Had a bit of time to think and plan on Saturday, as I was recovering from a mildly large Friday night - Dale Bergin's leaving do at the Tuns (photo: Toby, Milly and Dale) which started with a few beers, moved to spirits and ended with a bottle of tequila concluded with a 3am close relationship with my porcelain friend - the toilet. So a few hours of trying not to move in the morning gave me time to think....

I thought it was time to take a step back and take check of whats going on. I've been so very busy lately - since Christmas I have spent a little over 3 weeks in the states, a week in Italy, few days down in Brighton, few days in Paris, Abby has visited twice and in between this I have been working hard.

I haven't really progressed much in finding a permanent home recently, due to simply being busy. And to be honest I miss having a homey home. So with some cash burning a hole in my pocket - I am going to put some real effort in. I have canceled a few up coming trips to put some effort into it, I have enough for a couple of deposits, so I am throwing around the idea of getting two-two bedroom flat/apartments in zone 3 on a tube line and renting one of them. The big question resides with the bank letting me buy-to-let a second place. I think once I have my own place I will be a tad more content with chilling out at home.

By going to the very top of the Cervina basin ski resort, you could drop off the top just below the Matterhorn down into the Switzerland side of the mountian into Zermatt. This provided much better skiing, some more advanced skiing and hugh runs. At the very top is a glacier which would have been a good 500m wide and very long which gave some good on and off piest skiing.

It also gave rise to the only black runs we managed to find, and although we were well under control it was nice to have a little more challenge. All in all, I would go back to Zermatt for some skiing, but I think next stop might be to explore some French slopes.

And that concluded our 8 day skiing trip to Italy :)

Ryan and I were by far the keenest to get up on the mountain and hit the slopes. I was on my new xmas board, while Ryan was telemarking - both happy enough to go anywhere on or off piest.

Cervina is as big as Mammoth Mountain, if not bigger - although it is for beginner -> intermediate skiers at best. So we (ryan and I) were struggling to find much of a challenge. The mountain is that large, by going up the gondolas we were raising near 2km in height - causing our ears to pop on the way up. The longest single run was 11km long which is a pretty serious run � a good way to practice turns and work on technique.

While we were there, it pretty much constantly snowed, given a good few inches of new snow each day and almost a foot on one particular day. But with all this snow, brought low cloud and poor visibility making some skiing pretty touch and almost dangerous. On the day after getting a good foot of snow, people were obviously going too hard on the mountain without being able to see what they were doing. We saw at least 2 people get helicoptered off the mountain and many more skied off in the emergency sled.

One of the good or maybe bad things of these fields is the fact there are bars at all different points up the mountain. So each night we would rendezvous as a group at one of the bars for a couple before going back to the hotels for a shower and dinner. Naturally one or two turns into three or four before having to ski off the mountain. This caused just a tad amount of chaos, although still a good source for a laugh.

On one exceptionally bad visibility days, Ryan and I made small kicker to play with instead of going up the mountian. Which was fun and a laugh, problem was as above at the end of the day we had a few drinks and managed to talk others into giving it a go. So a few new bruises, banged heads and dented egos the group had done some drunken jumps and crawled back to the hotel.

Lisas Birthday
The night before heading to Cervinia boarding, I thought I would join the double whammy of farewelling Ken as he heads back to New Zealand and wishing Lisa a Happy Birthday. In true Lisa style, we went to a Germany Beerhall in London. Kens heading home cause hes in luuuv and is chasing a girl, and well Lisa just wanted an excuse to have a drink. So a few steins and Jeigerbombs (Jeigermister and redbull shots) later it was time to stumble home in preparation for a 4am get up time for an early flight...

Cervina
There were 16 of us in total, Nigel, Silvia, Jo and myself from work, a collection of Nigel’s mates and some ringers from social sports in London. It was a pretty good group, easy going, down to earth and generally up for a good time.

Silvia organized the whole thing, to the point where I just gave money and didn't know a thing about it. Even the night before I didn't know more than, we were simply going to Italy. It was great to arrive to a big ski resort and some big mountains, and even better when someone pointed out the Matterhorn. It is an impressive peak, and good to see in real life. The package included the flights, transfers, accom with breakfast, afternoon tea and dinner. All of which I was impressed with, the house wine was pretty bad but it was free so how can you complain. It really was a holiday, no organization required, just went with the flow and had a good time. The town was a simple little ski resort town, lots of bars, ski shops and very little else. But then we didn't want/need anything else.