Saturday, November 27, 2010

Skunk Ananise

A fitting gig to end a great year of music.

90's favorites Skunk Ananise played the Brixton Academy

It was so loud I had to stuff paper in my ears to pervent damage but still heard everything clearly.

Had a bit of a rush to get the as I had to show my face at a work leaving drinks but I made it thru the door just as the band appeared on stage and the lights went down
nice!

Thursday, November 04, 2010

Black Keys

A bit different this time at the Roundhouse. Went with Olly to see the Black Keys, who are a blues, rocky, indie alt type of band.

I had no idea about any of it beforehand but it was good and loud. I'm definitely going to look them up on Spotify.

By the looks of the audience they have a hard core following, a few comments I heard said it wasn't the best gig they had done, but for me it was fine. The roundhouse roof being open to let the heat out again was also very welcome.

Feeder

a good solid performance at Sheperd's Bush. Went with Rob W. One lady got overcome and had to be taken out by the medics. Nothing to do with Rob and me of course.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Training !

A bit of a first or at least that I can remember.

I've just been on a two software architect conference. A bit scary technical but I got some good info and idea about developmet.

It's a bit of a first because I think its the first time that a manager has delivered on a promise of sending me on a training course.

I guess I'll have to say positive things about him from now on...

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Sonisphere

Wow my ears are only just getting back to normal.
A whole host of bands at my first festival where I've camped at.
It was really tiring trying to sleep on a slope, in a 20 quid tent, surrounded by thousands of people.

musically highlights include

Iron Maiden (headliners, my first time seeing them, very good, I knew the word for fear of the dark)
Rammstein (brilliant, fire and noise, got right to the front for them)
Alice Cooper (not so good, not sure why didn't quite get the crowd going)
Iggy & The Stooges (same although I was a long way back)
Papa Roach (for the kids)
Good Charlotte (for the kids as well)
Anthrax (great stuff, I didn't really
Placebo (OK bit weird in daylight and wearing white suits)
Henry Rollins (great again keep up the fight)
Skunk Anansie (really good set, Skin owns the crowd, I got a bit sun burnt!)
Apocalyptica (OK odd 4 guys with cellos, everyone else thought they were the nuts)
Mötley Crue (WTF the crowd went wild)
Slayer (Roar! mighty stuff)
Corey Taylor (unlucky missed most of it but the rest was good)
Pendulum (Really, Really good didn't think I was going to like it but boy did I bounce)
Renegades (Feeder really really late at night, but tired and happy)
Terrorvision (Highlight they still got it and I nearly lost my voice)
Therapy? (Once they got the electrics to work. One of the highlights as they played the whole troublegum album)
Gary Numan (solid stuff)
Europe (yeap final countdown they did other stuff but couldn't hear for the crowd chanting for final countdown!)

plus a load of others which I can only vaguely remember going to. I was all a bit of a blur in the end. That might have something to do with sharing a camp site with a bunch of South Africans, boy can they drink!

Flat Update

They changed the sign (a sign of desperation?)

"BUY MY 1 BED FLAT
NO MORTGAGE NEEDED
£10,000+£268a week BUYS IT.
WEST FERRY RD, E14
CALL ADAM
07xxxxxx"

Well that'll be tricky to beat. Althouhg I wouldn't fancy getting into all sorts of legal oddities being either half of that sort of an arrangement.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Lager Lager Lager

It was iTunes festival time again here in London and I managed to win tickets to
Underworld at the Roundhouse on the 17th.

It was a good gig, a bit different to what I normally see live. we got into a nice dance to the different tunes and I realised I had been dance for about an hour when I decided to head to the back for a cold down. I guess the gym sessions are paying off!

Support was good too a chap called Kele. I didn't realise until he started singing but he's the lead singer of Bloc Party. He built up a really good vibe for the main event and I would definitely want to catch him live the next time he is playing.

Of course the crowd were waiting for one particular song and Underworld closed their set with it. As the opening bars sounded out you could feel the roar of energy rip thru the crowd and get the whole place moving.

we all left happy humming 'lager lager lager...'

Monday, July 05, 2010

Flat Competition

An update the flat is still up for sale. Its sort of a holding pattern now as nothing much is happening in the market at the moment. looking at the land registry info most of the stuff that does sell is a couple of 100K more than my flat. I would normally mostly be getting first time buyers looking at the flat and there aren't many of those about.

