Shell turns the big 30 in style, Tignes, Espace Killy, France

After a festive period of over indulgence we headed to France to perfect our snowboarding. Potatoes cooked in goose fat were a highlight of the festive season for both of us so we thought that post New Years something needed to be done to rectify the fattening side effects of these.

It was luck that the lovely Ainslie (a colleague of mine at GOSH) had very drunkenly at our house warming party invited us to Tinges in France for a week of snow adventures. I really didn't want to be at work for my birthday and Brock really wanted to get to the snow this winter so we jumped at the chance to get away with a bunch of her friends (detecting a theme here). In the end a few of my friends jumped on the band wagon as well so then there were 10 of us which made for a pretty good contingent. Out of 10 of us we had 6 radiographers and one radiologist, a research scientist who is trying to get into medicine and a token computer nerd and an accountant just to even things up a bit.

We made the interesting and in hindsight questionable money saving decision to catch the bus all the way from London Victoria bus station to Tignes. We departed after work on Friday and arrived at lunch time on Saturday. It would have been better if our seats actually reclined, the DVD played worked and if Tweedledum and Tweedledee our drivers could have sorted out the air conditioning. I won't complain too much as it was no where near comparable in length or painfulness to our Laos to China bus ordeal of 2008. In the end I was just thankful that the toilet stops actually involved real toilets and that there were no leeches. However we did spend more money at a service station on two sandwiches than we did the entire week were in Laos on all our food (slight exaggeration but it was pretty outrageously expensive).

So we made it to Tignes in one piece but quite tired. Tignes is in the wonderful part of the Southern Alps that is Espace Killy. There is a glacier there that you can ski/board on all year round and more runs than you could actually ski in a week. We stayed at the UCPA which was simple hostel style accommodation with rooms of four and a shared bathroom, so Kylie and Sheida were lucky to get a glance of Brock in his underwear at least 2 times a day. The UCPA was pretty simple but proved to be excellent value as we had all our meals, lift tickets, a whole week of lessons and accommodation included. The food was a sensation considering they were catering for 250 people. I shudder to think what we would have been served up in the equivalent place in the UK. We all embraced the fresh baguettes, pommes frites, drinking our morning coffee out of a bowl and most of all the cheese. I think I might have actually been a chance of loosing my Christmas lard if it wasn't for all the cheese!

We took ourselves out boarding on the Sunday just to check and make sure that we hadn't over shot the mark by telling them that we could actually snowboard green runs and the odd blue run. We had plenty of tumbles but nothing too spectacular and managed to sort ourselves out so that we didn't look too foolish in our first lesson. We were pretty amazed at how fast Ainslie and Pete could get themselves down the mountain on their boards, we could only hope and dream that we would be that good by the end of the week!

Monday saw the start of our lessons and we were in the improver group, as we certainly needed some improvement. There were two improver groups so we all headed out together bright and early to sort out the boys from the men. I basically fell over a lot and couldn't keep up with half the people in the group. That wasn't really a problem as Brock's self taught technique was so bad that he got put in the boys group with me along with our travelling companion Rick, who embarrassingly for us has taught himself to snowboard the day before. We also had Helen a lovely young English girl in our group and Fred the French guy who got sick of our English speaking and didn't make the lessons after Wednesday!

Once we got put into the easy group Denis, our French hero of an instructor, took us up the mountain to "slide" and rectify all our bad habits. Our lessons weren't really very much like lessons at all, it was more like having a French mountain guide take us to where he thought the snow and conditions were the best and then we would "slide" and then "keep sliding" while he would give us pointers on how not to fall over so much, go faster and look cool as well.

Ainslie demoted herself from her advanced boarding group after getting a dose of "the fear" on the glacier and decided to join our crew. She was far better than any of us in our group but it was great to have four of us all in the same group and it was much easier for me to try to keep up with her than the boys!

So the week went on, our days consisted of "sliding" from 9am till 12pm, lunch from 12-1.45pm and then we were back on the piste for some more "sliding" until the lifts closed, we were too tired to move or we had concussion.

Thursday was my 30th birthday so I got to chose what we would do for the day. I chose for us to spend the day at Val d'Isere which was next door to Tignes and also part of Espace Killy. I had also requested for it to snow so that we would have fresh powder and my request was granted. We headed off in the morning up the lifts and down the piste until we made it across to the Val d'Isere area where the snow was brilliant. Denis found a fantastic area to hone our off piste skills and we did a few runs down the mountain in powder that was so light and deep that you couldn't see your board. We all boarded like heroes mainly due to the fact that when you fell in the fresh powder it didn't hurt nearly as much as on the groomed runs, and we had now been boarding for five days we were actually getting good at it!

We made it to Val d'Isere for lunch in a small restaurant, Denis produced birthday candles from the pocket of his ski jacket for my dessert (that Brock ate) and I had happy birthday sung to me, it was nice. We had a long lunch and Denis produced some of his homemade digestive (spirit concoction made of pure alcohol with flowers soaked in it) from another one of the pockets of his ski jacket and we had a bit of a tipple before hitting the slopes again to make our way all the way back across to Tignes. I have to say again that I was pretty chuffed to get birthday candles even if there were only three and not 30 of them!

By the time we made it back to the UCPA we were all extremely tired but we managed to down a few bottles of champagne (the real stuff of course) and head out for a quiet drink after dinner. I have to say it was one of the best birthdays that I have ever had. I got to spend it with my lovely husband, my friends, a very cool snowboarding instructor and the snow and scenery was phenomenal.

