More bloody skiing

Saturday.

A man is standing at the top of the escalator at Gatwick Airport, he is subject to internal debate, should he go for a cup of coffee in Apostrophe or should he go for a "cup of coffee" in Wetherspoon's? Wetherspoon's wins, so Steve stomps off to Wetherspoon's leaving Steve and Liz with Nick, in Apostrophe. Too many Steves, I shall call Wetherspoon Steve "Clunes".

I had arrived earlier and so, after a whisky and a Jageermeister before 8.00 o'clock, I had settled into a corner with my book, and had pauses to watch the recycling team. He, for such was the team, very carefully combined the bags of all the bins into one bag, and replaced the bags, he then moved off with the trolley (the rest of the team) to continue his green crusade around the rest of the airport.

The nice people at Apostrophe filled up my water bottle for me, as, since Christmas, the iniquitous bastards at BAA have removed the drinking fountains, forcing one to indulge in overpriced planet-busting bottled water.

The plane was caught, it flew, my prediction of Sheperd's Pie being sadly confirmed, though the ejaculatory sticky toffee pudding proved interesting, and viscous, or is it vicious? It landed, with me not endearing myself to the man who refused to turn off his computer until the cabin crew told him to, again, thanks to my intervention. I rehearsed,"It may well not interfere at all mate, but I'd rather you didn't test it out on my flight." for the ten minutes cruise through the Alps before landing while trying to memorise exactly how the Ali Shuffle was done (early moonwalking I think). Fortunately there were no fisticuffs, and Steve (not Clunes) agreed with me that it, the computing, was irresponsible, and he'd been in the RAF so he should know. In fact it was a holiday with three people knowing everything, and two women and John.

At Innsbruck, the sun is out, the sky is clear, the transfer rep is called Ruth Cluness, and is obviously a relation of Clunes, "Oh yes we dropped the 's' when we moved to the UK in 1814." We get in the coach and roar up the Ziller valley to Mayrhofen. On the way it transpires that my "Snowhouse" has mutated into a room in Caroline's hotel, though I am not allowed to eat with the others due to "contractual obligations", serendipitously this saves me a bar bill of titanic proportions. At the Landhaus Roscher I am met by Mein Host, Gunther, a tall spare man sporting luxuriant hair and a moustache stolen from a Mexican, who gives me a key and shows me the lift. As I unpack I hear Caroline arrive and pop down to say, "Hello", Gunther gives her a key and allows me to show her the lift.

Her room sports a hob and 'fridge', "Oh good! We can fill it with beer!". At 3.30 the next morning the 'fridge will be turned off having been labelled a liability on the somnolence front. It must have been a doozy of a compressor to cut through the alcohol-induced coma of the typical skiing holiday.

We meet up, go to the shop and get skis, and go to the cafe and get beer, followed by more beer before we split up to eat. My soup is very nice. I meet up with the rest later, assist them in drinking their wine, and then head off to the bar. Eventually I've had enough, and go home leaving Caroline to chat up Billy the Fireman from Belfast. At 2.00 a.m my phone goes off,

"I'm lost."

In high dudgeon I don clothes and set off to the rescue.

Sunday.

Breakfast is a subdued affair, rather like the mountains around the town, a cloud has settled on it. We meet up, fight our way on to the Gondola and ascend. At the top the cloud is undiminished so we have a ski around the mountain by braille. Then we pick up John and watch him use braille as it is designed to be used, i.e. he scans the mountain with his hands, hips, thighs and arse, to find out what it is saying to him; generally it is saying, "Get Off!". Steve (who as well as being a know-it-all is a ski instructor) takes John under his wing, and so the party factions a bit.

In the afternoon I end up with Caroline (Caroline's motto is "Work hard. Play hard." which leaves me at a considerable disadvantage), totally lost, falling and pulling my neck, by being convinced I was stationary, when I was, in fact, travelling sideways at speed. We find a cafe, and stop for a coffee, discover that we're at the top of the gondola and so move to beer. The cafe is a giant umbrella surmounting windows, as the afternoon wears on, the volume of music gets higher, Europop interspersed with Austrian Oompah, the latter being very popular, sporting a suspiciously martial beat.

We descend, and an 8 year old tries to kill me by forcing me off the step of the gondola into the pit, if this doesn't kill me it will merely screw my legs off, the child is from Belfast, and after she has made sure of a seat by force of buttocks, his mother eyes her little lad indulgently. I eye the little lad indignantly, and Caroline, who is standing, eyes the mother - well, Caroline just eyes her, think cobra and passing rodent.

Back at our Hotel:
"I've lost my fucking skibag!"
"!?"
"It was brand new!"
"Where did you have it?"
"In the locker room."
"Perhaps it's still there."
"Aaach!"


"Aaach!" is a fair summation of Caroline's feeling for her fellow human beings, it is a syllable that can encompass, hatred, despair, resignation and mild discomfort, we will hear it a lot, in several manifestations over the next few days.

I return with her to the other hotel, before heading off for my dinner, there, on the bench, in the middle of the locker room is a skibag, the resultant change in atmospheric pressure will account for the weather the next day. Several beers later, I head off for my eatery and meet my table mate Rob. From Northern Ireland, a programmer with Microsoft. I have a slightly slipshod conversation with him, before staggering back to the others. A slightly earlier night is declared.

Monday.

The view at breakfast is uninspiring, the mountains are cloud clad again. We troop to the Gondola and ascend, halfway up we pop through the cloud into bright sunshine. The snow is good, the weather is good, cor! John's lessons continue, and we venture over the top of the next peak, to a point where Caroline decides we should go up the World's longest T-Bar (for an exposition on the T bar see "In the Dark" two posts previously). John who had previously been up a short T-Bar, well, partially up actually, was now familiar with their foibles. I drew the short straw and accompanied him, on the left, my right thigh locked into screaming agony as I tried to stop him forcing my skis off the track. Now the T-Bar is not my favourite device but John did his best to put my mind at ease, the litany of diverse profanity and blasphemy that accompanied our ascent acting as a distraction.

Such is the beauty of the scenery, that we only pause briefly at the site of the Panorama restaurant, and admire the way that the blue of the smoke from its smouldering carcasse contrasts nicely with that of the sky. We then stop for Jagertee and beer before descending.

Jagertee: herbal tea with a liberal dose of Stroh rum and a lot of sugar, the last time I was in Austria I was convinced it helped my skiing, by the end of this week I knew that it didn't. At this point Caroline noticed a girl drinking something red with berries floating in it, I dispatched myself to find out. There followed an uneasy conversation until I managed to move my syntax away from, "What are you having to drink?", and on to, "What is the name of the drink that you are drinking?". I reported back, much to their relief.

"It's a Himberboller."
"A HIMMLER BALL!"
"Ha ha. Shut Up! Ha ha ha. No, a himberbolle, rasberry schnapps with sparkling wine, the himmlerbolle has a double and the hitlerbolle only one shot (dimuendo, followed by rapid retreat).


In the evening Rob tells me that he is a Malthusian, I nod assent, immediately deciding to ask Clunes what the hell they are in case of a test later in the week. The rest of the evening is spent listening to the free entertainment and grumbling about the Austrian lack of anti-smoking laws (next January apparently).

Tuesday.

Another glorious day, the sky is blue, the snow is great, I volunteer to look after John on the blue runs, and Clunes, after a morning with Caroline and the "keen" skiers, decides to join us for the afternoon. The first run from the restaurant is a hard-packed road, John takes it first and fails to make any impression with his snowplough, me second, similar, Clunes the same but sadly decides to stop by running into the bank rather than off the edge. The bank has been there for three months, thawing and freezing into the sort of solid mass that puts concrete to shame. Having finally come to a halt, I turn round, Clunes is lying on the track, his skis are neatly arranged behind him.

"Are you alright?"
"My ankle!"
"Bollocks!"
"Bollocks!"
We come back to the body and watch with trepidation as he rises to his feet.
"Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks!"
"Shall I go and call out the ski patrol?"
"No I'll try."

And try he does. We take a long, slow, minimal turn route down the mountain, fortuitously meet up with the others and all descend. The Doctor is a "Doe-eyed Beauty" who for a large fee, declares the ankle chipped, pops it into a splint and signs the insurance forms, sadly she does not say, "For you Mister Clunes, the skiing is over."

At my eatery, I wish Rob, "Happy Paddy's Day!", comment on his circumspection on the alcohol front and am told that his psychiatrist has advised against spirits.

Wednesday.

Another subdued breakfast, after which Caroline again hits the Spar to work her way through the selection of rehydration therapies. Today we decide to go up the Ahorn, on the other side of the valley. We stagger to the cable car, and are whisked up the mountain to uncrowded slopes, brilliant sunshine and the blockhouse of the combined WC and weather station (I could go on about gale force winds and scattered precipitation but I won't*).

*However, I include a comment from Liz: "The terrible farting with which some of the party were afflicted - ie those who drank more than (say) 5 litres of beer a day mixed with Jagermeister, cream, chocolate and red wine. I think that would act somewhat like a Coke Float - violent fizzing (resulting in a mixture able to restore rusty metal to shining newness), followed by an explosive secondary fermentation (tertiary fermentation? can't recall if that's possible). The blame was laid on the beetroot or the carrot salad. Every day.

I (Liz) am the control in the experiment as I only drank small quantities of beer but plenty of red wine, ate everything everyone else ate and was fine.Therefore, it was the beer not the beetroot or carrots that was the responsible factor."

Liz has, of course, forgotten that she is in fact a girl, and that girls do not do that sort of thing!

The morning is spent getting John more confident, and storming down the top blue, after which a red run and side-slipping is thrown into the pot. John gets down and we re-ascend up the T-bar, which, as he ascends with Caroline, he falls off, she, ungallantly in my opinion, stays upright and leaves his flailing body behind. As we pass I make an offer,

"Stay at the bottom and I'll come up with you."
"No. I'll be alright."

We gather at the top and eventually spot him, he waves - with both hands.

"How did he do that?"
"Oh God he's straddled it!"

He has indeed straddled it, despite the notice at the bottom, "No Straddling", despite my telling him, "No Straddling". We stand at the top waiting for disaster, will he be capsized and dragged off down the mountain or will he merely be impaled on the poles put there to stop the bar digging into the snow. With waxing anxiety, we wonder whether we should get out the cameras. As he crests the top there is a mounting chorus of "Get off. Get off! GET OFF!" Amazingly he does and grins round at us in triumph. There is now a mounting chorus of, "Let go. Let go! LET GO!" as he is dragged towards a harsh encounter with the poles. At the last minute he does, the pisteur comes out of the hut and soundly berates him in German, it is at this point that John truly becomes a British Skier, "Yeah, yeah." he replies dismissively.

After some more skiing we visit the Ice Bar for a Gluwein (which comes out of a 10 litre pressurised vessel - how romantic) or a cup of tea (which comes as hot water and choice of teabag). Perhaps John is a little more fazed by his experience than we thought, firstly he gets lost by the simple process of looking in the wrong direction as everyone else skis off (though to be fair I did give him instructions contrary to what we actually did), and secondly upon being handed his tea,
"Where's the milk?",
I point at a glass bottle full of white stuff,
"There, in the milk bottle."
"D'you think so?"

We sit in the sun and have a mooch around the ice hotel before committing to the descent, down the red run back to the town, it is a long way. As we descend it gets warmer and the snow turns to porridge. The slope is one of those that has been banged in so that it is possible to "ski back to the resort", there is a huge, incredibly steep slope just before the bottom, the top of which is littered with people summoning up courage. As we stand summoning ours and waiting for John, I notice Steve looking down the slope and then back at John's approaching figure:

"Oh shit.... Aha!" (broad grin)
"There you are. So what we're going to do here i....".

