What have you done today thread?

[Noggin]

Spent the best part of 2 days getting the xmas decorations down,boxed and stowed away. Bags and boxes of crappy tat.

But at least it's done and dusted.

I did the decs, but I've left the cards up - is that still bad luck??!

Probably in someone's world! Best to be sure since you have such a close relationship with the FUF.

[Taipan]

Spent the best part of 2 days getting the xmas decorations down,boxed and stowed away. Bags and boxes of crappy tat.

But at least it's done and dusted.

I did the decs, but I've left the cards up - is that still bad luck??!

Yes. Have you never heard the old adage,

Sticks and stones
May break my bones,
But leaving Xmas cards up,
Will make it worserer...

[Scotsrich]

Took 2 of my grandkids to see Wonka at the cinema.

4 seats
Snacks
Tea at Frankie & Benny’s

£112!! I’m glad we only get them occasionally, when did having kids get so expensive?

[Noggin]

Spent the best part of 2 days getting the xmas decorations down,boxed and stowed away. Bags and boxes of crappy tat.

But at least it's done and dusted.

I did the decs, but I've left the cards up - is that still bad luck??!

Yes. Have you never heard the old adage,

Sticks and stones
May break my bones,
But leaving Xmas cards up,
Will make it worserer...

LOL Maybe that's why the universe and the FUF hate me??

[Jody]

This Morning I took down the Christmas Tree.

This afternoon was somewhat more entertaining.

I headed to the snowboard shop, my 13+ year old snowboard bindings had finally bitten the dust yesterday. I'd left the board with The Guy as there were 2 (of 8) bolts just spinning and a spinning, neither coming in nor out !! To be honest, he didn't made a great job of it. He should have drilled or die grinded (ground?) the heads off. The baseplate could then be lifted off giving a few mm of thread and potential access to the insert. From there he could have chosen the best route. He instead used a hacksaw which has left some significant scratches in the board, although it should be said, the scratches are hidden by the bindings when installed.

He sold me some Union Bindings. Not a brand I'd used before, but tbf for, it all pretty much works the same!. €310 with seasonairres discount, though I got a free sticker so it's really good VFM

I decided to head out and give them a try, I got my gear on and jumped on the lift at the back of my building. It's been snowing almost constantly for a few days now, which is very welcome. It's also colder than it's been for a few years imo. The downside is that as soon as you pass 1800 meters, it's what's known as a "White Out". Not only is the fog so thick that you can barely see the width of the piste, or to the next marker. Also, you can't see the floor, it's a sea of white. You can't see dips and troughs, rises and moguls. You're forced to ride around with very loose legs, just letting the board come up at you over rough terrain. Unfortunately, because No-one can see, Everyone skis very cautiously and slowly, putting in lots of turns. This is the absolute best way to create moguls. Moguls make the terrain even more scary, so people go even slower, guess what? This helps the moguls grow!!.

I took an off piste line under the Roc Mungier lift, shown to me by a friend a few days earlier. It was AWESOME, like, proper knee deep powder, jumping off shit and not crashing, wicked pow turns throwing waves of snow around, pure snowboarding bliss. All too soon I was at the bottom, I punted over to Agile de Fruit lift and jumped on.

Halfway up the lift my phone rings. It's Danny The same guy that showed me that line a few days ago!. It turns out he's on the same lift a few chairs behind me, he tells me to veer left when I get off and wait for him. He arrives a few minutes later with his Mrs and a couple guys I'd not met before. After brief introductions, despite the almost complete lack of visibility at this altitude, we send it into the off piste, this powder isn't quite as deep, but it's still epic, the visibility, cuts in about 1/3 of the way down. Then it's massive slash turns from everybody, launching off anything we could find. Honestly, I find myself involuntarily "whooping" and laughing as we play around. I'm delighted to see that with 2 skiers and 3 boarders, we're quite clearly at a similar skill level. We join the piste for the last few hundered metres and I'm hitting side hits the whole way down, just straight airs, but pretty big and smooooth.

We all jump back on the same lift, high as. We decide to head to La Tania. Once again, as we get off Aiguille de fruit, we can't see shit, we take it steady for a while, we're well below the Altiport before we can see much, but none the less we're caning around, having fun. We head down to 1850 and get the Chenus bubble lift up, four of us in a bubble was quite a welcome warm up. One of Danny's dreadlocks was poking out and had frozen!