My competition, another flat that is up for sale in my block, made an interesting move at the weekend. the following hand written sign appeared outside on the railings.

For Sale by Owner
Westferry Rd. 1 Bed flat
NO MORTGAGE REQUIRED
£296 per week
cal 07xxxxxx

So er is that Hire Purchase? I assume so and that they would take about 20 years at around 5.5% to pay that off if the price is still anything like my place. I guess that's one way to go if its just investment and your want to get it rid of it for your pension.

Guitar Blues and Heat at the Roundhouse

A jolly night out at the Roundhouse with Olly one of my brother-in-laws. We caught the show by the Dead Weathers. The band includes the lass from the Kills and Jack White of the White Strips.

It was an interesting mix of rock, blues, amazing guitar work and some seriously shouty lyrics. The weather had been really hot and the southern American blues vibes suited it perfectly. I came away humming the tunes of even the ones I didn't know.

Monday, June 28, 2010

The big 4 in Polska

OK this is definitely the farthest I've been to just to go to a gig.

Poland for a one day festival (on a Wednesday!) to see Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth.

There I stood in a field outside of Warsaw, a shinny warm day, in the middle of a sea of black t-shirts, getting my ears rearranged by some seriously loud music.

A good couple of days with cheap beer and some very nice (if meaty) BBQ takeaway food.

I went with a friend from work and ended up meeting another (ex-)work friend, who kipped on our hotel floor! It was a nice atmosphere and we got chatting to a couple of other English groups of people who we ended up going around with.

the music was great and you could really feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up as Metallica launched into some of their classic hits.

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

RageFactor free thank you gig

It was brilliant. A whole festival feeling on a Sunday afternoon.

When we got there is some good support from Gogol Bordello and we had a few beers in the late afternoon sun (and a little rain).

It was amazing to me that I managed, in such a large crowd, to bump into 4 different people I knew.

So along with Colin, Joe and Jamie we got ourselves down into the mosh pit and got jumping. I managed about an hour before retiring to the back to watch the remainder of the show.
It's definitely a moment to remember. I was there when Killing in the Name was played out to the crown in a London park as the final song of the evening.

We made History!

and got the T-Shirt...

MOT

Yeap I finally had my annual review at week

There were many things I had thought about saying about my time here and the fact that I've not had any changes in my T&Cs since I got here.

I was going to point that the cost of living has gone up by about 3.5% per year while I've worked here so i fact I'm being paid less (in as the government like to say, real terms).

I also had a great quote from Malcolm Gladwell on job satisfaction.

"Those three things - autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward - are, most people will agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying."

But what did I say, not alot, I got a mixed set of reviews so we talked about that I somehow have managed to be helpful and obstructive at the same time. and also being good at mentoring but not offering information unsolicited.

so I've got to be more proactive, which is like asking someone to juggle fog.
I've also got to try to be happier, no idea how they are going to measure that one!

and the CTO wants to push me towards handling one of less interesting clients and basically moving my role towards support work on a site we inherited from another company and client management meetings.

the subject of money didn't come up.

Monday, May 10, 2010

BMI

for no other reason than my results were a lot better then some of the other people in the department here are the results of a check your weight/height/fat machine we found in Boots the other day.

Weight: 14st 2lb 89.9kg
Height: 5'11.2" 1.81m

which gives a B.M.I. 27.4
the formula being Weight/(Height)^2

which makes me overweight :-(
where the ideal being [18.5] 9st 7lb (60.9kg) to [25.0] 12st 12lb (81.9kg)
which is a bit crazy as I wasn't even down to 10st when I was very thin back during my university days.

Body Fat 24.9% which is good (average being 25.6% and it getting to be a problem at 32.1% (for men))
Body Fat Mass 22.3kg

and we found a nice little calculator to check the results
http://www.nhs.uk/Tools/Pages/Healthyweightcalculator.aspx

so looks like the gym has been helping :-)

New broom

So It's all about to change around.

The last two of our line manager are now going to be the new CTO (the newest guy who has been with us not 6 months yet) and his deputy (who's been at the company 3+ years). And it looks like some of the work that the four of them (including my old line manager and the old CTO) used to do doing technical management of the client will be given out to us (the rest of the tech department) to do. probably I might add for the same amount of money as before.

and guess what we have to do our MOT career reviews again, joy! I'm going to have to answer questions like

What do you think you could have done better and what has stopped you?
What do you think you’ve done well and how do you know?
What are your career goals and what would help you move forward?