At the far side of the slope Liz, yelping, rolls down in the arms of a skateboarder.

"...s side slip down to there (she alright?) and then turn and head off to there. Follow me."

Thus John is subverted from watching one of the "experienced skiers" screaming her way down the first twenty yards of the slope. Halfway down Liz falls again, and Caroline and I are treated to a masterclass of how inflection can change the meaning of a phrase, viz:

"Oh shit!" - I have fallen over - Anger.

"Oh shit!" - Now I am sliding out of control down the hill - Despair.

"Oh shit!" - I'm heading straight for that tree - Fear.

But she stopped, and eventually, we got down, at the bottom there was a schuss and after that a bar.
Steve, "Well thank God we're down that in one piece, that's never a red run."
I merely point, at the start of the schuss there is Caroline, and next to her a pile of clothes and skiing accouterments that used to be John. He is fortunately unharmed, and has just had one of those explosive speed skiing accidents that leave you naked, surrounded by debris.

In the evening Caroline and I visit the spa (not the Spar) for a swim, there is a bubble pool, which when working fills my trunks to a degree previously only promised by Cialis, causing great consternation. We find Clunes and ask him about his day, he replies that he has made a great discovery in the Spar; the "Kellermeister" range of 25cl bottles of wine,and that he has commenced his oenous world tour. The rest of the evening is fairly subdued, though as we get within an ace of the Hotel, Clunes summons us back to look at his foot. We look, undo the bandages and do them back up again, the first-aid equivalent of a turning it off and then turning it back on again. We then tell him to keep his leg up at all times, he looks at us - amazed, "That's exactly what the Doe-Eyed Beauty said! I'll do that then."

Thursday.

After the exigies of the previous day, John elected to have a day off, leaving the rest of us (the upright ones) to take a trip, the rep sold us Zell-am-Zimmer, "as the glacier can be very exposed". So it was that we caught skibus B and arrived at the station ten minutes later than it would have taken us to walk there. From there, another bus to Zell station, and yet another to the gondola. Caroline squares her shoulders, gets in the car in front, gets off at the mid-station,
"GET ON!",
and so joins us for the last section to the top Here there is the familiar low cloud but we persevere catching a long run along the crest of the mountain, that on a good day would be fabulous, as it is, it's blowing a gale, is unpisted, and has no visibility, everyone falls, well nearly everyone, modesty forbids me pointing out who didn't.

To move on I am forced down a black, and then, to add insult, I am deserted at a four man chair, and ascend in the freezing wind by myself, my usual sunny disposition evaporates as I experience a "sense-of-humour-failure". At some point I stump off leaving the other miserable bastards to disport themselves on the slopes, I sit in a small hut drinking coffee inhaling pipesmoke. After this anything looks good, so I rejoin the merry throng, and we begin to make our way back, this involves a chair that runs along the route of the ridge track that 75% of the party found so taxing, by the far end of the chair most of us are frozen in place and my cheeks have become baby-soft from the scouring of wind and ice pellets - well thank goodness we didn't go to the exposed glacier! We descend in about ten metres of visibility, it is horrid, so horrid that when we arrive back in Mayrhofen we have to have a beer. The evening will be short, attrition having taken its toll. Clunes has spent the day talking to his insurance company, trying to convince them that Austria has had self-determination (with a small hiatus between 1939 and 1945) and is, in fact not part of Germany, where all the details have been sent.

Friday.

Having looked at the cloud encasing the mountain, Caroline has declared a "not very good for skiing day" and is sitting at breakfast in her normal clothes.

"Look Caroline, it's clear on top!"
"Oh fuck! Well I'll go and change then."

My phone rings:

"I've lost my goggles!"
"When did you last have them?"
"On my hat."
"Perhaps they'll be in the hotel like your skibag."
"Pffft!"

"Pffft!" is equivalent to "Aaach!" but is reserved specifically for inanimate objects.

We meet up to stagger down to the others' hotel.

"Guess what?"
"You don't want to go skiing?
You have a hangover?
You feel sick?
You've found your goggles?"
"Yes. Under my coat."

Up the Penken gondola and over the top, where we find deep heavy snow and an unpisted slope. Steve decides to show off his powder skills and then (because I couldn't be arsed to walk back up) so do I. My tips disappear vertically downward into a metre of snow and I come to a grinding halt, well actually my skis come to a grinding halt, sadly I continue for a bit ripping a muscle in my calf. It takes me twenty minutes to dig myself out, from there the day went downhill (haha). Caroline leaves her camera in the lunchtime stop.

Saturday.

Caroline has left in the ungodly hours, the family from Northern Ireland in our hotel obligingly telling the taxi driver that there is no-one else expected, so that she has had to carry everything to the coach pick-up. this will not endear them to her. "Aaach!"

I, as Butler and companion, am picked up in Clunes cab, and we are soon whisked down the valley with the odd diversion to avoid traffic. It is very pretty, and we learn a lot from our driver (also very pretty) like, you can tell which diocese the church belongs to by the colour of its steeple. At the airport, at loading time, Clunes is escorted into the Innsbruck Airport Medical Lift by two pimply youths (probably doing National Service) and a policeman with a submachine gun (just in case he can't bear to leave Austria and makes a break for it), where he is strapped into a chair and driven out to the plane. The lift then mechanically hoists its trousers, and an x-frame expands to deposit himself (and several others) at plane height.

The inflight meal hit an all time low, even for the airline culinary circuit, the nadir of airline food - sausage and mash.

We arrive and wait for the plane to empty before transferring to an electric buggy, which proves great fun up to the point where I realise I have left my book and my journal on the plane. When I get back to the plane, someone (the people sitting next to me, in fact) have nicked the book. I walk Clunes to his car to await the arrival of his driver, and then head home for a little lie down.

Further into the Dark

Nick and I were getting used to it by now, the wildebeest would start tramping past the door at about seven, impinging on our drug-addled consciousnesses and competing with our swollen bladders for attention. At about eight thirty, the combination would force us out of bed and (eventually) into our clothes for an amble to the culinary delights of breakfast, on this day we had arrived early enough for the bacon rather than the bacon fat of previous breakfasts, though to be honest it was so streaky it didn't make much difference.

A quick word about breakfast, well about Finnish eating in general: Finland, trees and lakes, apparently not much else, consequently most things are imported which leads to some interesting breakfast choices, my favourite was the broccoli and carrot stir fry with water chestnuts, obviously from a five litre can, the last time I'd had this sort of catering was on Malta, where the beef was cuboid.

Another day of high winds and cancelled lifts, so most of us trooped off back to Top Safari and hired cross-country skis, after five minutes and one fall, Paul declared himself ill, and headed off for a snooze and steam, leaving Carole, myself and the Boys to head off in the opposite direction to the previous day, and go to the shut ski slopes, and then up into the valley and the Urho Kekkonen National Park. It was another typical day of cross-country, as I picked up Boy 2, I heard Boy 1, "Look behind you!", I did I saw trees, Boy 2 did and saw the reindeer cross the track. I brusquely pulled him to his feet and poled off.

Several bouts of sibling rivalry later, we ended up at the slopes, the cafe, like the slopes was shut. At this point, and to avoid sibling meltdown, we split up, Carole returning with Boy 1, and me continuing with Boy 2 into the park. Suddenly, a wildlife moment, two reindeer (!)- and later a bird!! (normally I try and stick with one exclamation mark but this was a very unusual occurrence), when we turned round we saw the reindeer again!

Upon arrival back at the hotel we dispatched the Z's to their afternoon of Santa, and husky humiliation. The general idea of running a dog sled, a lot of people find attractive, however, one should first consider the view, think huskies from the rear. Plus the sudden exercise, the tightening of the harnesses, the large breakfast of reindeer superfluity, leads to a mass canine catharsis about half-a-minute into the trip, which has to then be avoided. Apparently, after that everything settles down with the charm of sledging in the dark only broken by mass epidemics of farting, amongst the dogs I hasten to add.

I had a shopping obligation and so ended up in the gallery and Moomin shop. They had a lot of lovely glass which I eschewed on the grounds of fear of impalement on the return to the hotel. I bought the Moomin cutlery I'd been sent for, went to the supermarket for more liquorice and a tour of tourist tat.

Arriving back at the hotel, I entered into an in-depth discussion with Nick on why hot rooms make you fall asle...................

........................I am woken by Carole who slides me off for more cross-country, we decide to seek adventure and head for pastures new across the road bridge. The road bridge that is high in the middle. I place my skis in the slots, lean forwards to plant my weight to keep the skis in the track and push gently off. Immediately the burr of the skis in the track ascends to a high pitched whine, the sort of whine that one hears before it is followed by the sharp percussion of overstretched machinery, my eyes begin to water as the wind increases, in retrospect these may have been tears of fright but I think not, I doubt whether fright could have caught up! I press outwards with the skis, a manoeuvre that has no effect what so ever apart from increasing my anxiety, through my tears I see the curve at the bottom of the bridge approaching. THE CURVE! How could I be so stupid, how could I not plan fifty metres ahead! The curve starts, I lean into the bend and smoothly start to flow round it, such elation, as the centre of the bend approaches I lean more, it fails, centrifugal force laughs in the face of my false hope and hurls me from the track. The centre of the piste is, according to my head, "medium to hard", my hat imprints a delightful waffle texture to a small area of snow.

I gather myself up and wait for Carole who will be walking. While I wait I try and remember if that lump at the base of my thumb was always there. Carole does not appear. Eventually I climb up the the track of death and mount the top of the bridge, Carole is standing at the bottom of the other side with one ski, the other, in the face of my demonstration of the implacable nature of gravity and moments (physics not empathy), has run away and hidden itself somewhere in the bushes. Eventually it consents to be found, and we both walk over the bridge to continue. After a brief perusal of the serried floodlit cliffs that constitute the way forward we declare discretion and head for home.

After dinner it starts to snow, so Nick and I contemplate staying in the hotel, I decide to try the Lonkerot, it is grapefruity and refreshing.

As promised, more on Lonkerot: generally speaking there is a lot of Government control on drinking in Finland, beer appears to come in three strengths (up to 5.5% is my guess, though "2" at 4% is normal) but then there is Lonkerot, this is gin which is diluted to 5.5% with soda and (normally) grapefruit, thought "red berries" is also available. This retails at the same price as beer but is, as you can see, generally stronger and always comes in 500, as opposed to 440, ml. Therefore to get more bang for your buck you drink Lonkerot, which is why you can spot huge miners and the local skinheads (huge minors) supping away on cissy grapefruit soda.

Tonight in the bar there is "entertainment", an Irish songster is attempting to work his way through his set but has become the karaoke machine for the girls from Esprit Holidays, when they leave him alone he starts wearily on his "Top Ten Lugubrious Greats", we put on coats and boots, and head to Parmino. It has started to snow, about 8 cm so far.

It is Friday, the lifts are open, so Nick and I head off for the slope, as we sit on the chairlift a skidoo goes past - and waves. We ski down to the beginners. slope and mooch around with the boys for the "morning". They will be having an extra catch up lesson later, so Nick and I return to the hotel, I leave Nick to snooze and head off back to the slopes sans skis. I have decided to take advantage of the longest toboggan run in Finland all 1300 metres of it. This requires finding a toboggan, riding the chairlift up, and tobogganing down without breaking anything.

