Skiing at Christmas - Part 5

The last morning of skiing is always a sad day and Polly and our kid kicked the day off in particularly morose moods and barely capable of uttering a civil word between them until the sheer pace of a particularly lovely run from one of the peaks restored their sense of joie de vivre and set them up for a last day of hard but fantastic skiing.

With the sun on their backs and the legs properly warm at the end of the week they got some serious skiing miles under their belts getting over to Meribel and back to the hotel for lunch. For the afternoon the party split up so each could get their own personal fun in before the end of the holiday and with the sun coming down on a fantastic holiday.

To cap the weekend off they headed off into Val Thorens (wearing their lovely Val Thorens team tops) for a night on the tiles. The decision was taken to drive up their with our hero to ski over in the morning and collect the van, not as it would turn out a very sensible decision. Trying to park in Val Thorens is not exactly straightforward and having dropped off the troops he spent about 30 minutes trying to park up (most of which was wasted in his efforts to get into a car park that turned out to be too short for the van although some was spent trying to resist the urge to run down the pedestrians).

In the meantime however the troops had located a splendid restaurant and they settled down to the usual mix of booze, badinage (including some very interesting revelations) and enormous quantities of food and a very entertaining policy towards vegetarians.

An early start for our hero was required as he had to ski over to Val to pick up the van but with no mishaps they were on the road in plenty of time. Having rented the van from the French side of Geneva airport they were rather obliged to return it to there but having never been their before they were rather in the hands of Chris’s sat-nav (known as Suzie) to get them to that side of the airport. She is quite a cheeky minx and decided on a) taking them a remarkable route through the middle of Geneva and then b) even more comically taking them to the Swiss side.

Getting the vehicle into the Avis car park was quite interesting as the van is so high the Aeriel just scrapes along the ceiling which was quite disconcerting however the level of amusement plummeted when the rep told them she could only take the van on that side of the border for an extra fee, frankly he was so hacked off with the entire thing he would have paid anything but getting stung for £50 was pretty hard going (considering the charge covers them moving the van perhaps 400 yards).

It would be good to report that BMI had restored their somewhat tarnished reputation but not as funny as the reality. Matters started poorly with them picking the counter manned by two trainees and went downhill further when Polly realised that the seats she had paid more to book had not been allocated leaving them scattered around the plane. After 30 minutes of her most piercing Gorgon stares and arguing the toss some rearrangement was made but customer services can expect a most strongly worded letter (probably written in green ink) shortly.

Splendidly matters did not then improve and they had to settle in for a first class delay although BMI Baby very generously supplied them all with the princely sum of £4 to purchase food and beverages to get them through the tedious hours in a packed airport. That letter may possibly be getting longer (and may even now be signed in purple ink).

The flight finally took off over 3 hours late with the comically amusing opening announcement of “Due to popularity on our last flight we are sorry to announce that we have run out of food” oh my how they laughed (and composed another paragraph or two).

A barely tolerable flight was somewhat appositely barely tolerated although another sentence may well have been tacked onto the letter when they pulled up at a bus-stop in the rain rather than a proper gate.

By this stage Nia and Tudur (and the Pofydd’s) chances of making their last train were a bit slim and Nia in particular was a little wrought as they were due to move house the next day. Matters were not improved when our hero reported that having checked the next train was at 1330 the next day.

Despite a desperate dash for the taxis the last train was duly missed and despite Polly’s best efforts to persuade the BMI rep to pay for a taxi to Aberystwyth she was cruelly rebuffed.

Meanwhile back at the flat (to which Christine, Chris and our kid had retreated) a certain feeling of ennui set in as they discovered that Chris’s battery was flat. To make matters worse the cable to unlock the bonnet was broken (and hence the ability to access the battery). An hour later the recovery mechanic turned up and began the process of trying to work out a fix. After 45 minutes he admitted defeat and indicated the only option was to crowbar up the bonnet. An hour later the front of the car was ruined and still not opened so a devastated car had to be loaded on the back of a lorry and sent on its way to London.

By this time the welsh mob had turned up at the flat having failed to obtain a hire car (the hire company explained the lack of available vehicles was due to “we ain’t got no fleet, it goes south for the winter” which would seem to suggest they mis-heard Polly’s accent when asking for a car to hire and thought she said swallows.
Polly cooked, everyone drank and slowly chilled out. Nia managed to bully one of her relatives to come and meet them all at Shrewsbury the next morning and so via some convoluted route they could at least get home just in time to see the last of their stuff being moved into their brand new house by their friends and family. For the benefit of those friends and family we have been asked to make clear that this story is not some elaborate hoax to enable Nia and Tudur to get out of helping moving into their own home (and if anyone of them believes that they must also believe in Santa).

Skiing at Christmas - Part 4

Having mended and made good his shabby skiing kit over the last 10 years he has finally cracked and decided to buy some new stuff.

