Stormsail

Yep, that’s correct I’ve been snowboarding again but this time Italy and Sauze d’Oulx. I had my reservations about snowboarding in Italy and especially staying in a hotel rather than a chalet but it wasn’t that bad. The weather was good in terms of clear blue skies but obviously it effected the snow conditions. This meant icy slopes in the morning and then slushy in the afternoon. We had a small amount of snow fall midweek and then a major dump on the friday when we visited Mongenèvre in France which I thought was a better resort than Italy. Says a lot doesn’t it an Englishman preferring the French slopes to the Italian! I’d like to go back to Italy again except this time visit the Dolomites as it was recommended by some friends. I think Canada is on my hit list for next year but I guess that depends on how much money I’ve got available following a year of DIY on the house. Still it was a good holiday and a good chance to catch up with some old friends who I went with!

So, just before I escape off to Italy for my second boarding holiday I’ve just bottled the beer that has been fermenting for the last week. I did have to purchase a heat pad to put underneath the fermenting bin so it can raise the temperature to between 21 and 27C which is the ideal brewing temperature as I was getting around 18C. So now the beer has been bottled I’ve got to wait for another couple of weeks before I can taste it….

Yep, that’s right I’ve brought a Coopers home brew set from The Home Brew Shop in North Camp Farnborough and made my first brew. It’s got about a week before it’ll be ready for bottling and then another two weeks before it’s ready for drinking. Stay tuned for the details of the drinking experience…..

Just got back from the slopes of La Plagne in the French alps and Phoebe’s first ski holiday. We took the Eurostar night train to Bourg St Maurice and enabled us to hit the slopes on the Saturday morning. We stayed in a Chalet orgainized by Mountainsun Ltd which included Becks and Roger our hosts for the week. Roger’s cooking was excellent and made all the difference after a hard days sliding down perfectly good slopes……or perhaps that was the lunch time beer….

The snow was ok and we didn’t get any fresh snow until later in the week but only at high altitude so it made the lower slopes icy first thing and slushy in the afternoon. Still my boarding is slowly making progress in switch but I’ll have further practice when I return to boarding in Itay in a couple of weeks. I think Phoebe could have enjoyed it more if the snow had been tip top and she’d had some beginner skiers to hang with. I hope we can hit some real snow slopes next year in Canada along with some skier buddies for her to play with.

Anyway, it was nice to get away from the office and play in the snow……