The bottom of the slope is littered with abandoned toboggans, so I pick a Nick-size blue one and skedaddle down the pavement until I have to walk. Eventually I arrive at the bottom of the chair and approach it with my faithful but moribund steed, they slow it down for me to get on, now all I have to worry about is the dismount at the top. They slow it down for me again! So far so good. It is 14.15; dusk. I stagger around the top of the fell, the freezing wind grabbing at my toboggan, looking for any sign of a run, I do find a cross-country track but I'm not falling for that again. Eventually I pop into the cafe and ask, "It starts between the two signs that say you do this at your own risk." Well, naturally, it would. In the gathering dark I find two signs in Finnish, that appear to read the same. I move forward and find a dead straight firebreak running through the forest - for 1300 metres. I now have to make a choice: broken leg? - Maybe. Broken neck? - I think not. I adopt the seated luge position and start. The first bit of steering and braking precipitates a jet of snow into my face and down the front of my jacket, causing my already adrenaline-shortened breath to be shortened even more. I stop, allow most things to return to normal, pray that I'm not being watched through binoculars by a man on a skidoo, and resolve not to brake again (the phrase "on pain of death" drifts into my mind but is immediately sent packing). I adopt the "luge-recumbent", pick up my heels, and watch the trees metamorphose into a dark green blur, until I run into a large drift. I restart and manage the rest of the descent in one seamless ride - with aerial sections that make me glad that I'm flat, 5' 6" is short enough, let alone any spinal compression. The whole was rather like Disneyland i.e. it takes you 25 minutes to get there and the whole thing lasts less than two.

I return, pick Nick up and head off for another pub, the Terenpesa, where we find the cheapest and biggest beer that we will find. In the evening Paul, who is now semi-recovered from his illness and the trauma (physical and mental) of cross-country skiing buys us dinner. It is much better than the catering though I fail to have the liquorice ice cream (which I last had in Brescia, Italy, for those of you that want to know).

The last day of skiing dawns (for want of a better word) and after the lesson we meet up with the Boys (I include Paul here), and offer to take them up the mountain and down one of the floodlit blues. This is managed with great aplomb, apart from the last steep section, which is "managed" with great trepidation. however, such is the draw that we have to do it several more times. On the last run I turn to see Paul aiding Boy 2, as I watch I see his skis cross and slip backwards, they ping off, only after pinging his knee, I decide to do the run once more to see if I can help (experienced skiers will know that it is preferable to wait up to forty minutes to render aid rather than having to go forty metres back up the hill - which can take the same amount of time) but they have sorted themselves out and limped off by the time I get there. The skis are returned.

This evening is the evening of the "Gala Dinner", a cross between British and Finnish Christmas Dinner. The smoked beef is particularly delicious and I say so to the waitress.

"Ohh, it is not beef, it is....." a rather startled look comes into her eyes, we are after all, waiting for Santa to arrive ".......... another animal."

"Oh is it that other animal we don't talk about."

She stares at me, tears of gratitude pricking the corners of her eyes, "Yes."

Santa arrives and the Boys are given pencils and a photo opportunity for Christmas. We slope off before the Disco gets going but after we've been forced to sing (and Santa has been forced to listen to) Jingle Bells. Paul comes out with us to the Parmino and we fail to get beaten up by the four skinheads who share our table. Then we go to bed, we have to be up about three weeks before dawn in order to get to the airport to be delayed on the runway while we search for some people who are apparently lost, though how, in Kittala airport, is a mystery.

On the flight back we get Journey to the Centre of the Earth, sorry Center, it's rubbish. Nick will get back home about 13 hours later. Poor soul.

In the dark.

A man is standing under "J" at Gatwick South, he is holding a 'phone to his pepper-and-salt surrounded ear, "If you turn around you'll see me.". Nick looms on the event horizon of my vision like the simoon bearing down on a tribe of hapless Bedouin. This is Nick Janke, a Ukrainian Scot who I haven't seen for many years, he is bigger. We queue, go for a paper, go for a pint, go for a pee, and are finally called for boarding. "Boarding": sitting around in Gatwick's most acoustically inefficient lounge, before being assailed with a variety of incomprehensibilia and finally let onto the aircraft.

Result! We settle into our "by-the-emergency-exit-most-amount-of-legroom-seats" and wait 45 minutes for the aircraft to taxi up the runway and go. We fly into the north and into the night.

On arrival we are met by Lorna - our rep., from Nottingham, she says to the people in front of us, "Who are you? OK. Head for the green coach, the driver's ... quite large." and with barely a flicker of her eyelid says to us, "Who are you? OK. Head for the green coach it's got a Christmas tree in the front." We head for the blue coach. Poor girl, several months of twilight are clearly getting to her.

"But wait!" you say, "What are you doing? Where are you? Why?", and with good reason, in fact these very questions would be asked of ourselves by both Nick and I over the coming week. I shall explain; it was Paul (he of Devon)'s Fiftieth Birthday, and his wife, Carole, had decided that he would like to celebrate it, with his friends, in Finland, skiing. Please! No questions at this point. So it was that the two friends with less sense than money, found themselves sitting in a blue/green coach surrounded by fractious children, setting off through the Finnish night (at this time of year lasting twenty hours), for a journey to Saariselkaand its eleven (count them eleven, no sorry make that seven!) ski runs.

Lorna, "We're going to play a game, if you see a reindeer, you have to shout out "Reindeer!"." I doze fantasizing about a thud, the wheels of the coach jouncing twice, and the screams of small children cut short by my cry of "Reindeer!".

We arrive at the "Spa Hotel" at midnight, and are given room keys and a packed lunch, which is horrendous. In the room, we unpack, endeavouring not to mix up our blood pressure tablets and cough medicine (both of us are ill) and go to bed. Nick J ushers himself into a quick and dreamless sleep while I lie awake listening to him enjoy it.

Through the curtains things seem to brighten, small children can be heard ricocheting down the corridor. We dig out a timepiece, it is twenty-to-end-of-breakfast! Small children scatter like australopithecines on the receiving end of a mastodon, we manage cereal and what's left of the hot bits, but miss out on the cold collation.

We get on the skibus to the bottom of the runs and suffer all the joys of fitting boots and skis, then on, to the one and only chairlift to the top, to pick up the easy green run that should drop us in contact with Paul and the Boys. We consult the piste map, it's somewhere off to the right. At this point we must have lost our collective presence of mind, as we vastly overestimate the size of the resort as we set off down the link road to the run. Several kilometers later we hit the bottom of the cross-country track that we had set off on, and look glumly at the hill rising in front of us. We look soulfully up at the woman in front of us and sympathise with her internal debate. Kindness wins and she returns to advise us that she thinks the best course of action is for us to shoulder our skis and tramp up the mountain whence we had just cruised down, had she been able to monitor our combined hypertensive status, she may have recommended another course.

We start back, shouldering our skis, undoing our boots. After a couple of K's (including several pauses to steam), and through the tinnitus of our blood we hear an approaching snowmobile. The very nice man draws up alongside, "Very big problem, 3 K's, all up. We will try." He turns the snowmobile, leaps spryly off his mechanical steed, inserts our skis into his parcel rack, and equally spryly remounts. "So?" Nick lumbers aboard, the suspension bottoms out. "OK. You..." pointing ".. start to walk up. I come back." I did, and he did, and he didn't give me the bollocking that he should have done! I dismount (semi-spryly), shake his hand and walk into the cafe, where I find Nick guarding two beers, fortunately one of them is for me. Afterwards we tackle our one and only (proper) run of the day; it was narrow, short and a bit steep, like a Rioja in a wine bar. At the bottom we declared it too dark to continue (13.45), as skiing into a patch of shadow with no idea whether it is concave or convex can be a bit wearing on the knees, and occasionally, on the nose. We entered the shop to pick up our shoes, bumping into Paul and the Boys, who stared in some amazement at the demented chap who keeps bobbing up and down in front of them saying, "Hello!", until another larger one comes in behind and assaults them. Paul would later insist that they were speechless, personally, I thought they were non-plussed.

We return, a beer later, for the ennui that constitutes "the Reps' orientation", for those of you that don't know, this is where the people running your holiday sell you trips that they get a rake off from, we part with huge wedges of cash for a "Skidoo Safari, and for me "a Taste of Cross-Country Skiing" which if I remember correctly is a taste of snow and blood, unless you've been particularly unfortunate. We then round off our first evening with several more beers, followed by the evening meal: - Game Balls (don't ask) or Baltic Herring, salad, soup and fruit salad (tinned pineapple, papaya, banana [!]) and biscuits. Paul retires, and Nick and I play pontoon like troopers with the Boys (actually NOT like troopers, but I'm sure you get the reference). A final beer followed by a wee voddie in the room, and a perusal of our reading material. After overdosing on cough medicine, a failed attempt to induce a drug-derived unconsciousness before Nick starts foghorning, I screw the earplugs so far into my head that my eyes bulge, and sleep(ish).

The next day dawned - well, nearly dawned. On the top of the mountain there was a strip of cloud illuminated at its bottom by a red glow. The sun itself, would refuse to clear the horizon until January the Eighth, it was December the Sixteenth. We stormed down the first run, the first few hundred metres being done at speed, then, fortunately, we hit the treeline and the freezing wind we'd been trying to get out of was broken up by the trees. We assumed they were trees, it looked as if someone had gone completely nuts with a frosting gun, there was no bark and no greenery to be seen, just a tree-shaped pile of snow. In the gloaming (of which there was a lot), my mind turned to the pictures of the ash fall from Mount Pinatubo in 1991 (well it would, wouldn't it?).

We then tackled the T bar on the other side. An aside for non-skiers; the T bar is an infernal device, it is a piece of fibreglass that looks like a"T", only upside down, it is attached by an extendable cable to an overhead tow line, one is supposed to rest one's buttocks on one side of the bar, ideally with a friend on the opposite side for balance and chat, the cable then extends and gently whisks you up the mountain as your friends skis plough into yours, and try to force you either off the T bar, or into crossing your skis, resulting in a swift exit, usually into steep and hostile territory. Ascending by oneself, the bar is constantly trying to slide away from you, causing you to grip the shaft with the with the sort of rigour that is usually accompanied by mortis, thereby losing concentration, which means the crossing of your skis, resulting in a swift exit, usually into steep and hostile territory. On no account should the T bar be placed between the legs as the dismount at the top of the mountain (should you indeed, get there) can be really tricky, how shall I put it? What it lacks in grace it makes up for in danger. Apparently Finns can pluck a T Bar out of the air as it hurtles past them at eye level at thirty miles per hour, we couldn't, and so had to suffer the ignominy of the lift being slowed down for us.

The top was cold, we had two runs left to do to complete the resort, we couldn't find one of them, so did the other and met up with the learning party for a chat (and to show off, if truth were told) before heading back to the bus stop, pausing in the cafe for a hot chocolate. The man with the skidoo went past, looked through the window and waved, we were marked men.

In the afternoon we set off for Top Safari and the Skidoo afternoon. First we had to put on our thermal suits, hats, gauntlets, boots and helmets, then we had to troop to a line of skidoos where the drivers (not me, sadly you need a licence in Finland, why can they not be like the Bulgars, who don't give a monkey's providing you have cash?) got a lesson (5 minutes) and the passengers, of which I was the eldest, either got slotted into sleighs or stood round like Piffy.

Fresh from their exhaustive learning experience, the drivers arrive and mount up, the passengers mount behind, and then we're off, blasting into the nigh.....the mid-afternoon and bellowing through the Finnish countryside. Well, we might have been bellowing through the Finnish countryside or we might have been on a sort of Ghost Train just doubling and redoubling our tracks, with the twenty metres visibility, and with the Finnish countryside consisting of snow-covered trees it was difficult to tell. My guess of "Universal Thought for the Day" would have been, "Cor I'll bet this is really good in the daytime/March." At each bump I spur Nick on, at forty KPH, even we gain air. Immediately in front is the sleigh full of what used to be called, "Kiddywinks" and which Nick and I now think of as "Breakfast Alarm Call". We consider the state of their poor wee spines as we watch the unsprung sleigh bounce over the bumps that we shall soar over shortly.

