Without a coach to transport us to the airport there was absolutely no excuse to turn up at Maz’s place early to have a couple of beers before we left.  Everyone arrived at Birmingham airport by car, checked in and then wandered, half asleep, around the airport searching for breakfast and others they knew.  With relatively few newcomers everyone soon gathered together, bought things they didn’t really want from the tax free shops and headed onto the plane bound for Toulouse.  The flights and transfers were relatively stress free and we arrived at Soldeu to be greeted by a fair amount of snow. Sally’s handbag also arrived with us in Soldeu but soon departed, never to be seen again, as she had left it on the transfer bus. This was just the first in a series of attempts throughout the week, by both Sally and Sue, to lose everything they possessed.  They had clearly been to the Maz school of insurance claiming.

The Sporthotel Village was superb and upon entering the hotel foyer and gazing at it’s splendour we all assumed we had come to the wrong place, either that or they were expecting Posh & Becks for a re-run of their wedding reception. The hotel food was excellent in quantity, choice and quality and Caz took full advantage of it’s buffet style by quickly establishing her own multi-pudding menu.  The lounge bar overlooked the piste, which was excellent for relaxing with a beer watching the many and varied disasters on the final black runs down to ground level. 

The mountain facilities had improved immensely since our previous visit in 1995, with new gondolas, chairlifts and restaurants everywhere.  One of the most notable changes observed by those who were on the ’95 trip was the absence of the ranging metal footbridge across the gorge which was famously christened ‘Potter’s Bridge’ after Geoffrey walked virtually it’s length moaning about how much his feet were hurting only to realise he had got his boots on the wrong feet.  The memory of Potter balancing precariously on that bridge changing his boots over will never be forgotten.

Up the mountain there was some decent snow throughout the week and we all soon set about exploring the piste area.  Carpy immediately demonstrated the madness we all knew he possessed by leading us down a steep, ice covered black run within minutes of setting off on the first morning.  This certainly abruptly woke us all up and clearly illustrated a lack of edges on Adey’s skis (or that’s what we thought he said as his head popped up from under a pile of snow, ski and pole debris at the bottom of the slope)

Unfortunately, by about Tuesday we had seen all there was to offer and for the remainder of the week we travelled over and over old ground looking for new challenges.  A lengthy racetrack was discovered after a short draglift to the top and this was regularly frequented throughout the week. Racing wipeouts were inevitable with Tom’s high speed disappearance through a fence on the S-bend the most spectacular resulting in him being suspended off the ground trussed up like a joint of meat wrapped in orange plastic fencing.  The short way down to the end of the racetrack was by a black run with adjoining tree-lined off piste area.  Needless to say after a few zips down the black run the usual suspects ventured off into the trees. On one occasion Carpy, Caz, Martin, Calvin Jnr, & Tom disappeared for some considerable time and finally emerged from the trees displaying evidence of being waist deep in snow having ventured down a cutting that was a little deeper than expected.

Special mention must be made of Bud, who gave up most of his mornings to coach the beginners amongst us. Well done mate.

Unfortunately a few unplanned days off were forced on the likes of Martin, Tankster & Hensh having picked up some kind of bug than necessitated constant close proximity to the lavatorial facilities.

Unsurprisingly football featured strongly on the social side of the week but not so much watching as playing...........table football that is. A nearby bar had a table and most nights the locals would come down to show us just how poor we are at the table top game (tis true there isn't much else for the locals to do in Soldeu at night). Calvin and Bunny teamed up and gave us all much ammunition for p*ss taking by being repeatedly thrashed by a team of girls. Eventually, all the practice paid off late on in the week when they did eventually beat the girls but unfortunately, were so trashed at the time they didn't notice.

Shelly also demonstrated just how good she would be as a pole dancer when the red bull led her into a cage in the nightclub for a fine display.

Finally, the week over, the hounds headed for home with a load of ideas about 2 weeks in Canada or the USA for next year............ Inevitably, when the dust had settled, France was named as the destination for 2003.......just for the week.