Fourtrak-rak Collecting, Moody Seat destruction...

Today I am keeping Dom and Stubby company whilst we collect Stubbys latest aquisition, a 1995 Diahatsu Fourtrak 4x4. This is to be Stubby's winter transport in anticipation of the BMW M3 being less than useless in the snow.
A Diahatsu Fourtrak for those of you who don't know is a large 3 door 4x4, Stubby has purchased a van version so there are no rear seats or rear side windows. In case you care - although I am sure you don't - its a 2.8l 4 cylinder Diesel Turbo manual.
I should make it clear at this point that this is not the first Fourtrak that Stubby has owned, he bought a few years ago an identical car. The only thing with his last one was that it was a complete lemon - the owner beforehand neglected to mention that the front propshaft had been removed so it was a rear wheel drive only 4x4, he also neglected to mention that the engine leaked water, and that there was more rust than metal left...
Predictablly this fourtrak did not last long, but I think Stubby was able to profit from it all the same.
I opted to tag along to see how this one works out, not at all so I could gloat if it did not work out well.
For this excursion we took Doms new (To him) Ford Mondeo ST-TDCi. Fortunately for me Doms car has headrest screens, so I would not be too bored. It would be four hours and 180 miles each way!
On the way we tried to use the in-built twat-nav but it was having one of it, apparenty the County of Lincolnshire does not exist (not that I blame it).
Also of great amusement to me was that an hour or so into the journey someone pushed something on the stereo and for a while after that it automatically retuned itself to Classic FM, even if you changed the station it changed it back a minute later. I can live with classic FM if I am honest - its better than listening to Radio 1's Vernon Kay anyway.
At our first stop Stubby mistakenly offered to drive, and Dom took advantage by buying the Movie 'Senna'. So me and Dom spent the last half of the journey watching that and left Stubby to be alone driving. Lincolnshire reminds me of Devon, plenty of very slow drivers and some insane overtaking. When cresting the hill of a normal country road we came across a foreign lorry on our side of the road, evidentally he was confused about what side of the road to be on... A few impolite gestures and lane changes later we passed each other - although it was a close thing. My life would have flashed before my eyes, but ironicaly we were just watching the demise of Ayrton Senna on the TVs...

We arrived at the chaps house safe and sound, despite Lincolnshires best efforts - Stubbys new motor was sat on the road awaiting its inspection. A friendly if slightly backwards chap is its current owner, he has owed it for a worryingly short three weeks.
Upon inspection it looks good for its age, some bad welding here and there, non-structural rust occasionally but it has been fully waxoiled underneath.
It started and ran (a bonus) sounds fairly good for a rattly 4 cylinder Diesel. The drivers seat is demolished, and has been home-repaired with what looks like a sofa cushion held down with a homemade seaty cover. It is equipped (badly) with a Parrot hands free system which does not appear to be working and a decent looking Sony Stereo.
Stubby took it out on a test drive and came back shaking his head, the clutch was slipping badly, perhaps it was not the good buy it first appeared!
A bit of assessment, and some adjusting later Stubby had negotiated £250 off the agreed price due to the clutch and handed over the cash. There is of course no problem with the clutch at all... Must remember never to buy a car from him.
On the way home I elected to stay in the Mundano with Dom, Fourtraks are just one small step up from farm tractors after all.
We gave Stubby the TomTom twat-nav in the expectation that the Mundanos built in twat nav knew where Doms home was. For the first hour or so it did indeed work fine, but then lapsed and eventually decided we are driving across a field in Scotland. It continued to disagree with us all the way home.
We actually made it home without incident, bar some small arguments with Fords finest satnav.
Upon arrival I prompty stole the Parrot for Vickys car, and we found some extra 'ventilation' courtesy of some rust holes in the floor. Much to my dissapointment Stuby had found the odd chair repair quite comfortable. But he had used quite a quantity of diesel all the way home.
Try as I might I could not convince Stubby to take his new (untaxed and thus not road legal) toy offroading so we were at a loose end.
A loose end that is, until we spotted Abi's old Seat parked in a corner of my drive...

