What a night. There I was on my own in a full pub with the walls covered in TV’s all showing football. I cant tell a lie, I was more than a little nervous, defending has not been our forte this season & with AC Milan on full attack & us throwing in last ditch tackles, blocks & line clearance’s from early in the 1st half I couldn’t see my nerves easing. There was a big group of blokes standing next to me & they were brilliant. They were Scoucer's so didn’t really care who won but they where cheering & chanting along with the Spurs Faithfull & even started the slow drawn out ‘Oh when the Spurs, Go marching in’. We all got pissed, I abused the Arse (lets make it clear, the arse & not their arse) & they abused the red side of Manchester. It’s what football is all about. Having a laugh & supporting your team, getting drunk & good-humoured banter. There a few sets of fans that this is easier than others & I have found the world over that the Liverpool set to be fun, knowledgeable & fair (sorry Man U mates but I cant Lie) there is always the aresholes out there in all groups of supporters but I’ve been lucky enough to have never met them. Why do I say all this? I heard a good friend of mine got bottled, glassed & kicked unconscious by a group of blokes putting him in hospital for the night & in his own local as well after the Liverpool Chelski game & it wasn’t done by the Liverpool fans! It was completely unprovoked & started with a bottle over the back of his head when he had his back turned at the end of the game, even more confusing is that he is a true blue himself? What’s the point?
Anyway, we were probably 2nd best last night but the important thing, the Olive munching mummy’s boys couldn’t score & we’re through to the next round. It’s a wonderful thing. The next match is only against Barcelona & who the fuck are they, should be easy.
OK enough football & back to my other favourite subject. Me! It’s getting closer & closer to the end of the season (only 8 weeks) so we need to be sorting out our summer plans & what to do next winter. Up until a few weeks ago the summer meant 6 months round the world going to California, Cook Islands, New Zealand (for a couple of months & work), Sydney, China & then meet up with our friends around the Middle East before coming home. This plan has been set in our minds for a while now & an integral part of it was being able to work in NZ to help with the funding & to keep our minds in check. The problem is, we’re too old to get a normal working holiday Visa. The only company that offers this Visa for the over 30’s, Bunac, are piss takers. In order to buy the visa from them you have to buy their working holiday pack which is £500 & all you get for that is access to there support network(?) & a lonely planet. As we have eye’s & a brain (the wife has anyway) finding a job would be just like anywhere else in the world which makes it the most expensive lonely planet in the world. We would only want to work 6-8 weeks & with the exchange rate we would of had to earn $3000 (NZ) just to brake even. It’s just not worth it. So this is a major spanner in works & with our minds all ready on a world trip the re planning is somewhat difficult. We are going to do a tour round Europe with a rough route of South-West France, Barcelona (knocked out the CL but the mighty Yid Army), South France, all through Italy & Sicily & back through who knows where. There are loads of problems to sort out, work, language barrier, August holidays, cost & final route being just some of the mountain of issues we need to sort. It’s a good problem to have really but The Wife loves to plan everything & I like to just drift along. It’s always been like this & its fine, she loves a list & I don’t worry about much. This though needs much more planning than our round the world trip would & has forced me to think about things. This isn’t something I’m used to & it’s making my tiny brain hurt. Couple this with the fact that we’re not 100% sure whether we’re going to come back to the mountains next winter its put a little strain over the last week or so.
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| Spending Summer in Italy. Its tough life |
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| Big puddles though |
Why wouldn’t we come back next winter after how great it’s been (so I’ve been telling you all)? Everything I have said in previous blogs is true, it is wonderful here & we have loved it. Me more than the wife maybe, but that’s hardly surprising. You might not notice it when you’re on holiday & it’s not been completely obvious to me until recently but it is such a bloke place. Your whole world evolves around sport & beer. You spend the day boarding or skiing, you then spend the night drinking beer (its cheapest) talking about it or going to watch football or talking about football. Those of you who know the wife will know that this is just not her. Even the other girls here are blokey tomboys so there isn’t any getting away from it for her. Its not just that either, we’re both older than the workers here & don’t share much in common with them. The old time seasonairs are no better, they’re all a bit manic & not something we aspire to. But it’s also the remoteness of it. I know in the grand scheme of things we’re not far from anywhere but we’re not close to anything either. For a ski resort Val is quite big but as a town it’s tiny, & as mentioned before we’re in a little bubble not knowing what’s going on in the real world. Our life is skiing & as much as I love it, too much of a good thing and all that? If you don’t ski then what do you do. Passing the time for a day is ok, for a week even but what then? We haven’t had to work either & like in a Vanilla Skye the other night (a waste of 2 hours of my life that I will never get back) you can’t enjoy the sweet without a bit of bitter. Coming back is definitely not ruled out, Like I said above it has been great, we just need to find a job that will suit us both. We are looking into working in a chalet for the season. As with all jobs it has it’s down sides but with more to our life than drinking beer & boarding it should give us more perspective. (What the hell am I say, more to life than drinking & boarding, I must be going mental). Anyway I’m of for a board then a beer.
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| Through the eye of the Needle. |
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| The big melt has started |
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