Friday, April 30, 2010

No More CTO

Yeap after all the politics and messing around. My boss, the CTO, is leaving the company. so its all change here. Actually I been ages since I've known but had to keep quite about it until all the legal stuff was sorted and the official announcement has been made.

He's leaving partly because of all the complaints from the us during the staff survey and partly some stuff happening in the board.

It was turning into the worse kept secret in the company and as I found out in the pub several months back, its good its out in the open. The department was in a bit of a holding pattern waiting for the other shoe to drop and so we could talk to the rest of the company about it(and make the odd blog!)

and yes that what my cryptic post about the situation changing in the department was about and why I haven't had a career review this year.

So a big opportunity for me and I guess there will be a shake up in the department. At last I should have a new line manager and finally get an annual review.

Anyway must dash as we are about to have the leaving speeches.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Zell am See Skiing trip 3!

Ok

A great little trip to Austria with the people at Snowbreaks.

At the resort of Zell am See and Kaprun.
Zell is by a beautiful lake at only 500m and by the end of the week it was very much summer holiday conditions. In fact one day coming back from the slopes Kevin (another skier) and I sat in the bus in full ski gear opposite a group of lads in shorts and flip-flops!.

to get to the skiing you take a cable car 1500m up at Zell and a bus plus a cable car to 2000m at Kaprun.
The conditions went from cold and snowy (day 1), to very hot and very sunny (days 3-4) to crazy whiteout skiing (day 6)
the first two days we skied Zell which got very slushy by the end and then 4 days at Kaprun which has a glacier so it guaranteed snow. however being the Easter weekend its also guaranteed to be busy.

Our plan to avoid the crowd was to get up real early (no matter what time we were in the bars the night before) at catch the 8am bus to Kaprun so we could be up and skiing before 8:45am. This meant we had the best conditions and clean runs before it got busy. We had lunch at about 11:30 just when it was getting crazy busy and back out for a couple of more hours when most people are at lunch, finally going back to the hotel around 3ish, knackered of course!

Nice bunch of people in fact it worked out that out of the 13 on the trip seven of us were on the Andorra new year trip as well!

really good guides in Bas and Dana the Dutch ski instructors.

Got a bit of a shock a couple of day after we got back as Snowbreaks the company who organised the trip went bust. A shame as I've had some good trips with them.

Thursday, April 01, 2010

17 Winter sports cover Oh bugger

Ah I've spotted a floor in my plan

3 ski trips in one year works out as 18 days skiing. That mean the annual travel insurance won't cover it all by one single day.

Fortunately the nice people at DogTag (that the insurance company, they print all the info on a dogtag you can wear while you ski) let me cancel my current policy with quite a big refund and take out another policy this time with 24 days cover.

This mean I'm covered for another 3 skiing holidays before next April, interesting!

My Boss' last day

Yeah the last day for my line manager.

Not sure who my next one is going to be
guess I can't resign until I know...

Friday, March 19, 2010

My MOT - Annual Review

Not as dramatic as you might think.

My annual career review which was meant to be with our CTO. Was meant to be with my Line Manager but he's leaving so there is little point.

We decided not to bother with it. The main reason being that we both know the situation in the company is changing soon and there is no point planning as we don't know how the department will be arranged in 6 months time.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Skiing mark 2 - Fun in France

Val d Isere with my friends from Ware

started cold minus 20 plus
got nice and sunny by the end of the week

the skiing was good

alot of kids and crazyness.

Thursday, March 04, 2010

Stained glass

I finally finished my first stained glass panel last thursday. It took me all of last term and half of this one. It's all glass from the offcuts pile so it could be a bit of found art (and cheap!).

here

next I think I'll try a couple of easier ones that I can add to the glass doors in my flat.

Rumours and Hidden Agendas

We have been pitching for alot of new work recently and hardly a week goes by with out a new piece of work being announced.

Normally in advertising you getting about a 20% turnover of clients for one reason or another. Now we have got a couple of big new clients over the past couple of months to cover the loss but we are still driving on despite the countrywide recession.

This growth is bigger than we can really cope with. The word from someone further up the food chain than me is that we are driving up the value of the company so the board will get bigger performance bonuses as part of the deal that they arranged to

Ah so that's why we are so busy.

and I mean crazy busy and its going to get worst. I great time to get experience on lots of different projects but also its not likely to do anybodies social life any favours.