You see, a few weeks ago I agreed to buy Abi's deathtrap of a 1996 Seat Ibiza 1.4l petrol manual off her hands for scrap money. It had sat in limbo for the last few weeks on my drive whilst we considered giving it to Vicky's brother but as it was in a questionable condition it was decided that I would scrap it and get my money back.
We had mooted about banger racing it with other cars on the road for a giggle but we lacked the other cars so it sat... and sat.
Until today that is, because although I could not convince Stubby to offroad his Fourtrak he was more than happy to offroad the little Seat.
Sadly round one went a little too quickly, the plucky Seat only managed one and a half laps of the local unsurfaced (heavily rutted, slightly flooded and very hilly) lane before succuming to water ingestion related injuries and battery issues when trying to restart it.
We had to call Crispy for assistance, he obliged by towing the little Seat to the local scrapyard where we managed to get it running again.
We agreed to all go home and get fed and watered, then meet up later to have a bit of fun in the little Seat for the night at some of the longer unsurfaced roads locally.
An hour or two later found us in some woodland, Myself, Dom, Stubby, Crispy and Merv. We had wisely chosen to bring my old Jeep along in case of brakedowns of getting stuck and had quite a few successful rallys before the Seat had a small incident involving a large hump and having all of us on board. This small incident resulted in the complete severing of the fuel lines, unfortunately we did not have anything to hand to bodge new fuel lines so after a small argument on why we should not set it alight and leave it we opted to tow it back to the scrapyard for repairs another day.
The towing home was eventfull enough mind you, the handbrake on the Seat often found itself on, and we detoured though a ford to clean it a little before getting back.

All in all, an eventfull enough day I guess... Next time I think I will have a lie in instead.

Excuse the obvious grammar and spelling mistakes, turns out my pad thing does not have spell checker...

Sick notes, Poo and Silence

Not a lot has been going on in my life of late – not a lot of interesting things anyway.

Davin, Denise, Tony and Mum went on a weeklong cruise in the Mediterranean, they just got back and they seem very content. They managed not to kill each other, and nobody sunk the boat. Davin even came back with an award so they claim – he won a game called ‘The Weakest Link’ (Loosely based one assumes, on the TV show of the same name). This led to him being crowned the smartest passenger aboard. Quite an achievement you think – until you find that it was an American cruise liner, full of American tourists. So being the smartest aboard is a foregone conclusion. Frankly I feel it was a little unfair to let other nationalities join in.

Be that as it may they are all home safe and sound, our tranquillity is now broken.

We have also just returned from two weeks of house sitting for Vicky’s parents. ‘We’ being myself and Vicky of course.

So for the last three weeks we have barely seen anyone, for two weeks we lived at the ‘in-laws’ merrily overfeeding their dog and then for a week we had blissful silence in an empty home.

Watching the dog is not all bad, he is a small terrier and to top it off getting a bit old so it’s just two walks a day and one meal. Plus lots of begging and table scraps. Oh and poo, a lot of poo for a small animal.

Me and the dog get on very well in fact, we both like company and he doesn’t mind sitting around in the garage whilst I pretend to fix things on the heep, or watching TV and playing on the Xbox.

Aside from the two poos per walk walking is pain free – normally after about 100 meters the dog has given up and wants to go home, which suits me fine. What does not suit me however is the dirty looks all bystanders give you for picking up your dogs poo. Even though I am clearly picking it up (In a baggy) and binning it every non-dog walker give you a look like pure evil. Would they rather step in it?

Vicky’s parents have in fact been in Florida for the last couple of weeks, they came back not tanned enough and rented the wrong car – A Toymota Camry (Shudders). Their only requirement whilst there was to rent something interesting as I was not there to do it for them and they get a Toymota – the most boring model of Toymota at that! Actually now I think of it they didn’t bring me back any Gobstoppers candy either – sacrilege. Still I got some beef jerky and a belt, it’s not all bad.

And worst of all, for the past 3 weeks I have been ill. It’s not full blown man flu, just a damned cold that Will. Not. Go. Away.

