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).
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