zig-zag down a gorge. The slides vary from about 30m to 150m and some of them are pretty quick so you get issued with a leather glove with which you can slow yourself down. Sort of. Alternatively you can just shove a finger into the trolley that runs over the cable - that also stops you pretty quickly. Painful but definitely effective.

At the start of the tour everyone was hanging grimly onto the trolley petrified that the harness was going to break but by the end most of us had got over that and were having a great time looking around as we whizzed over the tree tops.



This is quintin showing how the sales and marketing department does it - with a degree of style and a smile. Note the right hand on the cable acting as a brake.



The whole exercise is totally safe, there are two cables and three attachment points between your harness and the cables preventing gravity from winning the day, any one of which would be more than safe enough. The only real danger of hurting oneself is to not apply any braking and making, as the guides put it, a bushman painting on the rocks at the end of the slide. Even this danger was greatly diminished because they have rigged up emergency stops to prevent one from moving onto the next world. So I think it is safe to say that the only real way to injure one's self is to jam a finger into the pulley as a couple of people found out.



I tried to take photographs of everyone as they skimmed over the tree tops but was only marginally successful. The video taken by the guides was a much better plan but it did enable me to have and excuse to go first on most of the slides. What was really great was the response to the event the day after, we got the feeling that everyone really did enjoy the day out and for some, it was an experience of a lifetime and everyone received a DVD of the day so that they could remember it forever.

Oh, well back to boerewors and rolls next year.

Boys weekend

Last weekend was an end of year getaway for what is very unfortunately know as "Boet club" which is normally just an excuse to get together, drink whisky and smoke cigars while the wives are at "Book club". My wife cackles with laughter every time she mentions "Boet club" and I have a sneaking suspicion that she goes out of her way to find reasons to mention it simply because it makes her laugh. While the members of said "Boet club" disagree on most points, there is unanimous agreement that the name "Boet club" is hideous. Thinking about it, it would be hard to get worse but we have yet to come up with anything better, only ones equally abysmal.

Carl has a shack at the vaal dam, pictured below, which he kindly offered us the use of - as well as his 200hp motorboat so six of us arrived at carls place on Saturday morning for the weekend. Once we had unlocked and unpacked we put the boat in the water and headed straight out because the wind wasn't too bad and one never knows what the weather is actually going to do. This skiing thing was a little intimidating since all of us are in our late 30's to early 50's and, much as we don't like to admit it, a little past our prime.



First person in the water was Eckhart who struggled to get up on the skiis so after a few abortive attempts gave up and it was my turn. I have actually skied before but it was so long ago that I can't remember when or with whom but I think that it was at least two decades ago. Surprise, surprise I popped straight out of the water and I was off inside the wake, outside the wake. Quite fun. I have no idea how long I actually skied for but it was long enough that I had to think about my hands and forearms acheing from the unusual stress of hanging onto the tow. I was scooting around the outside of a curve when carl made a curious gesture which I took to mean waves which sure enough there were. I managed to survive the 6" wake from another boat, not elegantly but I survived. The next set of 2' wave was another matter altogether, I went up the first wave, the front of the skiis dug into the base of the second wave and my head hit the base of the third wave. Enough skkiiinnggg for one day for me and I'm sure everyone in the board enjoyed the spill and it certainly cleared out my sinus cavities.

Eckhard had another try at skiing and came up first time, thereafter it was clear that he had done much more skiing that the rest of us, Carl excluded of course. After this we all had a go on the scooter which is a bit like a winged lilo and great fun, it suffers a bit in that because it is so easy, one gets over confident and this leads to spectacular spills. Finally, carl allowed me to get my mits on the controls while he tried kneeboarding. He refused to try skiing with me at the helm - probably a wise choice. Very successful turn as the pilot, I missed all the other boats and didn't run over any skiers in the water - piece of cake. Carl made some spectacular jumps on the kneeboard before performing a spectacular forward roll. Another sinus cleaning exercise.



I'm not going to admit as to who exactly it is that is in the picture but suffice to say that the six pack is no longer as firm as it once was.

After lunch everyone else went out skiing again while Eckhardt and myself took things easy and quietly whiled away the afternoon reading.

We had a braai for supper and yes, there were salads, before getting down to why were really away from our nearest and dearest.



A close examination will reveal a cigar in the hands of all present but I don't remember much after 20:00 because I was so tired that I kept on nodding off and carl eventually politely told me that it was time that I retired. Fortunately everyone else was pretty whacked from a day in the sun and the water so I wasn't exactly alone.

The next morning we all dragged out aching bodies out of bed and went off for our chosen torture session, either a run or a ride. I rode with Carl and Eckhardt on a circular course and then did a couple of extra laps just to make sure that I earned breakfast at the local nursery pictured below. It was amazing how the wind changed direction so that you always seem to be going into it and seldom with it.



Thereafter we all went out on the boat again but the wind was way too strong so it was time to pack up and bugger off home. I was very proud of myself in that I didn't raise any contentious topics or otherwise stir the pot apart from one slip on the way home.

P.S. I promised that I wouldn't let on that everyone did actually know how to load the dishwasher. I know that some men, who shall remain nameless, claim incompetence and ignorance in this department.

P.P.S. All photographs are courtesy of Wayne.