It started with a week of sore throats, then moved on to snot and coughing. Two weeks on I am still coughing my guts up. I found an old inhaler in the kitchen and that stops the worst of the coughing for very short periods at a time, and I have been taking cough medicine by the gallon but both don’t really have an effect any more. Except burn, god-dammit cough medicine burns.

So that’s it, a summary of a grumpy and boring few weeks – and everyone but me has been on holiday.

But there is a silver lining – maybe two if the weather forecasts hold out. Firstly we are due a harsh winter – lots of snow so they predict. This is excellent as I can go and slide about in the heep.

Secondly our skiing holiday is booked up (hooray). 13 of us going to Val-Thorens in the French Alps January next year, it’s going to be a messy one and I will do my best to make a note of every sordid detail.

The Shitball Rally 2010

Below is the write up for the sorry state of affairs we called the Shitball Rally 2010, another old story I am retrofitting to this new blog instead of writing any new material. It was a lot of fun to do though, I hope it reads with as much fun as we had doing it. Good news is, for the first time I will be including pictures!

First, some history - The Shitball Rally is an entirely made up thing which myself and a few mates came up with as a way to have an irresponsible lads holiday whilst indulging in that which we hold most scared amongst us - cars. The name was a mixture of the shit cars we would be driving and the Gumball Rally which was clearly an illegitimate copy of our idea.

The rules are that each contestant or team must buy a car for no more than £200, and it must be road legal. We then drive to Lands End in Cornwall, England over a few days. All the cars are decorated, and generally we will be their last owners before they meet their maker in the great scrap yard of the sky.

This missive refers to the second ever Shitball Rally and this time the decoration stakes have certainly been upped! Suffice to say we have entered a new league of very noticeable vehicles, including a Rover 25 masquerading as a Cow, and a Vauxhall Omega which thinks it’s a Tiger.

The flaky itinerary goes as follows; our first night is to be taken at a small field somewhere near Bude, in north Cornwall. The next night will be at Newquay in Cornwall. After a visit to lands end we will surface in Penzance, Cornwall and for the last night we will be staying in Amesbury, Wiltshire so the following day will be spent on Salisbury Plains Military training area.

The contestants for this wonderful farce are as follows;

First we have my noble steed - The Royal Snail;

The Royal Snail is an ex-Royal Mail postal van powered (Or not as the case was) by a non-turbo 2l Diesel engine with a manual gearbox. Back in 1993 this roaring powerhouse probably put out 10 horsepowers, now at least 20 of those horsepowers have escaped. The result of these escaped horsepowers is that the Royal Snail is never anything more than cataclysmically slow.

Occupied by the Awesomeness that is me, and Co-driven with all the fury of a thousand suns by Bob.

Inside the Snail were two hammocks so that I and Bob could sleep in the back in comfort. We also had a backup battery to power all the interior lighting, the stereo and the 12v power sockets. The backup battery was charged whilst driving. On the bonnet was a CB radio aerial for communication and an external speaker connected to the stereo to annoy passersby. The eagle eyed amongst you will also notice it houses the cooker for everyone on the rally, on its roof. This did -on occasion- cause problems with low bridges.

Team Camp Grenada;

Team Camp Grenada used a Ford Grenada saloon in top spec Ghia form – luxurious to the point of infinity… When compared to the opposition anyway. This included a roaring 2.8l Petrol Engine with an Automatic gearbox. The Grenada was the oldest car in the rally, made in 1983 but it was actually in the best condition – one owner from new. It won the best painted award before we left, although there was much complaining from Team Tiger as the Camp Grenada was in fact professionally sprayed using all the left over paint in a professional spraying workshop.

The Camp Grenada was piloted by Crispy, and co-piloted by Stewart and Pervin Mervin.

The Cow on top is called Daisy, and is Stewards prized possession. Why Stew has a cow called Daisy we were not sure, the fact Daisy wore lipstick was a little unnerving though. The Camp Grenada also featured a high-tech homemade raising spoiler for high speed instability. Among the Grenada's many, many reliability issues was that they were the only team with Cruise control, however once engaged it often refused to be disengaged. Their biggest problem was that whenever the gearbox was put under strain it tended to dump all of its oil.