I have to admit (sadly) that by the end of the week I was pretty much broken (don't worry my dodgy knee was fine), snowboarding is pretty hard on the old body especially when its 30! I had a massive bruise on my derriere which would make for a very uncomfortable bus ride home, bruises all over my legs, an eggy on my forehead from headbutting the piste and a nice gash across both my shins from Helen and I stacking it up together. We did accomplish a lot though, we could both go really fast, ride switch (Brock was far better than me though) and Brock even managed to pull off a few freestyle moves until he fell and tore a muscle in his shoulder! Never fear though dear reader we both made it back to London in one piece and if the pound wasn't so pathetic compared to the Euro we would be back at the snow right now.

The Orphans Christmas Dinner

It is cold in England during the winter. It gets dark early. Everything freezes. The high street stores have their after Christmas sales before Christmas and Australians either get the hell out or else gather together for a proper orphans christmas in the country. It was thus that we found ourselves away with friends in Somerset for Christmas in a really big, old, cool (but well heated!) country house.

One of our friends, Deverey, had thought it fun to escape the traditional London shutdown over Christmas (no cabs, trains, buses, shops or fun) and had done some excellent googling and haggling to organise a large old house in South West England that could sleep about 30 people. As we knew we would have not a great deal on over Christmas, we jumped at the chance to get out of town and see some of the countryside. Knowing only Jo Jo, Magnus and Dev we said "yep" to her offer and on the 23rd of December hired a car and set off for our first big trip out of London.

Tonedale house was an old country house built by a some guy that built a mill during the industrial revolution and, in good industrialist fashion, built his trophy house attached to the mill. Located in a small town called Wellington in Somerset it had about 50 rooms with a really big lounge room, games room with a pool, table tennis and blackjack table, a totally excellent kitchen and a gigantic formal dining room. It was a good house. The kitchen was the focal point for the house with a BIG oven and a nice table making for a great spot for eating breakfast, reading the paper and generally hanging out with all of our new friends.

We arrived on the evening of the 23rd and set about meeting everyone, playing pool and drinking some beer. The next day we started on the bacon (2.5 Kg of streaky, 2.5 kg of back rashers) for breakfast and did a reconciliation of the food purchased for Christmas dinner. Mags and Dev had organised Christmas dinner and it was a feast, the likes of which would have enough mores for Oliver Twist and us telling stories about it to anyone who would listen.

But before we got to that, Magnus had organised some Clay Target shooting at a nearby farm for Christmas eve, so Michelle and I, Dev, Mags and one of Dev's friends Kate, Mag's boss Scott, his wife Fabi and Scott's two sons Liam and Seamus, a couple of small animals, the gameskeeper from the local African wildlife park, three 19th century boot blacks and a couple of others (those last few might not have actually come along, but it did seem like the car was awfully full) headed off to blow to the crap out of some clays.

It was fun. Shell didn't have a go because she was afraid of not hitting anything but I stepped up and didn't hit a thing with my first try. I later top scored during the competition round (although my team still lost) but got to have a crack at the fast clays and even managed to hit a few of them!

After lunch we went and got some supplies for Christmas day (another few cases of beer) and went to the pub for dinner, and spent the night playing blackjack. Fun but all just designed to kill time before the main event - Christmas dinner. Mags and Dev had procured some excellent produce for the big meal, the piece de resistance being an 11kg bronze turkey that was easily going to fill the industrial sized oven. Despite never having actually cooked a turkey, Magnus bravely had assumed responsibility for the bird and spent Christmas eve researching recipes and techniques for the perfect succulent turkey.

"Make sure there's butter under the skin!"

"Stick an orange up its butt!"

There was no shortage of ideas on how to prepare it, but few actual hands on deck at 6AM when Mags got up to put it on. We got up about 9 and made ourselves a nice cup of tea and some more bacon and eggs whilst we planned the cooking of the ancillaries. Cheese boards, pancakes with salmon and cream cheese, goose fat roasted potatoes, parsnips, carrots, pumpkin, brussel sprouts with bacon and salads were all planned, and mostly peeled where necessary thanks to Jade, Amy and Dev the night before.

But the food wasn't going to cook itself, so with apron on, a wooden spoon in her hand and a gleam in her eye that said "I was made for this moment" Michelle took command of the kitchen. With Magnus taking care of the bird, Shell organised the rest with a willing team of assistants. Orders were issued, Trays were greased, sprouts boiled, potatoes par boiled, vegies roasted, pancakes cooked, turkeys basted, hands, shoulders and fingers burnt, salads prepared, cheese boards set, drinks drunk, dishes washed and generally lots of activity around the place until the bird was taken out, rested and tested.

An intake of breath.

A deep cut in the thigh.

The juices ran clear. It was cooked! At least thats what we thought and Mags began carving. But then on the carve, the juices seemed a bit red. Not cooked through, even though it had spent 6 hours in the oven already. "Bugger it" we thought and wrapped it back up to go into the oven again for another hour and a bit. At this point everything was ready to go and we had to put all the vegies etc back in the various ovens around the place whilst we finalised the bird.

Eventually it was all cooked and we tested it again. Cooked! Despite a small downgrade, from absolutely perfect to almost perfect, the bird was pronounced ready. With that there was a flurry of activity whilst everything was served and in no time we all sat down with a glass of champagne and a plate of the best Christmas dinner one could ask for.

It was a great day and we managed to fill in the rest of the week with plenty of walks in the countryside, drives through the countryside, shopping at the Christmas sales, a proper Devonshire tea in Devon in the shadows of the cathedral at Exeter, plenty of Blackjack ("Monkey!!!!!") and, on the way home a visit to Stonehenge, which I was pretty excited about. Unfortunately I didn't get to back into the stones a la European vacation but it was still one of those great things about the UK where I got to see in the flesh things that have been a part of my consciousness since I can remember remembering. We also went to the Avebury stone circle which was also quite cool but it was so very cold that we retreated to the pub for lunch.

And with that we headed back to London after a great break with new friends and a christmas dinner that will be spoken about for years to come!