Resolutions and all that...

Bit later than promised but I suppose I should really mention the New Year ski jaunt, even though it feels like ages ago now (can't believe it was only 4 weeks ago that we were there)! In fact probably won't say a lot but it was surprisingly good fun with a few exceptions.

Romania ended up being a little behind the rest of Europe in terms of piste markings and customer service - it took an age to get our skis each day (skis circa 1970 manufacture I think) and the pistes in general were pretty icy and rocky in places. Not ideal for the beginners that the resort seemed to be aimed at, but on the third day we decided that it was worth trying the longest (black) run in the resort, and were so glad that we did - aside from 3 steep mogul sections that earned it its black rating, it was like a lovely groomed fast red and pretty much uncrowded. So Simon and I (and a couple of the others at times) spent the rest of the week tearing down it, eating up lift passes in the process. They had a really outdated system there - the brochure said that a 6-day pass would be a bargain 35 quid which is what we had budgeted for, but the local rep could (or more likely would) not get this, as we didn't want the full package with lessons and stuff too. So we had to buy a pass loaded with points that got deducted every time we went up the lift - 8 points for the gondola or cable car to the top, and 3 for the button drag lift (that we didn't use as it only served the nursery slope). He assured us that even the most expert skiers wouldn't need more than about 30 points in a day, except we used 40 before lunch once we had started to get out speed up over the moguls, as it was easy enough to do the black 5 times in the morning. We then all had to get more money out in order to buy more lift passes, but fair play to the travel company who refunded us each 35 quid to compensate for their rep's inability to honour the quoted prices.

The other thing that was a bit disappointing at times was the food - on the first day we all had to meet up at one of the huts around the bottom of the run that sold food - rather, meat. You could have variations on the large sausage with chunks of gristle in it, and other "meaty bonuses" which were rather dubious, but luckily we found a pizzeria for the rest of the week, even though the service was a bit rubbish. Good pizzas though. The hotel was pretty good - it had a nice pool and sauna that we made good use of, the bar was strange as they had surly scantily-clad girls dancing on top of it in the evenings which made everyone leave and take their drinks upstairs as it really wasn't what we wanted to see. Food again was a bit odd, most of the evening meals came with crinkle-cut oven chips and mixed boiled veg, but given the Romanian specialities mostly seemed to be stuffed cabbages and meat, I don't think the country is particularly renowned for its cuisine.

Anyway, we had a good time all in all, was a very small group of 6 plus the rep, but the others were mostly good fun. Kind of hoping to go again (somewhere else though) perhaps at Easter as would like to consolidate my new-found confidence on moguls! I feel a call coming on to the bank to extend my overdraft again.

Today's musical interlude: Here is a catchy tune that is doing the rounds at the moment - pay particular attention to the bit around the 30-second mark. Doesn't it remind you of this, which children of the 80s might recognise. And for the record, I thought this before Chris Moyles pointed it out earlier in the week.

And if you want to see all the ski photos, you can see them here except I think that most blog readers have probably already seen them on facebook if they were at all interested!

New Year Band Name Game Fun!

Well, am finally back to reality after a rather busy Christmas and New Year - had a good time all in all although still catching up on the sleep I have missed. It would take me too long to recount it all here so think I'll do Christmas and leave the ski trip for another day (although some of you have already seen the photos that I have stuck on facebook already).

Finished work on Christmas eve and drove up to London to pick up my friend Simon who I went ski-ing with, we were then going to go onto Milton Keynes to his sister's for Christmas day, but ended up leaving late as he was completely disorganised and hadn't packed when I arrived, so I ended up doing his ironing and wrapping half his presents for him while he faffed around trying to find things. No comment. Eventually got to Milton Keynes and did a family Christmas with them which was nice (my parents being in Austria at the time), played various games with the kids and ended up doing Singstar on the Playstation which I sucked at to start with due to sheer embarrassment but improved a lot as time went on and now want to give it a proper go on the 90s edition which has all the rubbish pop things that I sing to in the car. Think we're planning a weekend of it sometime soon! Had to leave rather early on Boxing Day to get to the airport for the flight to Romania, but thankfully the budget parking I had booked all went very smoothly so we were there in plenty of time. Will do more about the holiday in the next few days as off to bed now, but in recognition of my Singstar efforts I will leave you with a "fun" game off of Doctors.net. Basically it generates your band name, first album title and album cover, so have a go and see what you get!

1. For your band's name, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random and it is the title of the article generated.

2. The album title is the last four words of the last quotation on http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3

3. And your album cover is the photo generated when you click on "explore" on http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/

So - I got "Jerry and the Goldfish" for my future band, whose first album is "Thou Appearest Unto Others", the sleeve of which is shown above. I quite like it actually, perhaps a few more goes on Singstar and I will have to start following this alternative career! Feel free to post any good names/abums on the comments bit...