At the halfway point we stop for a rest, or "Fagbreak" as it's known in Finland. By this time I am in touch with my feminine side, particularly the old-fashioned parturition side, my legs have now been held firmly apart for an hour by Nick's generous flanks, I ache. Carole appears on the scene, somewhat blanched, she has been put off by the threat of imminent death for her and her youngest. Upon being asked how things are she utters a small reprise of the end of Heart of Darkness, "Horrible. Horrible." Sadly, for Carole and my thighs, the halfway point was a third of the way round the track. We motor on, only stopping to put our visors down and tuck the rugs round the foreshortened Kiddywink/Breakfast Belles, before heading over the top of the mountain into the eye of the wind that comes screaming across the fell, heavily burdened with the snow it picked up on the way, it is at this point that I realise my boots are inadequate to the task of keeping my feet warm.

Such was the Carole-ine trauma of this afternoon that Nick and I are dispatched to the supermarket for gin-eking items, we return within the half hour with £8.00 worth : a large bottle of tonic, a litre of orange juice and a lemon (and some liquorice). £8.00! As the gin works its magic Carole moves from Conrad to P.L. Travers to dinner.

After which, Nick and I travel across the road to the Parmino pub, which, we discover, has home brew, which, I discover, hurts quite a lot the next day, especially the dark one. Our relaxed attitude to the Arctic Circle draws some comment from the drunk at the door but we have figured that our arms probably won't drop off over sixty metres, and have ventured forth in shirtsleeves. The Parmino, a rusticated wooden shed featuring a bar with three beers and Lonkerot (of which more later), several drunk gold panners, several drunk tourists (Swedish)from the Hotel 5K away, some young Finnish people (drunk) and a barman (sober).

The next morning I discovered that the brown ale was quite painful, and that the slopes were shut due to high winds, that's high as in fast, rather than altitude, there was no altitude. This was OK for me, as it was "Taste of Cross Country" day. I joined the others back at Top Safari and got kitted out.

Cross-County Skiing: imagine standing on a match box, now imagine that the matchbox is two metres thirty (seven foot) long, in front of you there is 1m 30cm (4 feet), behind 60cm (2feet) in between the front and back is your foot (about 30cm). Your toes are held to the ski by a clip that the elongated toe on your boot (think elves [pre-LOTR], mediaeval or Ali Baba) slots into, your heel is not held at all but is supposed to slot onto a ridge on the ski, you are then issued two poles at about armpit length (very handy for use as crutches later). You ski in two narrow tracks dug into a piste, by walking and sliding your feet, vigorous walking will enable you to glide, causing extensive damage to your inner thigh, and straining ligaments and tendons that you didn't know you had. The tracks act as tram lines, on slopes you try and stay upright as you are zipping down, jinking as the track jinks, praying that it hasn't been snowed up, causing a more "freestyle" event as you leave their comparative safety. You slow down by either pressing hard on the outside of the track, or with your perfect balance, attempting some form of snow plough (turn the front of the skis together, do not cross them, DO NOT CROSS THEM! Push forward with your hips thus pushing the inside edge of the skis into the snow and slowing you down), failing that you fall, surprisingly, in any direction, landing on anything, well, mainly the ground. In fact one of our party managed the classic banana skin; feet over the head, impact zone - the flat of the back, very impressive as he was wearing skis, how do you do that wearing skis?

Off we went, people fell over for ninety minutes, the instructress (local team champion) congratulated me on my style and my cool head in times of adversity (ADVERSITY: a corner at the bottom of a small slope). We manage about a kilometre, and then manage it again, in the opposite direction.

Back to the hotel for a swim, (leisure pool with flume, wave machine, waterfall and children), a sauna (naked men discovering that pine gets quite hot and consequently ruing the day, probably for the first time, that their testicles dropped), and a steam (an oval room with the added frisson of a ladies entrance at the far end, with naked men staring dimly at the far end in the vague hope that some nubile will come in and try and seduce them - or at least come in. From my experience of the week:Naked Men 3, Nubiles or females of any persuasion 0.). The sauna and steam room both wore proscriptions against costumes, roundly ignored by most of the Brits. In fact, there was a mural in the dining room of Nordic Folk, innocently disporting themselves around a pool in a sylvan glade, close inspection reveals that once these were naked innocent Nordic Folk, that have now been covered with emulsion swimming cossies, so as not to upset the tourists, poor dears.


After my blood pressure drops back down into my chest, where it should be, I re-don my matchboxes and head out to the track with Carole and the Boys. We have decided to Ski to Laanila, the next village along, about 3 kilometres, it's dark, the wind is hard and cold and in our faces, the Boys fall (as they're not overweight, and have to employ less energy to get up falling is fun, and a necessary adjunct to skiing) and snipe at each other with monotonous regularity.

Eventually after a long haul up (and the frightening prospect of going down again) we arrive at Laanila, well, we think we do, we actually arrive at a large wooden structure that provides some shelter. Leaving Carole and the Boys in its lee I head off to look for the coffee shop, amazingly I find it, shut. I return, impart tidings, and head of to look for the Laanila Hotel, amazingly I find it, it has lights on, I wave the others up. As we approach we can see tidying going on, what's up? Surely at this time they'll be settling in for the evening, then it strikes, it's 4.00 p.m. As I get to the door, mein hostess waves me in, she is a tall plump lady with red curly hair, strikingly red, unnaturally red, I think of the nuclear fleet mothballed at Murmansk not very far away but then realise that would mean no hair at all. I have seen this lady before, now where? Oh yes pouring some drunken Swedes into a taxi at the Parmino.
We order two hot chocolates and two hot juices, I fail to not wince and hand over a large percentage of my Euros, but the break from the wind and cold is nearly worth it. Then back for the return, the wind is now behind us, the hot drink has added new vigour to our stride, it's downhill but not too downhill, the return journey takes half-an-hour less.

The evening meal consists of sauteed game, we have come to realise that game is on the menu a lot, and is only called "game" to prevent the hordes of children baulking at eating Rudolph*, he is quite toothsome, very low in fat, and very thinly sliced to give his muscle fibres a chance to relax. Nick and I return to the Parmino to let our muscle fibres relax, though not as far as the previous night.

*Though the Tourist Newspaper (English, Finnish, Russian. and Japanese versions) features a two page spread on "Santa's Livestock".

lakes 2008

A bike is standing at a railway station with the rain dripping off the dark-green anodised metal of its handlebars. It is Nick's bike and he is standing behind it, waiting for the train to Windermere, from where he will cycle to a large farmhouse near Coniston and assist his cousin Julian in celebrating his 60th birthday with various Arthur Ransomelike activities (and wine and trifle).

Now, the following sequence of events may be out of order or fractured, as I was exposed to a powerful and increasingly potent narcotic during the week, known to connoisseurs of the Borgian arts as Andrew's Feet.

From the Station I had a delirious descent into Bowness-on-Windermere, looking for a bike shop, so that I could buy a new inner tube to replace the one that had developed a slow puncture on the prospect of being taken to "The North". As I passed the Police Station, I sought advice,
"Is there a bike shop?"
"Not really, but you won't cycle on the pavement will you sir, otherwise we'll have to fine you?"
"I've just come onto the pavement to ask you if there's a bike shop."
My aggrieved tone cut no ice.

I crossed on the ferry and surveyed the hill on the other side, I then took the track along the shore in the forlorn hope that the hill might somehow vanish. When I rejoined the road later, it was still going up, this would be a theme for the day. I travelled on through Potterland and wheezed my way along the quiet side of Esthwaite Water, where, in a fit of wild optimism, I consigned the waterproof to the panniers. Then, on to Hawkshead, to look for a late lunch. After a mooch, I ended up in the Sun Cafe for a plate of that most Cumbrian of dishes- Irish Stew, which was excellent. I then started up Hawkshead Hill, at this point my older edition maps showed the lack of the laser accuracy of the newer versions (I presume), as the contours were wildly different to the reality, such was my disbelief that I had to stop five times to consult the map, at least when it had swum back into focus.

However, to every up there is a down, so that I arrived, brakes smoking, about ten minutes from the top, at the farm. I was first! After hosing down my sweat-streaked body, I settled down to a cup of tea. The door was banged on, it was young people.

"Have you seen some really old people?"

I thought about my reflection in the mirror.

"No."

"Oh sorry."

I thought about saying, "Do you mean Julian?" but decided this was less than charitable, so waved goodbye. Had I said, "Do you mean Julian?" I would have determined that they were part of our party, and were in fact looking for their Grandparents (Mrs Julian's parents). As it was, I settled down on the large sofa, and spent fifteen minutes failing to work the DVD player before "others" arrived.

There was much tea.

The next day was the day of the party, large parties of various folk arrived and drank tea, before having lunch where they drank wine, followed by tea. An enterprising crew arrived in a Wayfarer (dinghy sailors please accept my apologies for potentially excruciating joke) and then offered a quick trip down the lake. A very quick trip actually, me I'd have put a reef in.

The day after, the boat was rigged and put on the water.

"What boat?" I hear you say.

Well dearie me, did I not say? The GP14 bought on EBay by Sheila (Mrs Julian), was rigged and floated off the trolley into the tree, put back on the trolley, moved to the right and refloated, then rowed to the landing. As we wait for Julian, (nothing new here, his elder brothers have been standing around, hands in pockets, cloudwatching for sixty years), the boat slowly fills with water, a condition that will persist over the next few days leading some of us to postulate that the SS Trenchfoot may be a good name for it.

He arrives (cue the rolling back of clouds and a quick burst of the Hallelujah Chorus), and once the family Handley are ensconced, I let go the boat. Then walk down the landing, climb over the wall, walk down the "beach" into the lake to field the boat as it runs ashore. I turn the prow and shove off again, this time the centreboard goes down and they're off for a quiet meander up the nearly still lake. Several gentle zephyrs develop hernias as they artfully play with the sail and discover that the boat is full of several tons of water. Several trips later and we get the self-bailers to work by dint of speed but as soon as we slow, water pours into the boat around the edges of them. Eventually we call it a day, and run the boat onto the trailer and from thence into the tree, back into the lake, a shift to the right and up into the field.

A barbeque is declared for the evening and I go off to Windermere with Louise and Tom for what proves to be the most frightening (though not exciting) trip of the week. We go to Booth's supermarket, a supermarket that makes Waitrose look cheap, a supermarket that if it could boast the tiling would rate with Harrods, a supermarket that brought tears to my wallet. We drive back, laden with sausages and vegeburgers, and scour the outbuildings for tinder. As I put a lighter (note to self, make sure that you have matches for a barbeque as the heat and flame pouring back out of a lighter means you get a few more overdone sausages, formerly known as fingers) to the paper it starts to rain. Umbrellas appear in the hands of the sous-chef and the barbeque continues.

As the week goes on, different people take charge of the evening meal, so we have a large veggie curry, followed by a cheese selection from Booths. This includes an Epoisse, which brings forth the comment that it smells like placenta; what a fabulous comparative body the newly parented have, several sorts of vomit and faeces (including temporal change, "Cor that smells like an [insert number][insert time interval{day/hour}][insert item]"), plus a whole range of eructations various. A pizza night, "Cor that looks like [insert pre-digested foodstuff]" and a leftovers night, "Cor that looks like... oh it is."