This is on top the rumours currently going around about who is leaving.
We lost one of our Flash developers last week. most of us found out at the weekend via his facebook status! The rumour list is now a hand full of the designers, one head of department and my line manager! He hasn't said anything to me yet so we will see, but it might explain why both he and my department boss are doing my review rather than just him

Pep rally

so today we had a little company get together about the focus of the company for the coming year and on from there.

It was all about giving 5% more please to the company and working smart.

It was also about the coming together of tech and creative

part of the presentation was from the head guys in the creative department
it was noted my boss didn't give any part of the presentation.

I wonder why...

Friday, February 26, 2010

Office Politics

So I talked to the director who is running these 'sorting out tech's problems' sessions about what my boss had said about him saying to my boss that I was being negative and not helpful.

He was a little shocked about what my boss said and said he hadn't said such things.
I told him I was planning on withdrawn from the process if it was just going to back fire on me and he asked me not to. In fact he said its quite negative because we have to talk about what wrong in order to find solutions.

It sounds like my boss is playing office politics and because I checked we know he's been exaggerating or making stuff up.

It may be because we are integrating the tech and creative parts of the company and he feeling a bit sidelined as the junior part of the partnership.

In other news a couple of the new guys in the department have had either their probation extended or been put on a rolling three month review mainly because they don't work fast enough. So I definately not the only person who is not in his good books.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

So much for trying to help

The saying is true that 'No good deed goes unpunished'.

As a result of us trying to talk to the board about the issues in the department and wanting to trying improve the situation it looks like the whole thing is back firing in my face.

My genius of a boss dragged me over the coals yesterday for being too negative and much as said learn to love the way the company does things or consider my position with the company.

So that'll teach me to try and improve things. I'll just stop trying to fix stuff, focus on doing interesting stuff and improving my skill set.

Oh and I guess I'll update my CV as well.

Renegades OK OK its Feeder

A stadium band in a tiny pub venue.

That's what happened on Monday evening. Feeder pretending to be the another band played a final gig (for this little tour) in a bar in Hoxton which I managed to get a ticket for. Actually three of our for work the other two being real fans.

It was a loud mad set, of alot of their old tracks and pieces for the real old time fans. So I didn't know much of what they played but it was catchy and loud! I had a good time jumping around even although getting 200 odd people in the space the size of a tennis court meant I didn't really have the room for it.
Funny to be that close to a band (10ft), they where well supported by a band called ManOrMouse.

It took a couple of days for my hearing to recover.

Thursday, February 04, 2010

Rammstein and Meeting the Management

Busy day today (although I'm still finding time to write this!) we got a second meeting for the concerned from the tech department with members of the board. we had a meeting a couple of weeks ago as because there was so much stuff to talk about and this is the second meeting for the over run. Basically we are complaining about Career development and the rest of the company treating us like &$%^&£! see below for a few of the points we put to them.
Things in the department has actually been a bit more stable, we actually have 4 people in the flash team at the minute! We just want to try and fix things up a bit so it will be worth stay with the company in the medium term.

...And Rammstein well that's my first music gig tonight of this year. Da Boyz and down for a visit and we will be off up to Wembley for a bit of German Heavy Metal and an ear clean.

Rest of the weekend will probably involved PS3,Xbox and beer




Career path
There is none

Line Management
Too busy to manage

Respect
Treated like a third party supplier company

Innovation
Should not just be down to one person who does share with the tech department

Recognition
No reward for effort

Ignorance
Digital understanding in the business, it ‘cool not to understand’

Integration
How does the business see tech in the company?

Training
None!!!

Process
No point doing project reviews ; tech not included in part of the planning

Knowledge
Individual team member knowledge is ignored or dismissed

Quality
We always end up with the ‘best of a bad job’

Fault
Budget and Deadline for most projects already gone by the time it gets to Tech but its still our fault

Creative Technical
Tech only gets involved after the fact. There are no opportunities to innovate

Budget
We are always told the budget is blown but nobody will back it up with figures

Tempora
Estimates can be made more efficient if we got feed back of what time we did take on tasks

R&D
Any? By force the business was not happy to give up the time for it

Leading the Field
No; The company isn’t the company it was; we follow the trends or miss them completely rather than make them

The Companies’ Aim
To be the Agency of the Year; no matter what; nothing else is important

Quality
One person is not a QA department unless you are cowboys

Retainment
Pay rise only if you leave (but offered too late); Lack of support; no profit in going the extra mile

Architecture
Old broken software; Old development technology; no plan for maintenance and upgrade

Internal Process
Have a Company way of doing things rather that muddle through differently each time

Ideas
An idea is only a good idea if it is made to happen the good ideas don’t happen unless somebody realizes it

Outsourcing
Managing third party tech work isn’t tech work

Developing
Bug fixing and low quality scrap work isn’t enjoyable work

2009 before I forget

A bit late but heres a little review of last year based as last time on facebook, really its just slow twittering really. I also note the stuff happening seems to be the same as the year before.