Team Tiger;

The car below that disguise is a Vauxhall (GM) Omega saloon powered by a 2l Petrol engine with an automatic gearbox. The ears are made of wood backed by steel braces, welded to the roof. On the boot lid was also a tail which arched up thanks to some more steel welded onto the boot lid. The whiskers are made of metal brake pipe, barely a pedestrian hazard at all...

The Terrible Tiger was piloted by the master of bluntness, Ken. Keeping Ken company were James and Trude.

Team Tiger caused the most attention and in the view of many people deserved to win the decoration competition. The Omega proved to be very strong, and dished out most of the dents seen on the other vehicles during the Rally.

Team Moo-Cow;

Team Moo used a Rover 200 (rebadged M00) Hatchback powered by a 1.4l Petrol engine with a manual gearbox. As you can see the decorations extended to legs on the wheels, and even a set of horns which were a little at odds with the udder on the side of the car.

The Cow was piloted by Ollie, and keeping him company was Tom.

Team Moo left with a questionably reliable clutch and a spare in the boot just in case, their odds of survival were low to start with. The Rover took probably the most beating over the Rally as it was not quick enough to escape and an unfortunately tempting small target to pick on for teams Snail, Tiger and Camp Grenada. It was also the only vehicle not to be equipped with a CB-Radio, so attacks could be coordinated on them without their knowledge. The favorite way to initiate an attack on team Moo was to ask over the CB if anyone wanted a Beef sandwich...

Team Ladybug;

Team Ladybug used an Imported JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) Honda Prelude Coupe with a 2.2l Petrol engine and automatic Gearbox.

The Ladybug was piloted by a very lonely Russell.

Easily the fastest on the rally it was able to evade all attempts to squish it. Unfortunately Team Ladybug had to leave the Rally a day early and did not join in the mayhem on Salisbury Plains, which is a shame because it was probably the only one able to get away...

Team Golf;

Team Golf couldn't think of a better team name for themselves, or a better theme. They used a Volkswagen Golf GTI Hatchback with a 2l engine and Manual Gearbox.

Piloted by Gaz, and co-piloted by Mark.

The matt black finish was achieved using chalkboard paint, we were smart enough to take a lot of chalk and some lacquer to ensure the ruder things could not be removed! Unfortunately for Team Golf although they were quicker than most of the other cars they were often picked on, and were often seen running from a hunting Tiger.

Here is everyone before leaving;

 

The chaos of a week…

We arrived at the campsite for day one, a field literally in the ass end of nowhere in north Cornwall.
The day was eventful, first we were judged on the decorations of our cars. Team Camp Grenada won - we suspect cheating but cannot prove it. Mother was most upset to not be judging this year, she was so insistent she followed us to our start point to provide her own unofficial opinion and to try to convince the judge how to decide. We were judged by a local farmer, who chose the Camp Grenada due to its "high quality" paint finish.
And so we set off, the first leg was via motorway which the Royal Snail did struggle to do. With my foot welded to the floor we managed a heady top speed of 81mph at one point, it was a downhill stretch of course! Once off the motorway a brief stop showed the Snail had sprung a leak in its sump (previously sealed with copious amounts of chemical metal). We pressed on anyway and were soon on extremely hilly roads around Dartmoor National Park. Here the Camp Granada started to cause us trouble; it had sprung a bad leak from its automatic gearbox, and uses about 5l of (Very expensive) Gearbox oil to each 100 miles now. The leak had also developed over the exhaust, so every spurt of acceleration led to plumes of oily smoke.

Anyway, we did arrive at our intended destination - and only one car got stuck in the bog at the bottom of the field - guess who! That’s right; it’s the trouble makers of camp Grenada again!
 

There followed a bit of a lull in the updates until this one, contrary to popular belief I have not been arrested - far less ominous. The laptop I borrowed ran out of battery and we couldn't charge it!

Day 2 and 3 were spent at Newquay and Penzance respectively. At Newquay we stayed close to the town and as a result most of the rallyers were suffering somewhat come the morning. We drove on costal roads to get to Newquay which provided some fantastic scenery and a blue sky photo op;

After the above photos were taken the vans handbrake decided to fail, we are parked on a massive hill and the van decided to wander off downhill with everyone on the roof... Panic ensued.