Days are spent pruning the tree with the mast, so that by the end of the week the boat rolls into the water unimpeded from any part of the field. One day we decide to ascend the Old Man of Coniston (or Kachenjunga). As we go up I turn to Steve who is labouring under the weight of steroids and various other drugs, all of which conspire to raise his blood pressure to something a giraffe would be proud of.

"How are you doing?"
"Once upon a time this would have been exhilarating now I'm just terrified that I'm going to have some sort of cardiac disaster!"
I reassured him.
"No with raised blood pressure like yours, you're more likely to have a stroke!"

I thought the resultant frosty silence unworthy of him, so pointed out there was a pub at the bottom. We went to the pub and bought a keg to go with the pizza, after a pause in the street and much deliberation we put the keg in the pushchair and carried the baby; it's all about perceived value they tell me.

Sadly the week came to a close, though for me there was a ray of sunshine in the fact that I would be separated from Andrew's feet by about 50 miles (only just enough I reckoned). After tidying up, I mounted my trusty steed and set off back to Windermere, halfway up the hill I decided that I was squeaky and should use my inhaler. I stopped off the side of the road and breathed out before applying the inhaler and inhaling with force! The foil datestamp that had fallen off the cylinder consequently found itself teetering on the top of my trachea prior to a descent into lungland, we were both quite surprised! Fortunately I had sufficient breath to manage a coughing fit and so avoided the irony of being found face down at the roadside having choked to death on an asthma inhaler (for US readers this is irony, do not confuse it with sarcasm).

A stop at the traditional sweetshop in Windermere netted me some liquorice goodies, some of which would last to London, unlike Julian's supply of Pontefract Cakes, which lasted until Steve saw them and "unconsciously" scoffed the lot.

At Euston I had to break into the Guards Van to liberate my bike, and that, as they say, was that.

The Tale of Foxy Roxy and the King of Gloom. Book the Fourth.

The next day I decided to have a day off, so camp out, under a parasol, alternatively staring out to sea and reading. The breeze is constant off the water, next time I catch sight of myself in the mirror I note that my hair has a volume and a backsweep of heroic proportions, I look like Martin Sheen after a nasty surprise.

Later in the day I decide to go for a snorkel, I pick up the camera, anoint myself with suntan lotion and roll into the sea. I snorkel out to the reef, and, after an interesting time in the surge, exit over the edge and start snapping like a madman. After nine shots, strange things happen with the camera, I come back to shore and look through the viewfinder, the water on the inside bodes ill. I retreat under the bedclothes and open the back, the film is wet - "Bollocks!". I consign the film to the bin and put the camera in the sun to dry.

A new guest has arrived today - Ralph, he is off with Roxy for the next few days taking photos, this is how he makes a living poor soul, warm water diving with a camera, sounds awful, you can visit his websites here (check out "latest"). When he returns I collar him with my damp camera, he suggests Said may have the appropriate jewellers' screwdrivers. Said does, takes the camera to pieces, air blasts it, desalts the electrics, and miraculously gets it to fire - what a star.

In the evening I eat in town, and return to drink the recently departed Joey and Nick's last beer, which they have kindly left for me, I decide to wait for a shooting star, and park myself on one of the loungers. Three satellites come past and the moon rises drowning out a lot of stars, I decide that three satellites may equal one shooting star. Then, an evanescent streak as a piece of dust donates its atoms to the Earth, I feel a pang of joy, tempered with the fact that this is also, inevitably, our fate.

Morning comes, and I discover that I'm deaf in my right ear. As Roxy applies drops I apply courage,

"Umm, Roxy, I, umm, do you think you might umm, like to have, um, dinner with me before I go?"

"That would be very nice, you're very kind."

"Well it's hardly expensive." Damn! Damn! Damn!

"I'll choose somewhere 'young.'"

Damn, damn, damn.

So there I was, committed to an evening of several hundred people chattering to Roxy while I ate dinner.

I decided to have another day of doing nothing, and then decided to start my novel:

"The Regent's Canal winds through North London like a ribbon of pustular snot streaming from the nose of a cold-ridden child....."

or

"Tom Landrover, flicked his tail, stretched his back, brushed down his whiskers, and, staring at the rainclouds gathering, decided it was a good day to go to the barn and torment some mice."

or

"I ran my hand down Roxy's naked flank, watching the skin dance and shiver as my touch excited her, she rolled onto her back, her green eyes steeped in lust, guiding my hand, she arched her ba...."

Hang on! Now I was completely deaf, apart from a mosquito whine of tinnitus, plus it hurt. I decided to go to the Doctor. Said and I head off in a taxi to the recompression chamber and surgery. The Doctor is a quiet man, who after a brief interview produces some sort of jeweller's/torturer's tool and picks (as in axe) at the tamponade that used to be my earwax and, that since I have repeatedly exposed it to depth, has become a sort of crown cork. This hurts like merry hell but on the third mining trip into the fudge sundae, there is a pop, and sound rushes in. I leave with the advice that I should soften the remaining wax with olive oil three times a day, so it is that I go to town able to dress salad with a mere tilt of the head.

In town, in the evening, a local lands a 2m plus shark, there is a mixed reaction, the locals, who after all have been fishing here for quite some time, are ecstatic, some of the visiting diving sorority are in tears.

The next day I am deaf again, I suspect the trauma from the Doctor's gouging, even so we all head off for the Full Moon, with our driver Sallah taking a route known only to him. This was doing Ralph's back no good at all, as he seemed to have done something to it the previous day. Even so he seemed impervious to my sympathetic explanations of how bad mine was, and that if he thought he had a bad back he should try the 17 kilos of lead I was now burdened with.

My first dive of the day is Moray Gardens left, a trawl through a set of pinnacles with the big Giant Clams. On the way I litter pick, accidentally exchanging two kilo's of lead for some trash, consequently my safety stop consists of me finning to the bottom with Said holding me down.

Over lunch - a "Tunisian Salad" - couscous with tomato, Said straps another kilo of weight to the bottom of my tank to "hold it down". Hoorah a new record at 18 kilos! The first dive of the afternoon is in Three Pools, there are three pools, as we exit from one a fish attacks Said who has invaded his territory, nipping at the wrist of his wetsuit, Said 1M 75, fish 8cm! I manage to spot a Shrimp and Goby combo, these are described in the book as commensals though symbiotes may be nearer the mark, this particular combo is a Graceful Goby and Red-Spotted Goby Shrimp by the time I have signalled to Said, the Shrimp has gone to hide, so there I am being excited by a fish, while diving, whoop-de-doo! As we slump on the bottom for our safety stop, a snakefish comes to hunt. I return to shore with my full 18 kilos, having been unable to shed any surplus due to Said's careful monitoring.

After a tea break, dive three (Moray Garden Right), Ralph had pointed out a pinnacle on the way out which he said was "stuffed", it was. We also saw a couple of Trevally (a relatively large predator) patrolling the shoals.

Got back to base and met two more guests, Del and Chris. Del a recently qualified lawyer from Pembrokeshire and husband (?) Chris from Australia (Norfolk Island, about halfway between Oz and New Zealand, so not really Australia at all). Del was due to do a course with the other instructor Ollie, and Chris, after an assessment dive, was due out with Said and myself. They looked about 12. I ate and went to bed early.

The next day - more diving. Today I waited for Chris's assessment, having exhausted the possibilities of the Lighthouse (they, of course, saw a Napoleon Wrasse, which can grow up to two metres in length, described by Said as "enormous", though I had come to learn that Said saw a lot of "enormous" things. I did wonder whether he'd realised that things look bigger underwater, though I was still revelling in the purchase of my prescription mask, where they don't). Then we went on to Canyon to do the Coral Garden, which was very pretty with the biggest clams yet seen ("Enormous" Said) and a lot of clownfish. At one point I was minding my own business when I felt something at my throat, after waving my hand about I was confronted by two Cleaner Wrasse who looked distinctly reproachful. When I told the boys about this at lunch, Said said this was not uncommon and asked if I hadn't seen his signal. This turned out to be rubbing one index finger up the side of the other. Yes I had seen the signal and was pretty sure that in other cultures it meant something distinctly different to "Look there's a Cleaner Wrasse!" so rather than enquire too far, had ignored it. My mind now at rest, I put my body into a similar state of repose.

After lunch we move on to the Blue Hole and the Bells (I was going to put a link in here but most of the links appear to be dedicated to the showing of bodies of people who have died in the Blue Hole, if you're interested you can Google "Blue Hole Dahab") The Blue Hole is just that, a hole, it is used by extensively by freedivers, and also by idiots who think they can push the limits, there is an exit at about sixty metres, which proves too tempting for many people. Their memorial plaques appear on the walls of the amphitheatre surrounding the hole, here's one, "To James. Who didn't let fear diminish his dream." - Twat.

We walk (with my extra 18 kilo's I waddle) to the entrance to the Bells, this is a rift that descends, that's exactly what it does, it just descends until you exit on a cliff that does exactly that as well- descend. It is called the Bells, as you bang your cylinder on the side walls as you go down. I manage, to Said's relief, not to drop anything into the void, and we emerge from the crack at ten metres and then contour round the cliff. Under an overhang Chris points out a large Octopus, the drop-off itself is covered with fish, millions of fish, it becomes clear that as Des Res's go, the piscine equivalent of Hampstead/Seattle is a drop-off. On the edge of visibility the bigger predators patrol.

A Cornet Fish falls in love with Said , lurking behind him and occasionally swimming between his regulator hose and his head, apparently they're renowned for using divers as cover when hunting, though Chris and I were convinced it was love. Just as we turn to enter the hole, Said points, Chris follows his pointing finger and contemplates, just in case, I grab Chris's arm, point wildly and yell, "Turtle". The "Enormous" Turtle looks at us with faint disdain, surfaces for a breath and then slides gently off into the coral. We fin over into the Blue Hole. In the centre of the Hole you can see - blue, nothing below, nothing to the sides, but blue, at ten metres the surface is still visible but not for much longer, this is why people die, with narcosis they swim off the wrong way, never to return. Said floats perfectly still at ten metres, and starts to move up out of my field of vision, I put air in the jacket and monitor my depth gauge, Said goes higher, the needle on the depth gauge goes higher, I inflate, and inflate, Said comes back into my field of vision and then passes, I deflate and sink past him again. This carries on until we reach the other side for our safety stop, where we sit surrounded by bottle tops. At one point I am startled by a school of small fish that suddenly make a ceiling above me, and then just a quickly disappear, however, Chris is terrified by the end of his weight belt appearing by his chin with the sole intent of drinking his life blood.

We return, Roxy, preoccupied with having to see the "Management", blows out dinner but promises breakfast. So my non-romantic client/teacher tete-a-tete has been turned into a power-management experience. To console myself, I stump off to Friends for Kofta and a Shisha, dowsing every cat in sight mercilessly, and return to the Furry Cup for a bottle of Stella (an Egyptian as opposed to Belgian beer). At 11.00, the universe turns a switch, the sea-breeze drops and dies, A few seconds later a hot wind comes roaring out of the desert behind me, snapping the flags out straight, rather like having an energy efficient dragon creep up behind you.

My last day and the paying of the bill, as a lot of you know, parting with money, for me, is a painful experience. I stayed with Dive Urge who I felt were keener to get my money out of me than the restaurant touts down the strip. my food bill was remarkably round, and the transfer from the airport was £25 each way, when I query that it might be an idea to tell people this, the Manager consults her computer and informs me that it is in the first e-mail I received, seeing as I have no computer to prove this, and that I am too weak to say, "Show me!" I let this pass. ("No it wasn't Lindsay, by the way!").