David Has just skied the resort end to end. Happy and knackered. Time for the après ski! Happy new year from Andorra
31 December 2009 at 14:53

David Is going skiing over the top and down into the dark side
31 December 2009 at 08:04

David Can see the slopes from the Cafe and the stationary lifts. Grrh
30 December 2009 at 11:12

David Is at Terminal 5 waiting to get off-ski
27 December 2009 at 15:34

David It's all about the Rage Factor! Grrrrgh
20 December 2009 at 23:22

David killing in the name of...
16 December 2009 at 13:33

David beer o'clock?
11 December 2009 at 16:42

David is deployed out...
02 December 2009 at 18:35

David just off for a bit of wood carving
25 November 2009 at 17:30

David hopper $%&£!
20 November 2009 at 18:08

David Has just snapped and gone next gen!
14 November 2009 at 17:53

David And now a little light housework
14 November 2009 at 11:18

David is planning on breaking some coloured glass
12 November 2009 at 16:17

David Has an evening planned that envolves gunpowder! Nice
07 November 2009 at 18:58

David and now it's decided to delete all my music aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggh
04 November 2009 at 15:57

David Happy Birthday Wallace and Gromit!
04 November 2009 at 09:56

David Is in the middle of road again but this time they have shut it. Pretty lights!
03 November 2009 at 18:50

David is off to see the lights
03 November 2009 at 18:36

David Is standing in the middle of the road at Oxford circus
02 November 2009 at 18:03

David is thinking about breaking the first rule of facebook
28 October 2009 at 11:22 (8)(8)

David has got his cans on
12 October 2009 at 17:47

David Hello world um this might be drunk pub typing
04 October 2009 at 20:06

David this weekend is brought to you by the letter V
25 September 2009 at 11:39

David is lost in translation
18 September 2009 at 13:54

David oh and that was a bad miss...
11 September 2009 at 17:35

David Um I'm in a pub in covent garden doing London thing... Drinking
06 September 2009 at 18:07

David is NOT feeling management friendly at the minute
02 September 2009 at 19:59

David is a getting a little sun. Home to see the folks.
29 August 2009 at 11:31

David wants to know why he's still at work. Sideshow Bob?, Minty?
28 August 2009 at 20:40

David is practising his big words
27 August 2009 at 18:35

David mostly human again
21 August 2009 at 19:15

David apparently it's called a Caipirinha. hic!
20 August 2009 at 19:01

David the machine goes beep.
17 August 2009 at 13:19

David humbug work! time for a beer festival me thinks!
07 August 2009 at 11:59

David sun, surf, cider and still a nice cup of tea
02 August 2009 at 16:23

David rain, tea, sun, tea, rain, tea, sun and Edie looking for her shoes- the great British holiday
30 July 2009 at 21:38

David is now in the age of steam.
30 July 2009 at 12:06

David well stuff all this working malarky I'm off on my Hols....
24 July 2009 at 18:00

David is happy now Trent is doing music you need muscles for. Ragh!
15 July 2009 at 21:30

David is getting a little pissed off with Trent for having to do all this bloody queing. NIN gig is pants so far!
15 July 2009 at 20:07

David is going all NINJA!
15 July 2009 at 17:23

David has just gone slightly nuts at the placebo iTunes gig and just applied for tickets for all the remaining gig in the festival!
14 July 2009 at 21:41

David is off to the gig
14 July 2009 at 18:00

David um but its a dry heat...
03 July 2009 at 15:59

David maybe I should be at the gym... nah!
30 June 2009 at 17:37

David is watching all human life happening, in real time.
26 June 2009 at 17:52

David is feeling a little metric in an imperial world
22 June 2009 at 19:31

David Oh wow! copy and paste!
17 June 2009 at 20:59

David it's cornish pasty time!!!
15 June 2009 at 14:22

David is having a sit down
04 June 2009 at 19:27

David still at work. There is a special circle of hell reserved for the people who invented Akamai caching...
29 May 2009 at 19:08