For me, driving a van with no power steering, no discernable gears and a clutch which was gradually braking and required the same amount of force to press down as is required to crush a brick the scenic route was hard work. That said though the views made it well worth it.

From Newquay to Penzance we took more rural routes, often resulting in hill climbs so steep that at one point the van lost grip and started to go back down the hill whilst hopelessly wheel spinning. I was saved by the car behind, which kindly albeit against his wishes stopped my backwards momentum and with our combined suffering clutches we made it to the top. On the way we stopped for a break on one of Cornwall's pristine beaches, Ollie of Team Moo kept himself busy;

 We all just relaxed;

We made it to lands end on Thursday and took the obligatory photo;

After photos we meandered down the cliffs to spot a Basking Shark just off the coast and investigate a wreck at the bottom of a valley.

From Lands End we had the longest part of our journey left to do in one hit - we were booked into a hotel near Salisbury for that night which is close to home and the gateway to the Salisbury Plains training ground for the next (and last) days punishment on the vehicles before they would meet their ends.

The drive was long, and the hardest on the cars despite the open roads and less fierce hills. On the larger roads and motorways it was clear that the Royal Snail was suffering, and it could not maintain an acceptable cruising speed (Unacceptable to me at least) so with the help of team Tiger pushing on some of the motorway hills we kept an average speed just about high enough to not be stuck behind lorries. Although I must say to anyone thinking of getting pushed along a motorway at speeds in excess of reasonable you should pick a more stable vehicle, because if you think crosswinds are a problem you should try handling them with no power steering whilst the back of your high sided and already unstable van is sat on top of the bonnet of the following vehicle.

On the Friday we set out across Salisbury plains military training area to prove that ordinary road cars overloaded and suffering many reliability issues were easily a match off-road for tanks and properly equipped 4x4s.

Put simply, if you would like to cross the Sahara I can recommend LDV vans - as long as you don't require an intact spine on arrival. The vans higher clearance meant we could clear obstacles which caused problems for the lower cars but having an LDV van created some unexpected downsides, the biggest of which is that the substantial rust holes in the floor will allow horrible stagnant, muddy water into the cab and back (Seeing as all our clothes were in the back this proved to not be as funny for us as it was for the other teams).

I have now also proved to myself that it is possible to drift the van, but you need a flat grass airfield and a very violent approach to make it happen, and mid drift there is a risk of a blowout where the tire is torn from the rim - when this happens there will be a brief moment of panic where you find yourself wondering if it was worth trying... Clearly it is, as everyone who has ever had one of those "Oh Bugger - that's not gone well has it" moments will know.

Team Granada had similar issues;

Whilst the Tiger hunted in the long grass;

We had to leave the airfield, as it turns out that the army no longer chases with tanks - now they use Lynx Helicopters. As we were "encouraged" to leave rapidly we may have hit some jumps in the van... the result of these small airborne jaunts is a snapped chassis, more specifically I ripped the leaf spring hanger on the rear axle from the rear chassis and whilst it happened crimped a fuel line and severely reduced the vans already terrible performance. - Basically, it hadn't gone all that well, had it?

We drove around the Plains for the rest of the day, it was very dusty on the gravel tracks and everything got smothered, we were all pale and grey haired by the time we got back. It seemed after the airfield incident that the Land Wardens (Land Wardens control access to the restricted areas on the plains) were everywhere and we were unable to get up to much more mischief, bar a little bit of nudge and spin on the tracks as we drove.

The below is just before leaving the plains;

Because of my damage to the vans fuelling we couldn't even keep up with lorries on the way home, at one point I had an epic lorry race where I and a lorry occupied both lanes of a dual carriageway for miles, causing a huge traffic pileup behind and undoubtedly long delays for the poor people in our wake. I won, but only because team Tiger got bored of the wait and rammed the van past. On the next large hill the lorry ingloriously overtook, and I lost him. For the colonials amongst you, a lorry is an articulated 18-wheeler truck, and in the UK all heavy commercial vehicles are limited to a maximum of 56mph.