At breakfast Roxy helps me with my pancake before going off with Ralph. I head into town with Ollie and Del and have a final snorkel, where I am rewarded by two Scribbled Razor Fish, about 70 cm and shifting between dark blue and silver.

I return and drowze, before distributing tips and the contents of my wash bag, as I put the last of my Egyptian Pounds in the tip box I am presented with a request for my lunch money, "About £10." Actually about £6.20 mate. So it is slightly disgruntled that I leave my Life-Partner-To-Be (I just have to talk her round) to drive through the desert in the gathering dusk, before arriving at Gatwick in the small hours. I get to bed at four, today is Open Day, I will be in at 11.00 to talk to schoolchildren and their parents, I will only hear the ones on my left.

The Tale of Foxy Roxy and the King of Gloom. Book the Third

Another day, another diving course.

After my fruit pancakes, I had the briefing for the "Deep Dive". Being moderately nervous, in fact I'd woken in the middle of the night umm- vocalising, I was being stalked by girl-guides in a London Underground tunnel, (don't ask me , it was a dream), I put this down to the heat, .... where was I? Being moderately nervous I asked Roxy to go through the signals again. She shows me "up", "down", "something is wrong", "No not those, there was another one I didn't recognise." We stare at each other for a couple of minutes and finally decide that it may have been a "safety swim" (a cromlech - see top - with a wiggling tail).

As this is my official "Deep Dive" I have to do a number of tests designed to show the effects of narcosis. I have previously completed a quiz (17 seconds) which I have to redo at depth. Question One throws me, while sitting in the hotel, "What is the Capital of Slovakia?" We eventually come to a mutual decision that "Bratislava" will do as an answer. Then into the jeep and off to the Canyon (lengthy video on YouTube here ).

The Canyon is a rift in the reef, there are several wide chambers and some narrow squeezes (to be avoided). To get there you have to exit over the reef from a pool, at low and high water, or wind, this can involve current. We exit as a group comes in, they totally fail to spot the Octopus that is sitting on a pinnacle just at the exit, we (Roxy) however do spot it. and watch it blanch and prickle. Then we move off, down to the top of the drop off before turning left and meandering up to the rift.

At the Canyon we adopt the pose and skydive to the bottom, my suit compresses (finally) and the air becomes considerably thicker, as though it has been mixed with a small amount of honey. The first task is to compare depth gauges, we do; Roxy:- 33.3 metres, Nick:- 2 metres. Ho Hum. I do the quiz, some naughty person has changed the sums (17 seconds). Then I have to turn my back while Roxy changes something, which I then have to spot. I turn and turn back, a few seconds later I realise that instead of having the regulator shoved in her gob, she's got her snorkel. At this point narcosis must have set in as I fail to fail to spot it for the next five minutes and instead, point it out straight away, next time the mask is on upside down. We ascend through a column of Sweepers/Glassfish who occupy the inside of the shaft, waiting for the onset of evening when they will leave, I wonder whether they will all leave the same entrance, like bats.

We return and spend our surface interval in the cafe, drinking tea and chatting, I sit in the sun wearing my sarong, shirt, hat, with my arms covered in a towel. As we prepare to move on I go to the toilet, when I return the cafe owner is deep in conversation with Roxy. Apparently he has a brother in Cairo who needs a wife, with Roxy, everyone has a brother in Cairo who needs a wife, even I have a brother in Cairo who needs a wife. there is, of course, the question of field-testing for the biCwnaw.

We move on to Rick's Reef (Yes Roxy I know but if people want to look it up, oh all right!) AKA Roxy's Reef and drift slowly back passing large nurseries and huge clouds of Anthias (more fish pics here ). Behind there are shoals of Sergeant Majors, possibly sniping. By now I have favourite fish : The Humbug Dascylus which has just black and white stripes but the blackest black and the whitest white, the Whitespotted Puffer, who, safe in the knowledge of his toxic skin, lies moribund with large dark-rimmed eyes, it reminds me of a recently told-off Basset puppy. We arrive back at the Canyon pool and head for shore, and from thence back home. I have asked for a guesstimate, it arrives and upon opening I adopt the expression of the Whitespotted Puffer.

Still, life goes on and I have to pick my other adventure dives, because I have failed to realise that the paper has two sides I suggest a DPV - a Diver Propulsion Vehicle. Roxy thinks this would be a good idea and assents to my choice with typical South African reticence, "Fuck Yea! We hev got to do thet Mun!" or accent to that effect. I stroll of to see Lindsay, "Hi I'm thinking of doing the DPV are you going to get me one?"

"What's this then Boys and Toys?"

"No, the DPV is an essential diver tool, it allows the diver to explore a larger area, it allows the diver to get to places without using precious air and in the case of tandem use, confers these advantages on both divers."

".... You'll have to rent your own."

"Oh - ok."

In the evening I pluck up courage and head out into the town where I end up, after a chat with Mohammed, who's very excited because his wife is coming from Faversham in September, and who's now a good boy because he's married, look, and wearing his ring. At this point a couple of willowy half-clads come past and look at the menu,
"Russian?" I venture, making a guess on the flesh to cloth ratio.
"No. Hungarian. Very easy."

I order the Bedouin lamb, which turns out to be a stew. The meal turns into the usual marathon, with free soup, some dips, and, finally, the ubiquitous watermelon. It also involves every cat in Dahab coming to check out my meal and lounging Bast-like on my sofa. To celebrate my courage in going out by myself I indulge in a shisha, while watching the moon rise over Saudi. At this point one of the waiters arrives with a bottle of water,
"Ah well, when in Rome." I twist the top off and drink, it is tap - desalinated. confused and with a constricted throat, I wash my hands with it - nonchalantly. When I return, Joey takes great delight in telling me that I have drunk the "cat gun" which has a hole in the top for shooting the cats. there is much hilarity all round, well, nearly all round.

We chat about diving and Joey's time with Unilever (we manage to come up with Fred Trussel in common, for you Unileverites), then she tells me about the survey she did on Diego Garcia with one Professor Jacqui McGlade - my flatmate in 1976. We also talk about the trials and tribulations of running a Ski Chalet in France, to be frank I can't detect that many.

The next day Roxy and I bum about while Said tours all over town and manages to come up with one DPV, we decide to "share", and head off back to Lighthouse as we reckon the pose factor will be better there, plus there may be a chance of getting it back if we drop it. My instructor takes the DPV in and gives it some extensive testing, I float and watch, after a few minutes I decide that it could do with a bit more thrux and a lot of poke, then I focus on the DPV. Eventually I'm allowed to have a go, though I can detect the pout even around the regulator. It's quite cumbersome and sinks when it stops but it's good, slow fun, though nifty on the turns. We ride tandem for a bit and a Lionfish comes out of his oildrum and cruises towards the overly large, overly noisy, invader of his territory, we turn to chug away, prepared to drop the DPV and swim should it charge, it'll be faster!

After a lounge about, we move on to The Islands, probably my favourite dive area of the holiday, a reef just off the shore and therefore with different species. This section of reef has been split by an earthquake a few years ago so that it's interesting to see the different patterns of regrowth; some 2mm some 10cm. There is also a Barracuda nursery in one of the pools. This was where I did my compulsory navigation section, difficult stuff like trying to swim a ten metre square, to make matters fair, I, of course, shut my eyes during the legs of the swim so that I couldn't correct by line of sight. No really, I did. Then I was taken off for a jaunt, where , much to my chagrin, I failed to pass under an arch without clouting it, see it still niggles. Though I did find my way back to the start when requested, even throwing in a false dogleg to make my instructor think she'd beaten me. However modesty forbids me to go on about it. I was told I was the only person ever to do it though, no I was, I can't believe she says it to everyone, surely not.

Back to base to prepare for the night dive, this involves going to the toilet several times and then putting on the wetsuit. As I don my supersize shorty and longjohns, Roxy appears in her newly repaired seal suit, she looks svelte and smooth, like a ..., like a seal...with knockers. I stare ruefully at my centimetre of clunky rubber, any stirrings I might have felt being suppressed by 1. the constrictive clothing and 2. the constriction in my circulation, as the dread hour approaches. With the cheesy grin favoured by the true dominatrix, Roxy announces that it is time. Said eager to avoid carrying my gear, appeals to my vanity and offers to carry my gear. So it is that I waddle down to the launch pad and am then dragged ignominiously across the reef to the prosaically-named "Trench", I fin generously to assist, rather sacrificing the role of "client" I thought.

We drop into a strange, bleary world; the reef has been washed of colour, the day community of fish has dwindled, approaching a table of acropora you become aware that it has fish threaded through its horns, threaded so that nothing appears outside the coral to be nibbled. For me, everything appears out of focus but my breathing rate slows, my buoyancy miraculously comes together, and we float in the night, surrounded by a nimbus of diffuse light, itself pierced by the focused rays of the torches. the sand slope away beneath us and disappears into the dark. you can imagine a long, slow fall down this slope away from the light, through and into the bottomless dark - so I don't. Instead I concentrate on the Featherstars, all seeking high points and waving their arms to catch anything floating on the breeze, we pass a Basket-Star who has an edge on the Feathers by sheer size, its arms span at least 70cm, as the wash from our fins catches it, it collapses back in on itself, to nothing. Other highlights include a pair of large Sea Slugs cruising the sand, a Spiny Lobster whose eyes glow red in the torchlight, sparky phosphorescence when I hide the torch, a cone shell (a Marlin Spike ), some shrimps and getting back alive without being eaten by Goblins.

I fin back over the reef and plod wearily back up the road, Said having cheerfully employed his reverse psychology again, sort out the gear - and there we are - done. Now all I have to do is fill in the next five days, I resolve to be brave.

The Tale of Foxy Roxy and the King of Gloom. Book the Second

Tuesday and an 8.00 am start (some holiday), Bakar had got up early to do my pancakes. I boxed my gear as I'd been taught, and was immediately told by one of the other guests, The Expert that I'd done it all wrong. So, wary of his tattoos, I redid it his way. Roxy arrived, glanced at the box and told me I'd done it all wrong. So, wary of the patooties, I undid it, and then redid it the way I'd done it.

We bounce South along the coast past the Hilton, The Swiss Inn and the Meridian, all of which inspire a lack of confidence in the continued existence of the well being of the reef, to arrive at the Full Moon Cafe and mock Bedouin encampment - with toilets - one of which seemed permanently occupied (I found out later that this was the "European-style" one).

A BRIEF SCATOLOGICAL DIVERSION - this is after all, one of MY blogs, readers of a nervous disposition should look away now : In Egypt, as with all Muslim countries toilet behaviour does not include toilet paper. Instead one washes the anal region with a handy spray (or hosepipe), being, of course, careful to use the left hand (which shouldn't be used for anything else). This is a very refreshing and very hygienic way to post-cathartic cleanliness. However, after 10 days of this, one discovers that the hairs on one's bottom, normally kept short by toilet paper, have now grown to a length, whereby the reuse of toilet paper causes plucking, and thereby intense pain.

Ok I've finished.

We dive (with an extra 2kg in my pocket, which falls out at some point) and rattle through some tests before pootling. On the way back we watch another group enter the water there are four and one instructor, one of the group, a girl, is having some sort of trouble, the instructor rattles of a set of hand signals that appear to indicate castigation, I have no idea what he was on about and I'm an informed observer. Roxy followed my gaze and then added to my lexicon of sign with one that I can't find in the manual. In order to liven things up I did my Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent: adopt a Superman pose and scream your way to the surface like a cheap but satisfying firework (Ladies - any interest?). This is described in the manual as making an "Aaah" sound.

For our surface interval we drink Bedouin tea (a mixture of black tea and sage leaves), and talk about work (mine) and chests and bums (hers).