After a day's skiing and perhaps one too many vin chauds he persuaded the Pofydd to come shopping with him and select out something to amuse the occupants of the pistes. They certainly did not let him down and in his new kit he rather cuts the dash (and his skiing has improved no end due to the need to constantly impress).

That said it does rather leave his skiing companions in the Shadow of the Bogun.

Skiing at Christmas - Part 3

Christmas Day on the slopes, sounds magical doesn't it? well it wasn't for our hero who was shockingly hungover but, along with the rest of the group, got into the Christmas Spirit and dressed as Santa although we are not sure what damage seeing a very ill Santa will have done to the local kids. Mind you what they will have made of the sight of 7 Santas skiing down en masse is also an interesting question.

Skiing at Christmas - Part 2

As usual he becomes somewhat overawed by the beauty of nature when off skiing and this was no exception and he waxed lyrical (read bored the tits of his friends) for hours about the beautiful moon (although to be fair it was pretty pretty) on the second morning.

Fortunately they just ignored him and got on with the important job of skiing.

Despite a rather foolish error of allowing Polly to order for them all at lunch (cost somewhere not short of a Rolex each) a very good day's skiing was had by all.

Now as they are in France and they are all papists round here they rather enjoy Christmas Eve as the special day so having got through the skiing the drinks started to be knocked back with very gay abandon. Secret santa presents were exchanged (he got a very fine pair of cufflinks and a Viz annual) and then the beers really started to flow.

It being Christmas of course some carols had to be sung and they joined the various British families singing along. En masse they brought the house down with their actions to "On the twelfth night of Christmas", Tudur, Dafydd and our kid brought tears to everyone's eyes with their beautiful impression of a welsh male voice choir and then our kid ruined it all by sharing one of his stories with the group.

All in all a pretty standard Christmas Eve.

Skiing at Christmas - Part 1

Despite the various problems of the journey they have at last arrived in resort and Chris, who chose the hotel, has prooved himself to be quite the star and it is a brillant place (called the Polar Bear hotel, Daf and he were both rather taken with the polar bear in reception) with a splendid feel and a great bar.

The sense of excitment in the group is palpable and it is given most voice by Nia who is amazingly excitable - mind it is her first ski trip, christmas and the best snow in years so understandable. Although to be fair in light of the crap weather at home if the snow had been rubbish similar levels of excitement would have been attained.

With half the party taking lessons his usual lazy attitude to skiing (get up around 10ish skiing by 11ish) has gone right out the window and he, Polly and Chris were on the slopes by 0915 on day one and certainly got plenty of miles under their skis, the conditions are close to perfect and the three of them have been hoonering around.



They managed to all meet up for lunch and exchange war stories - after Dafydd had sung the national anthem of course as this picture demonstrates.



Towards the end of the day their laziness did rather undo Polly when they found themselves 10 metres away from a bar and decided they could not be bothered to walk so they would ski down, get a lift back up to above the bar and then ski to it. Unfortunately Polly took a wrong turn and she ended up having to take her skis off, cross a road, climb down some stairs and then clamber down a slope to find the piste again.

Skiing at Christmas - the prologue

We at Bogun Towers have been rubbing our hands in anticipation of this most recent skiing trip with the Pofydd , Nia, Tudur , Christine and Chris
for some time with great excitement at the material that should be made available for out use and your delectation.

With everyone congregating at our kid’s flat in Brum on the last Friday before Christmas their journeys were of varying quality but on arrival with some rejuvenative mulled wine, beers, good humour and haggis spirits were much improved and a good dose of banter was engaged in and the process of briefing Nia and Tudur on all of our kid’s stories was begun.

A very short night’s sleep was had by all before the 0415 alarm call for their flight. Some grumpiness was to be expected but the gentle sense of keen excitement overcame all of that. However Birmingham airport quickly quashed that, the check-in queue was relatively short although it ended with the rather amusing news that despite already paying for his skis to be transported BMI had decided they wanted another £30 or he could whistle Dixie but these little bumps in the road are to be expected.

The queue for security which wound all the way around the terminal was less expected and certainly unwelcome leaving no time for breakfast before boarding. Of course some idiot had decided to try and get his boots on board as hand luggage and had to be sent back to check them in which caused 30 minutes of delay. Eventually a new slot was found and the plane started to trundle down the taxiway but then broke down. 30 minutes later the engineer gave up and they were de-planed ready to be loaded on another plane. Now our kid is a forgiving sort and understands these things happen but the captain decided to lie (presumably to avoid the bad PR of admitting the plane was broken) and claim that the decision to re-plane them was for “operational” reasons due to fuel. A complete load of hogwash…his lies were not helped by the ground-staff announcing that the problem was indeed a knackered plane.

As one can imagine the party’s confidence in BMI was somewhat shaken at this stage and matters were not much improved when this bus turned up as their replacement flight.