Anyway after a very long seeming drive home from the plains we made it, every car drove itself back to each teams homes and was unloaded and stripped, ready for their final hurrah the following day - a destruction derby.

The finale!

I was a little bruised from our finales exploits I must admit, we used a local farmers woods and were joined by a heavily re-enforced Renault Clio hatchback, my first and only round in the van lasted about five minutes - that was all the time it took for me to smash the radiator and oil filter completely off and seize the engine. After a lot of fixing the van did run again, but it was left to the other half of team Royal Snail to drive because I would only ruin it again.

At the end of it all there was just one car still moving under its own steam - The Royal Snail still stood after all around her had fallen, although after each lap the engine seized due to lack of oil and water and had to rest. Team Tiger's automatic gearbox gave out, Team Camp Grenada had killed their gearbox but were also suffering engine problems, Team Cow had somehow engaged their immobilizer and could not start their engine, Team Golf and Ladybird had both declined the DD so were not racing and the reinforced Clio had suffered such a large T-bone from team Tiger it was knackered.

Below are some images of the DD and aftermath;

 

 

The cars were weighed in and turned into skyscrapers in China after the derby; the Shitball Rally was officially over!

CRASH, BANG, PAIN - Must be Skiing 2010

The below is a combined missive from my last skiing holiday with friends from December last year (2010). It was originally two e-mails split over a couple of day but I merged it into one.

 
Just to let you all know we are still alive, albeit a little worse for wear. Internet access is limited here so I have not had a chance to do much online.
The ski resort itself is very good - excellent for learners as most of the slopes are green or blue. The town itself is massive - spread across a few valleys it could rival Basingstoke for size, although the skiing area is not as big as most we would go to as a family. The locals are not so friendly, most resolutely refuse to help if they hear English or are just a little rude. Apparently this area was a "Hidden gem" for a long time and has only recently started to receive foreign visitors in big volumes.

It’s fine though, we all speak fluent Foreign (To answer the famous question, how do you speak a foreign language? - Speak louder!) Ken is especially good at this.

The drive down was uneventful, quite slow as the Lolvo is not a rocket but steady and from my seat, very comfortable. To Dover I managed 37mpg and was not trying for economy, but the faster French Auto routes were not as kind and the average by the time we got here was down to 34/33mpg (It seems I will be returning with a high bill).
We arrived at silly AM, and slept in the cars in an outdoor car park. It was not all that cold (+4c) which explains the lack of snow…
There was very little snow when we first arrived, none at all on the roads and very little around the town. The first day we managed to get the rentals but not a pass for this area, so we went to the next resort along for a half day. The weather then was excellent, very sunny and although the snow was thin down low it was fine at altitude.
There were very few falls on that first half a day, and it filled us with confidence for the rest of the holiday and our utter invulnerability.
The second day showed that we were not as good as we thought for the most part, Stubby has a new nickname - Stack it Stubby. We all ached a bit after the first day - not a good sign.

We went shopping on Sunday night - Iddly you will be pleased to know I have bought my own goggles and no longer need to steal yours, Mum you will not be allowed access to steal them from me.

Monday passed almost incident less, Ken replaced Stubby as the least stable, Dom continues to fall often and Chris has been mostly boarding on his own as we can't keep up with his pace. We tried to find a bar at night, but everything was shut up in our area. We went to the lower and larger part of the resort to find something open - came across one bar, with no WiFi and a single beer on tap. Turns out the French don't party into the night, which suits me just fine.

Oh and I almost forgot, Ken cooked us dinner beforehand, a nice meal of Smash instant mash, baked beans and some locally bought very expensive sausages - which I am certain was, or contained horse penis. I ate very little, in fact I only ate the beans which has proved unfortunate for all of us. It snowed heavily at night, so it was a nice fresh layer of snow for the morning.

Today was another good day for skiing, except I have had my first "stack" of the holiday, in spectacular fashion. On a relatively shallow blue run I opted to pull next to Stubby and surprise him by shouting HELLO! in his ear (and smacking him with my pole), it didn't work out so well for me.