We jump off the lift and wait for the 5th guy to catch up, he's brought 2 friends along! Top of Chenus is the highest altitude we've been all day and it shows, I can't see shit, despite the latest greatest oakleys! We set off knowing that we have a solid plan. Within 50 Metres, 3 of the group have dropped out. I understand in as much as that, where we were, snowboarding and skiing we're not fun. But the rest of us knew, it was about to get a whole lot better.

We carried on, bouncing through the quagmire until we found the spot. Just above the abandoned lift station. We veered left into the off piste and the trees. From there we 'effing smashed it, through the trees, over the rock jumps, slash turns. We had to all stop periodically to catch our breaths, both literally and metaphorically. Once again I was giggling like a schoolgirl cheering every time I nearly binned it but saved it (yeah, probably once, maybe twice that happened ). We came out under the Foret lift, so kept track of it and jumped on it in La Praz.

From the top of the Foret Lift we traversed a wee bit to join Folyeres run don to La Tania. Danny and I split right into a tiny powder bowl to see if we could find a side hit back on the piste, The were two lines, he went left (higher up the run) so I took the right. Often with snowboarding, when you hit a jump, you don't know what's the other side of it, until it's too late! As I hit the lip, I saw that the piste dropped away from me, much more dramatically than expected. I went with a safe 'straight air' and went huge. well it felt huge, difficult to judge, but I'd say my board was 2.5 Metres off the ground and I jumper over 5 metres in length. Whatever it was, as I landed it and rode away, I felt EPIC. I the proceeded to smash down the right hand side of the piste, getting every bit of fresh powder that I could squeeze. I stopped at the junction and realised I had lost EVERYBODY. So enamoured was I with my huge jump, I'd failed to notice everyone else heading off into the woods to the left of the piste.

I knew straight away that to go looking for them was a fools errand. Instead I opted to take the piste down, smashing any pow at the sides, leaping over all the rollers and generally being a legend

I got down to Le Ski Lodge In La Tania and after a brief wait, the others joined me. We had some food and beers, though we were reserved enough not to have Genepi ! We then jumped on the La Tania Bubble and as time was getting on, we made plans to head home.

Danny and I had hit a closed piste a few days earlier and it had some pretty significant trenches amongst the untouched powder. We considered that as it had snowed almost flat out since we last hit it. We should hatch a plan, we could cane the green from the top, the veer off onto the bottom half of the Murettes run. The green was actually OK, we we're going up the sides, just larking about. Then we hit Murettes. It was tracked in places but we split ourselves over the run to find the fresh lines. I opted for the left, in and amongst the snow cannons and netting pilons, even here, there were tracks, but I was able to find my own lines and was having a ball, deep powder, stupid jumps that always work, giggling and whooping. Just having the best day ever!

There I was, having a ball, literally thinking about what a awesome day I was having, I rounded a snow canon, apparently I was a little too close. My back (Right) knee smashed into the concrete base they bolt the snow canons too. It had been completely hidden by the snow, normally they are sub terrain, but I guess this one wasn't. Efff me boys and girls, it hurt, before I knew owt, I was on my back swearing like a docker, Oww, oww effing oww. I pulled off my mask and goggles, I was not happy. However, I have fallen off enough motorbikes and done enough other silly shit that my knees are kinda knackered. Knackered to the point, that if I whack one, by god it hurts, but I do know, that I'll be significantly better in under 10 minutes.

As I lay there waiting for the pain to pass, my collegues called out to see if I was OK " Give me 10 minutes " I called back. Fortunately (?) it transpired that Danny had not only fallen, but lost a ski in the process. "No rush mate" was called up the hill to me.

True to form, under 10 minutes later, I got up and rode down, through the bumpy off piste and on to the icy af piste. I was no longer going full send, but I was able to hold my own. We grabbed the La Praz Gondola up to 1850, bombed down to Aquamotion, wandered up the road and got the escalator back home to 1650. My knee is not fine, but I can walk with a slight limp, I'm OK with it.

Upon examination back at home, three things have become apparent;
A. I missed my knee pad by bare millimetres
B. I have the tiniest, pathetic mark on my knee, you wouldn't give a 4 year old a plaster for this !
C. It's not even swollen, it's still sore, but it does make me look a bit soft

The bindings???? Yeah, kinda like the old ones really, he even set them 'better' for me, but I didn't really notice tbh;

[Rockburner]

Damn, i miss skiing.