As Roxy's patooties approach normal temperature (easily spotted by a trained observer such as myself), and we think about the next dive, Nadia, the daughter of Mein Hostess arrives,
"Can we borrow your regulator, there's a little something wrong with mine we'll be very quick."
At this point I must have lost my presence of mind for, after more reassurance of a speedy return, I assented. After a fruitless wait we drove to Umm-Sid with the damaged regulator.

The pressure gauge was, "blowing a bit", this meant that if you put your finger over the drainhole, the rubber cover would try and blow itself off, I was dubious and said so.

"That's all right," says Roxy magnanimously, yet at the same time condescendingly, "if you run out you can share mine." I still can't understand how someone with such an obviously large vital capacity can use so little air.

In the water it becomes evident that the pressure gauge leak is a mere blip on the equipment failure horizon, in fact the regulator does not appear to be connected to its hose at all. The driver goes off to get a new set, I snorkel, Roxy points her chest South for a bit of pre-dive nipple thermo-therapy.

Eventually the water closes over our heads and we head off spotting the fan corals and eels that this dive is known for, we also spot something else: As I round a bend Roxy rattles at me (I had by now discovered what that sound was, I knew it sounded metallic but put it down to something natural, like a Parrot Fish - with dentures) there, nestled in the coral is a 50cm rock wearing a very glum face, it is definitely a Stonefish, a big one. Roxy is very excited and swears, sadly I can't persuade her to poke it and so determine the species - you look at the pattern on the pectoral fins, just before your vision shuts down.

More tea, and lunch. Then off to Golden Blocks to drift to Moray Gardens, as we drift we find an Octopus, for me, a big one. they have a peculiar psychology Octopuses, for example our Octopus, "Oh bugger, think I've been spotted, I'll slip out the back way. Oh bugger, another one. Ok I'll disguise myself as weed. Not working, look I'll get on top of this rock and disappear. Well it's obviously not going to work if you're watching, so, look away now, and now back. See, I've gone!" We left it disguised as a rock - with eyes and a siphon.

"We saw an Octopus, quite a big one."

"The one we saw had two inch diameter suckers." counters the "Expert" who I suspect thinks he has a ten inch penis.

In the evening we return and I do my Open Water Exam, at one point I must have got flustered or lost interest as I only got 98%, though to be fair I was losing a bit of sleep over the non-decompression tables. Two dives I could manage, three would throw me a bit. Roxy threw in a bit of expert tutelage, "Buy yourself a dive computer."

The outshot was that I passed and moved on to Advanced the next day

The Tale of Foxy Roxy and the King of Gloom. Book the First

A man is sitting on an aircraft seat surrounded by an orange aircraft, he is torn by the desire to stare out of the window to determine where he is on the face of the Globe, or to try and lip read Fantastic Four - Rise of the Silver Surfer. Eventually his dilemma is solved as FF is replaced by In Her Shoes ("an attempt at making a pile of twaddle into an uplifting film" - Hayes Review of Unseen Films). As he turns his attention towards Alexandria, we see that it is Nick and that he is on his way to immerse his body in the Red Sea in exchange for vast amounts of Moolah.

I arrived at the enormous barn that is Sharm El Sheik airport, sadly just behind a Russian Behemoth. I chose a queue, after ten minutes the man in the booth suddenly woke up and started processing everyone at speed, this meant I was in the right queue, an uneasy feeling sidled into the echoing chamber that was my brain, and slid cool fingers down my spine. My ride turned up after five minutes of aimless wandering, though to be fair I didn't have any luggage. Then we zoomed through the nighttime desert, over the pass at 600m and into Dahab where after a quick wrap, I met my fellow guests; Victoria, Howard and Maggie, Joey and Nick, they offered me a beer - what civilised folk. Victoria, who was leaving the next day, told me that my instructor would be Roxy (her instructor from the previous week), and that Roxy was blonde and tanned - she failed to mention the crush she had, and the fact that she hoped I'd drown thus maintaining her exclusivity for a while longer.
I go to bed and sleep fitfully, perhaps the heat, perhaps whaddya call it? oh yeah, terror.

I work my way through the Egyptian breakfast and chat to Victoria, then Roxy arrives all 5 foot 10 inches of her, a blonde-crop South African Amazon
"Can you have a South African Amazon?" you may ask.
"Of course," I reply, "they were invented by the Greeks,"
She gets me to sign stuff and then tells me to take my clothes off,
"So soon. You old charmer." flashes across the frontal lobes before being rudely expunged by the arrival of Said with a wetsuit for me to try on.
She then plonks me down in front of the DVD, starts it running and disappears to don her bikini, occasionally she will appear with an admonition to drink more water, I do, diligently, and without argument (Hayes maxim: Never argue with anyone taller than you are, or women, in either case you will lose, in the event of both criteria applying, you will lose - big time.). When I press the pause button, a delighted shout of , "Toilet break!" greets me. I endure PADI videos for three hours, the term, "Good Job!" enters my lexicon of least favourite phrases, "Didn't drown - good job, high five!" I find myself involuntarily muttering the standard UK response to, "Good Job!" every time the DVD utters it, and it utters it often, so that we get a dialogue between a Mid-Western Diving Instructor full of fulsome praise for his winsome pupils, and a disgruntled Brit with a bad case of Tourette's syndrome.

I fill in the knowledge reviews at the end of the chapters, and then we get the gear set up, well Roxy does, I sort of make an attempt, then another, then another until the cylinder fails to fall out of the Buoyancy Control Device (BCD) harness. I then don my centimetre of neoprene and melt, climb into a Landrover - and melt, get out of the Landrover and have more than my entire body weight in lead strapped about my person and also slipped into every available orifice - on the BCD. After that I lock my knees and fail to stride manfully to the sea, I manage instead, to stump along like a bloke who's just discovered that someone has stuck an extra 25 kilos of various metal items about his person. Imagine our surprise when I fail to sink.
The first four tests go well, Roxy demos and I follow, most of it (if you'll pardon the pun) comes flooding back. A few tests later and I'm thinking, "A man has cut your throat, no, my throat, and is going to punch me in the chest, no, your chest, no, as you were, my chest (not that there's anything wrong with your chest, quite the opposite - if I'd noticed, which, of course, I haven't). HANG ON- NO AIR! Take my alternative source! Now you're holding my hand and we're waving at someone in the distance. we're going away on our honeymoon - cor!"
I discovered later that we were pretending to ascend. Three hours after, I realised that the reason we were "ascending" was because one of us had run out of air and that continuing to pootle around the ocean sharing a tank was thought to be "bad form".

Anyway such was my skill that we went off to have a look at the reef for the rest of the tank. The approach to the reef looks like the approach to the edge of an overburgeoning landfill (this is sometimes added to by the presence of plastic bags, both stuck to the coral and drifting past). All sorts of bits of refuse tumble down to the sand. When you get close you realise that this is thousands of blocks of different corals, all fighting for space. Within the gaps in the coral there are fish, and within the coral itself other things live, so that Brain Corals sport Giant Clam embedded in them.

We first come upon a pair of Leafy Cup Corals populated by some, ummm, really pretty fish, in the distance the reef edge looms, a 15 m cliff, patrolled by "big" fish; Unicorns and Parrot. Underneath me I have a Boxfish about 25cm long with a Cleaner Wrasse giving it a going over. There are Orchid Dottybacks of a bright, electric violet, there are big Wrasse with soleful, doleful eyes giving reproachful stares from under their patch. There are... there are a lot of fish. A useful website can be found here .

We return and Roxy, after complaining that her "Patooties" are freezing off, (Afrikaans for feet, I presume), orders me to strip - again.

"What here?" I think, "In front of all these people?" then it dawns, I have to prove I can swim and float. I give an exhibition, Front Crawl (normal and bilateral breathing), Breaststroke, Sidestroke, Backstroke and finally Doggy Paddle, with added spluttering (the latter only appreciated by true connoisseurs of the natatory arts). I then float on the World's second saltiest sea for ten minutes, not floating is not an option, 4 stone anorectics could float on this. After my forehead crisps I turn away from the sun. Roxy remains on shore, slumped in a lounger, presumably warming her patooties.

We return, rinse the gear and fill in the log book. Ever the glutton for punishment I head out to the reef for a snorkel, passing a Puffer fish on the way, he lies moribund on the bottom secure in the knowledge of his toxic skin, this is a fish without ambition. I patrol the reef for a bit until I get cold and then return past a small grey moray, who still threatens me (the Glaswegians of the aquatic world), a Glass-Finned Lion Fish preparing to go on the evening prowl, and back past the Puffer who would roll his eyes and sigh if he could.

In the evening I have some sort of steak in some sort of sauce and then stroll into town, past a series of restaurant touts, and meet up with Ali at the fountain where we discuss (in order of priority) his shop and its contents, the relative merits of girls of different nationalities, his shop, would I like a girl of a different nationality and finally, his shop. When I say "discuss" my side consisted of nodding, raising an eyebrow and saying goodnight.

I returned home and went to bed after first sweeping the cockroach leg decorating the bathroom floor into the drain, I found the owner, dessicated, behind the window grill, later.

Fruit pancakes with yoghurt and honey for breakfast, this would continue to be my breakfast for the rest of the holiday, such was its fuelling power. Roxy got me to give her the dive briefing and then we were off back to Lighthouse, the wind having come up and Lighthouse being sheltered, for some more tests ( Eh? Sorry, I was watching that girl swim past from underneath, smashing ars.... Oh right - recover my regulator.) and a pootle over the tyre dump. We returned to Lighthouse in the afternoon where Roxy found a small Blue-Spotted Ray hiding in the coral, as she shifted onto the next dead bit of coral to allow me to see properly an unseen Scorpion/Stonefish took off from underneath her hand, first time I spotted her breathe twice in a row.

That evening was Maggie and Howard's last so we ended up in Ali Baba (which boasts a hygiene certificate). As I was halfway through my Barracuda steak Howard came up with, "Do you know what ciguatoxic is?"

"No."

He explained that animals that are lower in the food chain may be toxic, when they get eaten those toxins pass into the body of the predator, and so on up the food chain so that the large predators may actually be poisonous.

"Predators like Barracuda."

I ceased to be hungry.

Spring and the middle-aged man's fanny, or rolling my arse.

A man is standing on the platform at Paddington station, he is bemused, his bike reservation was to hand at the information desk, the train was on time, there was a bike transport area, after some jiggery-pokery his bike actually fitted (though not on the extreme left unless you unship the handlebars). Everything seemed to be going swimmingly, I (for, yes, it is me) became nervous. I checked the seat reservation; Coach B, seat 73A. Here we are; Coach B, seats 1 - 72. Well thank goodness for that, I thought my luck had changed. I journeyed in Coach C - the unreserved coach.

I arrived and cycled down the Exe to the Z home, where we chatted and ate and drank gin. In the kitchen there was a noticeboard bearing the legend "I May Roger Webster" in Carole's handwriting, Crikey what sort of "open relationship" family was I visiting? Upon enquiry it was revealed to me that this said "1 May Roger Webster", a garden designer.

The next day we set off for Haytor and Houndtor, several lumps of granite that stick out of the easily accessible bit of Dartmoor, Alex (10) had recently done Houndtor with School and was eager to demonstrate the route/give parents conniptions. We (adults) rested at Haytor, while they (children) scrambled all over it. Then we moved on, passing quarries, down the slope to the River Becca as it trilled its way down the valley. There We had lunch, while They found a rope and a branch, and demonstrated the innate ability of children not to keep their feet above water. After lunch, we ascended to Greator stopping only to catch a lizard (my first catching of lizard, managed to keep its tail on too), admire it, possibly save its life (there was a tick - we Vaselined it), and let it go again. Then Greator, and a guided tour up it by Alex, I cheated and used my height (it's not often I can say that). Then on to Houndtor for some more scrambling, on the way up we sent up a deer (roe), and at the tor were serenaded by a cuckoo, not very unusual you may think but we could actually see this one. Then we returned, stopped at the rope for more getting wet, then contoured round Haytor as it was bound to be quicker than the dogleg we had previously come down - it wasn't.
No-one fell asleep in the chicken, though it may have been close.

