Back in Sarfampton

I'm feeling a bit more bloggie now that I'm back from skiing. I think my new years resolution should have been to blog post more than once a month for 2009. Of course that is easier said than done, especially when facebook is such a darned distraction...

Skiing in Bulgaria rocked. Officially. The flight was better than anticipated, as the plane was much more modern than the Monarch one we flew to Florida on last summer. We lucked out with the extra legroom seats as well which was fortuitous. And they even gave us shepherds pie! Even though is was only a shortish flight! All is forgiven.

Once we arrived at Sofia airport we were whisked to our hotel by coach with a bunch of other trippers. It was WEIRD to be on a package holiday after all of our travels, and have all the guides trying to sell you excursions and all that crap. It was late at night when we arrived so couldn't take in the surroundings very well but it was definitely snowy. And icy and cold.

The Rila hotel was huge and very budget, despite it being rated somehow as 4 stars. Am I just too picky? Nick summed it up well when we described it as '80's Novotel stylee'... Our room was a really good size with en suite bathroom and big corner balcony and telly, but it was horrendously noisy late at night, quite cold, with very dodgy electrics that blew twice and yellowy/brown tap water. Nice. It was such a cheap holiday that I shouldn't complain, it really was fine to be honest, once we'd made some earplugs out of toilet paper. CLEAN toilet paper.

There were different areas to ski in which was good; lower down the slopes were quite busy and full of dangerous beginners falling around everywhere, but you could take a gondola right up to the top of the Musala mountain and there were quite a few great runs up there at the top. Sadly on 2 days the gondola was closed due to high winds but we found a third area with 3 different red runs to play on. No broken bones to report, just one rather large bruise on the side of my thigh that is shaped exactly like the end of my ski pole! It has snowed just prior to our arrival but then didn't show all week so by the end the lower slopes were getting back to bare earth, thick slush and ice. I found them quite a challenge like that but Nick didn't really like them and stayed off. We saw many people on crutches in our hotel, I feel quite lucky I wasn't one of them.

I really am so pleased to have gone, the last time I was so slow and couldn't turn and now I am much faster, can turn and even managed a black run at one point. To be fair I didn't realise it was black until we'd reached the bottom and Nick spotted the sign, or I wouldn't have done it. I felt quite confident on the red runs by the end of the week.

Borovets itself is very chavvy and seedy, with lots of go-go erotic bars and crap like that. Bars pumping out Euro pop selling 'full English breakfasts' and telling you they're 'cheap price! Asda price!' I guess that's what most Brits want when they go abroad. Very cringeworthy.

In other news! ... My very good friend Catherine and her husband Damian have just had a baby! She is called Samantha Elizabeth and was born on Thursday 5th Feb weighing just under 6lb. Massive congratulations to them both and hurry up and post some pics on facebook or your blog please...

We are hanging around in the UK until this weekend when our friend Ben is coming down from Birmingham to stay. Then we plan to hit the road, Jack, at some time next week., depending on snow/ice conditions here and in northern Europe. This week we are getting the van ready and keeping busy doing lots of last minute things. The van is being serviced today so fingers crossed they don't find anything terribly wrong with her.