David its jam all the way
22 May 2009 at 17:17

David is 3 points of contact at all times tis important yer ere!
19 May 2009 at 14:39

David is still at work and not happy with his clients. I don't even know bloody coldfusion
15 May 2009 at 18:43

David I'm Not Okay (I Promise)...
15 May 2009 at 14:46

David has just gone ker-plunk!
14 May 2009 at 11:24

David gone fishing ... for beer!
01 May 2009 at 18:07

David is getting in touch with his X-gene
29 April 2009 at 13:33

David is more human than human
24 April 2009 at 19:38

David for my birthday I decided to give myself some sunburn. It was a nice day in the park.
23 April 2009 at 14:46

David it's offical I'm a Prodigy front row Warrior! Maxim said so...
19 April 2009 at 01:32

David is @#!P&$. things aren't going as planned.
17 April 2009 at 12:27

David is feeling a little NINJA
15 April 2009 at 10:43

David um still hung over time for a pint
03 April 2009 at 17:52

David has a new sofa! comfy
01 April 2009 at 17:08

David has got a ticket for the Prodigy!!!! FIRESTARTER !!!! Yeaaaaagggh bluuuurrr
26 March 2009 at 11:15

David is back in blighty and shock! still walking!
14 March 2009 at 15:21

David is skiing in his T-shirt. Nice!
13 March 2009 at 16:47

David is checking for frostbite
09 March 2009 at 22:10

David has packed his bags and is hitting the slopes...
06 March 2009 at 18:29

David are you calling me darling? that's not my name
01 March 2009 at 22:55

David has just seen U2 live at the BBC! Random!
27 February 2009 at 19:15

David is looking good in a Buffalo Stance.
27 February 2009 at 09:57

David is sans beard
21 February 2009 at 23:01

David can fix it, yes he can!
20 February 2009 at 12:25

David um now where did I put that beer?
13 February 2009 at 17:33

David Ok. Forget the beer who knows where home is?
13 February 2009 at 23:48

David is in the big smoke, damn
10 February 2009 at 17:48

David is doing plan B we're off walking in the Mendips instead...
06 February 2009 at 17:20

David is wondering if he'll be walking in the Brecons this weekend
06 February 2009 at 10:04

David has had a shave
03 February 2009 at 15:32

David is taking the hint and heading home.
02 February 2009 at 14:25

David is at work. 15cm snow no probs!
02 February 2009 at 10:48

David is mispelt
29 January 2009 at 15:03

David is cuppa tea, bacon sarnie and back in blighty, mavellous!
25 January 2009 at 16:28

David and his knee have made it thru a whole week of lovely snow powder skiing. Now if he can just make it back from the pub to the hotel
24 January 2009 at 18:39

David is up to his knees in snow
23 January 2009 at 17:53

David is bon ski ! wooosh !
16 January 2009 at 17:10

David has caught the smell of snow on the wind
15 January 2009 at 11:50

David can hear the drums
14 January 2009 at 17:44

David has had the scafolding put up
13 January 2009 at 11:11

David is thinking he should have zigged when he zagged, again!
10 January 2009 at 00:39

David is in the dark
08 January 2009 at 00:22

David is reviewing the year
06 January 2009 at 14:23

Friday, January 08, 2010

45 go mild in Andorra

The world appears to be ending or at least civilization in the UK according to the British Press as the snow comes down and everything grinds to a halt.

This is weird because I'm in Central London, and while it is a bit cold, there isn't much snow and because I've just got back from a weeks skiing so snow, for me, is normal at the mo.

I was in Andorra with Snowbreaks for a weeks skiing and quite a jolly new years eve. The group in total was about 45 people, it was good mix of people and capabilities. I skied with a medium group for most of the week as I didn't want to over do it and put myself in traction.

A combination of not skiing too late, ibuprofen, knee supports and fizzy beer got me though the week (sore now but mobile). There were casualties; one girl got catch in some fencing at speed and damage her knee and one chap fell over while going slow and dislocated his elbow (ouch).

The conditions started the week icy and bare but due to a load of snow at new year end with a fine day with some nice powder (so long as you didn't cut in too deep and hit the ice). The weather was quiet warm (in the positives) and so it was a shock getting back to London waiting for night buses with the cold rising up through the soles of your shoes.