A mis-spent youth

This weekend just past included a quick trip down to see the nieces. He and Thea (the eldest) went out together and ended up in the part where Thea, bless her, decided to pick up some litter for throwing in the bin.

Sadly the litter was a can of Fosters so she looked like a wino and he looked like the worst kind of father whenever they met anyone else in the park.

Meanwhile back at the house, Phoebe was being painfully cute.

Skiing in Satsuma - Part 5

The last day, he and scrapper alone on the slopes and so back to Nendaz to see the lovely Andrea again (passim). Easily the best skiing of the trip, decent light, fantastic snow and some great fast runs...and some gentle flirting.

Sadly all good things must come to an end and so with this tale, a drive back to Geneva, a row with the custodians of the BA lounge at the airport (unwilling to let our kid in, no huge surprise) and dull flights back.

All in all some fine skiing, some good nights out, one very scary moment on the slopes and a possible addition to the property empire scoped out. Difficult to grumble really.

Even better he is only back for 10 days before he goes skiing again (this time with the Pofydd, Christine, Chris, Nia and Tudur) for Christmas so the stories should just keep on running.

Skiing in Satsuma - Part 4

Day 4 promised to be a rather dull day for our kid with a serious of meetings lined up with a builder (he is looking to buy a little pad out here) and then the financier and the lawyer.

The meeting with the builder was pretty dull although the place itself is fantastic and we at Bogun Towers are particularly excited about opening a Swiss Bureau but as was to be expected he got bored half-way through and decided to go skiing. Sadly despite the best endeavours of the builder the local lift could not be opened for him specially and so another trip to Verbier was called for.

Just he and Gay George (Not Actually Gay) headed over there and with Gay George (Not Actually Gay) having to get on a train to Geneva at 1400 time was short for much skiing.

The conditions were pretty poor with the snow coming down and very low cloud and as the two of them set off from the top they quickly found themselves a) into their waists in deep snow, b) blind, c) lost and d) in a world of trouble.

Having skied no more than 5 minutes off the top it became apparent that they simply could not go on having no idea where they were going and so, for the first time ever, the skis came off and a trudge back up the hill through the very deep snow began - think Gimli trudging through the snow in the Lord of the Rings. They were utterly knackered within a few yards and both rather concerned that a helicopter was going to be needed to get them off. Eventually (2 hours) they somehow managed to get back to the top of the lift which they promptly took all the way back down again. Not the best value.

We regret that no photos are available of him stuck in the snow, they would be worth laughing at.

Skiing in Satsuma - Part 3

With the snow piling down and scrapper showing a very general disregard for their safety, hand-brake turning round the hair-pins for example (particularly amusing when all of the snow on the roof suddenly swept forward over the windscreen leaving them blind, viz:-

Through the screams of terror they eventually made it to Nendaz (another resort in the area) for a day of skiing although mainly it involved drinking Vin Chaud in a little restaurant on the slopes although the attraction appeared to be a young lady called Andrea rather than the actual drink.

The general conditions were pretty cheeky with some very poor visibility and the snow coming down at a ridiculous rate.


The vicar and Gay George (Not Actually Gay) were however determined to extract every last moment of skiing and managed to get the last lift up. As we demonstrate below it was rather dark for their descent.

Skiing in Satsuma - Part 2

Sambuca on the first night is unlikely to be a good idea and so it transpired for Gay George (Not Actually Gay) who found himself in a shambolic state not helped by his complete failure to remove any clothes before passing out on his bed.



A quick drive up into the mountains and soon their spirits were improved with some first class conditions.




That said due to their rather sensitive dispositions little actual skiing was endeavoured before they retreated to their hotel in La Tzoumaz (the real name for Satsuma). The hotel is best described as a "local hotel for local people" and duly populated with some right weirdos and for reasons of self-preservation a quick pact was reached that no-one would be left alone and indeed investigations were quickly begun as to how best to barricade the doors.

With Ket, the vicar and a couple of girls joining them for supper they felt safe letting their hair down and having recovered their equilibrium from the sambuca set about the local booze although the local rose seemed, to the unsophisticated palates of our kid and Ket, to be white. The round of calvados at the end of the evening was strictly speaking unnecessary.

Skiing in Satsuma - Part 1

As promised he has been away on the sauce with Scrapper and Gay George (Not Actually George) (or Gayorge as Scrapper took to calling him).

To kick matters off after they had met up at Geneva airport Friday afternoon they shot up the motorway to Sion (the main town at the bottom of the valley below their ultimate destination).

Our kid was, frankly, battered before leaving the hotel with two pints of strong local disco fizz inside him as his resolve has been totally blown away having not really done anything for the amusement of our readers (shurely drunk? - ed) for some weeks.

A couple of bottles of wine and some more beers followed on before they struggled into a night club and decided to hit the Sambucas. A subtle sign that they were a little past the battered marked was their abject attempts to light the stuff although they did manage to get most of it down them without too many burns and certainly less than this fellow.