He panicked and immediately turned his snowboard level with the slope to stop, unfortunately I was right next to him, and his snowboard was now across the front of my skis, and not moving. It dug in, forcing my skis to stop but not my body, which had enough momentum to cartwheel me head over heels at least once, probably twice and possibly several times.

It hurt, quite a lot.

I seem to have taken a decent hit to the jaw on the way, enough to make me see stars for a second or too and cut my inside lip somewhere. Got a hell of an aching jaw and teeth so it’s probably going to become a nice bruise. For the official record it was a bar fight that caused this and the other guy is in hospital or something.
Anyhow now my entire upper body aches, more than it did previously. It’s ok though, because Ken got a bad hit on his bad knee, Stubby stacked later and hurt his rib and Dom is lazy so we used our collective pain as an excuse to stop for crepes. I like crepes.

Team Skoda (Bluntly, Stubby and Dim) were going to go visit a friend of Stubby’s in an Italian resort tonight, its 60 miles and two hours ish away but heavy snow has made them turn back. There is now about two inches on the previously clear roads and the temperature has dropped to about 0c so perhaps the drive home will be more eventful...
 
Well that's the story so far, we are all still alive at this point, if a little battered and bruised. Maybe I will find a WiFi spot later in the week and give you a further update later down the line.
 
Oh and for the record, at this point Ken has not done his car any mischief, nor has he rolled over anything but himself. Long may it continue.
 
Over (and over, and over again) and out.

Well, It turns out it’s that time again. Chris is adamant that I accompany him to the wiffi lounge again so I feel compelled to write another update, this time detailing only today.
 
As seems to be the recurring theme of this holiday we woke at 10 (Take note mum, no 8am Nazi wake up calls on this ski holiday). Stubby is mostly unable to move and not feeling the love for another day of boarding and Bluntley is complaining that his knee hurts. I can't lift my arms above my head and Dim is primarily a lazy sod so we were not in a hurry to leave the apartment. Chris for the record is fine, and left us to our own devices so he could board unhindered again today.
We lounged around for a while, and eventually decided that we should do something - but what? I suggested a relaxing day of sledding on the purpose made sled track at the other end of the resort. "How could it possibly go wrong", that’s what I said this morning.

So we padded ourselves up, beat on Stubby a little to convince him to come and opted to take the Lolvo rather than walk to the part of the resort where the sled rentals and the cable car that would take us to the start of the run was.
Renting was cheap, very cheap as it happens - €4 each for a half day. We had a couple of occurrences getting to the lift (There was a small slope). Of course we wrote that off to simple learning the ropes stuff then got on the lift. I must admit, I was expecting a more dramatic height to tumble down so when the cable car deposited us only quarter of the way up the mountain I was disappointed.
We followed the single sign we saw with a sled on it and decided this had to be the start point, right? So after sitting on the sleds and throwing ourselves off the edge of the made slope by the lift we were surprised to get only 50 or so metres before being trapped on the edge of a river. Some arguing later we agreed this was not the way we should have gone. We had to walk back up the near vertical 50m slope and make our way back to the beginning.

It turns out that was hard work and we all gave up after five steps (give or take) and chose to walk across to the nearby ski slope and go from there. Perfect we thought - a nice, wide, steep, groomed slope to start from.
Lots of speed and crashes later we found ourselves at the bottom with only some broken parts, and almost fit enough for another go. On the second run we found that to get to the start you had to walk all the way up a slope behind the lift exit and the sledding trail winds its way down a course only a couple of meters wide, with high banks each side and lots of bends. Overtaking became difficult, and normally resulted in high speed crashes. Obviously we crashed a lot. Which hurt – a lot.
Anyway, I am being kicked out of the WiFi spot now, French don't like to hang about when it comes to closing!
 
Suffice it to say we had a few incidents, but kept at it all day. Ken nearly went off a cliff into a river; he was only stopped by the crash netting which he got wrapped in. I have pictures because obviously I wouldn't help until he passed me his camera so I could take evidence.
 
The angry French lady just turned the lights out, bye.
 

Oddly this seems to be all I ended up sending out, no idea why as it was quite a while ago but we did eventually make it home safe, no one died and nothing was majorly broken.