Bank Holiday Monday, and with much grumbling our youthful twosome arose to complain about being taken out walking again. being adults we said, "Tough!" and bundled them into the car, bribing them with the promise of a real life tank (Sherman, pulled out of the sea in 1984). The tank rapture lasted about 3 minutes after it became clear that you couldn't climb on it - a war memorial, in it - the same plus welding, or fire the gun - all of the previous plus laws against ordnance. The tank is a memorial to the US troops who died during Operation Tiger, a gross cock-up of the military kind in 1943. We left the tank behind and set off along the cliff path to head to Start Point, the view being partly obscured by professional sibling whingeing and a few bands of rain. The path is supposed to "shimmer with bluebells" at this time of year, when the sun is out it probably does, at this present moment in time it was merely smeared with bluebells. Halfway to Start Point in the shadow of the cafe-that-used-to-be (soon to be 16 apartments in a New England style - made of wood presumably) Carole and the boys were lured back to Beesands and a cup of tea. Paul and I, soldiered on through the squalls and ate our emergency spiced carrot cake in the lee of the lighthouse, then we soldiered back again.
Back to Exeter and a quick visit to Wetherspoons, now set up in the Non-Conformist Meeting House where you can hear an almost audible hum from the previous residents spinning away.

Tuesday, Carole had a clinic in Plymouth so I went along for the ride, not to the clinic but to Plymouth. I stopped and ate my lunch on the Hoe, admiring the student body burning away in the bright sunshine. It was interesting, a choice between football or revision, expect the female student body to do considerably better than their male counterparts this year. After lunch I headed down to the Barbican and discovered that this was the port rather than the big castle full of soldiers. At the Barbican there is the National Aquarium, I investigated £9.50 ($19), hmm it was a lovely day and the aquarium was indoors. I mooched off and discovered the Plymouth Gin Distillery, I investigated £6.00 ($12) hmm, it was rather hot outside and a walk in the shade could be good - I plumped. The guide was from Bangor (my alma mater) and I was the only one on the tour, so two gin tastings and two sloe gin's later I arrived at the bar for my free gin and tonic, to be fair I had to have the second gin as I'd blown my taste buds with the cardamon seed in the botanicals tastings section.
I met with Carole and returned to the Zed pad, where I spent the evening packing and repacking, seemed quite difficult, can't think why.

The next day I took the boys to school as Paul was off somewhere, I chatted on the way with Alex while Tom found a friend. Hands in pockets he trailed behind in earnest discussion, "Afghanistan? What do you think the likely outcomes are Tom?"
"Well, tricky question, I mean there's the UN line and then the US options."
"Yes but... Oh here we are, see you in IT."
I turned to Tom,
"Bye Tom"
This is a boy who has spent the weekend hanging on my arm like a puppy discovering hormones, offering his neck for a hammerlock and curling into me on the sofa.
"?...........bye."

I retreat back to the house, load the bike and head off to the station. Forty minutes later and I'm lost in Exmouth but only slightly, I find a sign and follow it up a long slow hill-from-hell at the top I check the route map, this is not marked as a steep hill - Joy! I continue along the back roads to Ottery St Mary the sounds of the live firing exercise on Woodbury Range punctuating the shimmering heat of the day until they faded into larksong. There I storm out of the village in the wrong direction, a short time later I storm back into the village, storm the ATM, and storm the bottom 50 metres of the hill out of the village, I then storm to the kerb and nonchalantly drink some water as if this is what I meant to do all along. It takes 20 minutes to get up the hill, nonchalantly drinking every time a car comes past, and pushing solidly when they don't, there are a lot of cars. By the top of the hill I have drunk a litre of water and have a belly which seems to be independently sprung to the rest of me.

We (my stomach and I) continue. Ahh, the joys of cycling, it's a great way to see wildlife, usually insectal and heading towards you at 10mph. I now have a theory about day flying insects, it is this: instead of being attracted to light like moths and other night fliers, they are attracted to patches of darkness, such as pupils and open mouths. "But" you say, "Why not grit your teeth, then they will only see pearly whiteness and not be attracted?"

"Cos I can't get enough oxygen that way!" I reply.

Other joys at this time of the year are the hedgerows, often as I came round after a minor infarct I would see, red campion, ragged robin, lords and ladies, wood anemone, cow parsley and, of course bluebells (I'd also see bluebottles hanging about to make sure, as I stirred they'd fly off with a sort of disappointed buzz).

We (the bike and I) continue, I turn round and backtracked to my last missed sign, there is a roadworks sign and the promise of long delays, I pat the crossbar, "Not for us eh, my proud beauty?" Slipping off down the road I ride across a patch of what appears to be virgin tarmac, it is, very virgin, in fact it's still wet, the bike slews across the surface, ploughing a furrow (I can supply a grid reference) and then we're back on the old surface, the tyre picking up every loose bit of gravel and vegetation it can possibly find. A bit further down the road I find the boys, I try and hide my front tyre as I slip past.

Eventually I find myself up on a ridge, at this point I must have lost my presence of mind because I blithely turn right at a T rather than a crossroads, and zoom down the slope, at the bottom I get off, curse and plod back up. When everything comes back into focus, there 50 metres further down the road is the crossroads, it even has a little signpost, "Route 52" it says, it is my route. It is at this point that I realise that one is supposed to steam (ha!) down the main road until one sees another sign, only 25 miles late. I swoop off the ridge towards Honiton and pull in, brakes smoking, outside the B&B Tracey Mill. Angie meets me and gives me some bad news, "We're off to market tomorrow, will 7.30 be ok?" "?!".

I pull up the stairs to the Miller's room, shower and snooze. In the evening I limp into town in search of food. As I pass the Church I am roundly and comprehensively abused by the local derelict. I pass on to the Vine, "Food?" "Not in the evening me Dear." So I plump for a pint of Otter and then head off towards the Indian, abuse man is slumped outside, reloading his invective. Fish and chips it is then. I return, have a chat and go to bed, the room eerily lit by the glow coming off my knees.

The next day, after my early breakfast with the other guest, a Portugese gentleman who has spent most of his life restoring gold-leaf and woodwork in churches, and is now off to Brazil to build beach buggies, I mooch till the roar of commuting and the school run fades away. This is the day I don't get lost but do do a lot of walking, every time I dismount to trudge ignominiously up a hill, cars appear from nowhere, a spate of cars wearing sneering expressions.

At Membury I am drawn by a sign that promises coffee in a 14th Century (that's a hundred years plus before Chris Colon discovered the US) longhouse. I sit on the terrace entertaining Florrie a rotund black lab. I carry on post coffee and trek along fifty metres of the road from hell, fifty metres and I get one tanker and a very large van, such is my haste to get off that the chain makes a break for freedom at the most inopportune moment, and so it is that you find me pushing oily-fingered up yet another hill. The top is bare and promises a long downhill into Axminster, a paradisaical downhill only punctuated by enormous blasts of wind removing the red Devonshire topsoil and hurling it at passing two-wheeled travellers. As I commence the long hill up from Axminster my red Devonshire fake tan is punctuated by rivulets of sweat. Just at my turn off before the main road a caravan turns down the lane and comes to a grinding halt, "That's GPS for you! It said 'bear left' and it's not the A35 {all six lanes of it}!" Ah me, here's a machine that tells me where to go so I'll abdicate all responsibility for: A. Direction. B.Common Sense. C.Eyesight (the sort of mentality that's found in people who will quite happily bag their dogs excreta, and then leave it hanging on the railings for someone else to bin. Feeling superior I mosey on down the lane up to the point where I have to cross the A35, there is a miraculous gap and I'm away over Trinity Hill and then the long haul on the brakes down to the coast. I always find downhills rather like schussing, you zoom off exhilarated your eyes start to water with the air-blast of your passage, and then a still small voice says things like, "What are you going to break if you fall over now?" "What happens if the front wheel explodes?"

I arrive at Seaton, a faded Victorian seaside town populated by the elderly and the recently parented. I sit on the Prom 'til the Land Train wheezes past with five people in it. Then I head off to Colyton where I am spending the evening. I'm slightly early so go fizzing around the town until I can find a Cream Tea, I eventually find Liddon's dairy and order some FRT (which cost me £4.50, sadly these days I don't know whether this should read "£4.50" or "£4.50!". I arrive at my accommodation the Cobblers and am shown into my room, with the en suite hidden in the wardrobe, and a slight aroma of fried food. I have a shower in the vertical coffin and punch the ceiling tiles out as I do my armpits, I also keep thrashing the walls with my genitals as I turn about, but this happens in most showers of course. As evening descends I stroll about the town looking for somewhere cheaper to eat, and end up in the Kingfisher pub next door where I have a steak and ale pudding, oh and a couple of pints. As I return next door, I notice that by not eating there I have diminished their clientele by 33%. At night it rains, the rain that i should have tomorrow, surely there is something wrong.

The next day is my final one of the tour, I chat with mein Hostess about the season, the butchers, the huge site that Tesco have acquired in town, and then I'm off up an enormous drag from Seaton. The ride continues in a similar vein, this is the sort of ride where you stop at a sign that says,"Beer Village 1/2 Mile", look at the road snaking downhill through the trees and think, "I'll bet that's lovely - next time maybe?"

After the up I did a bit of along and then down into Sidmouth a beautiful Victorian Seaside town approached via a ford (fortunately circumvented by a footbridge). A view along the front to the left reveals the wreck of the Napoli, a container ship that ran aground in April, a view along the front to the right reveals..."Jeeesuss, Mary and Joseph!" .. reveals a cliff of gargantuan proportions, with a road going up it - mine. It was a lovely walk. At the top I zoom off to Otterton mill and stop for tea and a very expensive slice of tart. I carry on - hardly burdened by my Orange and Sweet Chilli Bankbreaker, and in homage to Monty Python, stage a "falling off" outside Budleigh Salterton. It was at this point that my trusty (though previously untrusted) signs desert me for a couple of turns but I eventually find the old railway track that will take me back to Exmouth, despite it turning into unsigned Urban Blight for the last mile or so. I arrive to find the Station ostensibly closed, after a circuit I wait until the "little man" opens the doors and allows everyone to catch a train. Thus it is, I arrive back at the Z's in time to go to Cricket Practice, fortunately the bar was open for those parents eager to partake of their parental duties, plus it beats walking the dog.

Saturday was Party night, so the day was spent wandering around every cheap shop in Exeter looking for bits. When I asked if she thought the orange would take - but perhaps I should explain - the Theme - "What you were wearing in 6th Form" (i.e. School when you were 17 or 18), it was a 5oth party.

Paul was very impressed with Carole's punk outfit, so impressed that I had to take both a back and front view of it (see pictures), I am now intending to write an article about "Keeping the interest in your marriage. 34 - the Goth Shop."

Paul and I went to the bar and ordered beers, "Are you with the Party" says the barman to middle-aged bloke with ginger hair and a blue and red zigzag painted on his face (can you guess what it is yet?).

"No." I replied, I think he caught the sardonic whiff. The party continued, the next day was quite quiet apart from the fact that I cooked a hotpot, and still got castigated for not enough roast potatoes after I'd doubled my first estimate. I went home.