[Skub]

Cool writeup Jody.

[Yorick]

Had a great day out with my pal who I've known since teens

20240109_120923.jpg (1.32 MiB) Viewed 432 times

IMG-20240109-WA0010.jpg (146.31 KiB) Viewed 432 times

IMG-20240109-WA0013.jpg (159.7 KiB) Viewed 432 times

[MingtheMerciless]

A chilly "Sarf Dahns" dog walk.

[Noggin]

Light was a bit rubbish today, but I headed out for first tracks with a mate this morning. Light stayed pretty rubbish and I bailed at lunchtime!!

Here's hoping there's more sun tomorrow!!!

[mangocrazy]

Light was a bit rubbish today, but I headed out for first tracks with a mate this morning. Light stayed pretty rubbish and I bailed at lunchtime!!

Here's hoping there's more sun tomorrow!!!

I'd say the light on that pic was just about spot on!

[v8-powered]

Took the Shitroen DS3 in for it's annual service and MOT - thankfully passed OK

[Noggin]

Light was a bit rubbish today, but I headed out for first tracks with a mate this morning. Light stayed pretty rubbish and I bailed at lunchtime!!

Here's hoping there's more sun tomorrow!!!

I'd say the light on that pic was just about spot on!

Thank you, especially considering I'm still only using an old iPhone!

But for skiing, the light sucked big ones

[Count Steer]

Thank you, especially considering I'm still only using an old iPhone!

But for skiing, the light sucked big ones

I used to absolutely hate that flat, grey light. You can't make anything out on the snow surface. It's like driving in fog.

I'd have bailed too.

[Horse]

I've mentioned the Community First Responder thing before.

Various 'firsts' through last year. Such as 'first parking ticket' and 'first assault'.

Today's was 'first CPR'.

No details, for obvious confidentiality reasons. But for comedy value, my heart trace:
- logged on at 11
- call at about 12:15
- 15 minute drive to scene

20240110_203245.jpg (20.84 KiB) Viewed 337 times

[Noggin]

Thank you, especially considering I'm still only using an old iPhone!

But for skiing, the light sucked big ones

I used to absolutely hate that flat, grey light. You can't make anything out on the snow surface. It's like driving in fog.

I'd have bailed too.

I normally wouldn't have gone out but we'd paid for the first tracks and it did look like the sun was going to come out - it didn't

In the past, I've not been able to ski it because of my technique but despite being fairly FUBAR, my knees are now a half decent suspension for skiing, so not seeing the snow isn't 'so' bad. But if I do have a bad moment then it freaks me out cos I am still a bit scared of crashing - when you haven't worked for as long as I've not worked in the last few years and finally feel like things are coming together, any accident is a bad thing!! LOL And at some points this morning the weird light was making me feel a bit queasy

But - forecast is good for tomorrow we've just been told. Just about to put the factor 50 in my bag cos I now have goggles to wear, and really don't need a goggle tan line

[Yorick]

Had pals here for a few days, and normally we'd have the BBQ Bonfire on.
But been extra mild last few nights.

Tonight we started playing cards about 7:00 on the patio.

Last 4 hours have been Newmarket with gallons of alcohol. Best card game in the world

Bloody amazing.

But a bit pissed off it wasn't cold enough to light the BBQ

[ZRX61]

Saw a cardiologist.
Turns out not only does he have bikes (HD, KTM x2, Ducati, Honda & a 1400 Connie, but he also worked at the Royal Cornwall in Truro & had been married to some gal from Marazion whose maiden name was actually Curnow.
oh, & we talked about my pump a bit. Tests discussed. Two follow ups booked with the possibility of two others.

[Noggin]

Woohooo - skiing again, but in sunshine! Luckily (for the boredom factor of those reading!) I didn't take many photos!! But, it really was proper lush

We did a little over 17 miles of skiing (my mate has a fancy thingy that logs the skiing and not the chairlifts!! ) Which is apparently quite a reasonable day. My legs thought so! We did a few runs I've never done, one that I'd forgotten that I'd done (probably blanked it out cos it looks lovely from the lift but it's pretty challenging!!).

We stopped for lunch and when we got going again all three of us realised our legs couldn't keep going So only a couple of (pretty decent!) runs to get home and then chill before heading to the quiz tonight

[Ditchfinder]

Which resort are you in Noggin? Is it La Plagne?