Thursday 11th February 1999

Martin R spent a while quietly padding around, getting himself ready for the impending assault on the ski slopes. However, it probably wouldn't have made any difference to the sleeping masses if he had let off a Thunderflash every few minutes, as nothing was going to wake any of the others without a lot of effort.

Eventually, efforts took their own course and all but Keith managed to get themselves into a vertical position. Sara took great delight in extracting Keith from his duvet by deft tickling of his feet, and we were then at last all ready to go.

Keith, Martin F and Martin R took the car and followed Magda's husband to the ski rental shop, and thence to the ski slopes, while Colin and Sara decided to explore the local area on foot.

The ski resort was very small, with only two runs that between them made up the shape of a dollar sign ($). The main run made up the "S", and was relatively easy (roughly blue-level), which gave all of us a good chance to re-learn how to ski. There was a second run that just went straight down the side of the mountain (the strike through the "S"), and this was considerably more difficult - roughly a black on the top half and a red on the bottom half. Keith and Martin R progressed to the red run relatively quickly, while Martin F - who had only ever been on dry slopes before - wisely decided to take a bit longer to get accustomed to the differences between dry-ski runs and the longer, more slippery snow-laden mountain.

Keith and Martin F about to start a run

The view from the top of the mountain

Martin R had spent the first hour doing the typical "bad workman" bit and blaming his tools for his lack of control. However, by the time he came to tackle the red run he had got his boots set up just right, and had had a couple of good runs down the main drag, and was therefore brimming with confidence about his abilities to cope with the red run. He launched himself over the edge at a pace that astounded even madman Keith, and was loving every second of it, when disaster struck barely twenty yards from the bottom.

As any skier will testify, the only problem with using unfamiliar equipment is that getting one part set up just right merely exposes the limitations of whatever is *not* set up right, and so it proved for Martin. Half-way through a full-on turn, the bindings on both skis gave way, and Martin was launched into mid-air. The rest of the skiers queueing for the lift were then treated to the sight of a huge human snowball hurtling towards them, crashing straight through the catch fencing and being suspended above them by a section of the catch fencing that had managed to wrap itself around his ankles. It was a very sheepish - and completely snow-covered - Martin R who picked himself up, extricated himself from the catch fencing and made his way back up the hillside to round up the rest of his widely-scattered gear.

This was rather easier said than done, for although one ski and the two ski poles were easy to find, the other ski had literally disappeared into thin air, despite there being absolutely nowhere for it to go. After about fifteen or twenty minutes of fruitless searching, one of the other skiers queueing for the lift said that he had seen where it had gone and gesticulated in the direction of a completely untouched bank of snow a couple of feet to the left of where Martin had crashed through the catch fencing. With an expression of "why am I doing this" written all over his face, Martin duly did was he was told, took one of his poles and hacked the snowbank to pieces. Sure enough, about two feet down, there was the missing ski. Relief!

While all this excitement was going on, Sara and Colin had made their way into the town, although this was a rather more difficult proposal than might at first be thought. The roads had been cleared, but there was no pavement - what was once the kerb was now a 3 to 6ft wall of snow which had been shovelled there by the snow plough, so the only option was to walk along the road and brave the oncoming traffic. We quickly spotted the famous Lake Bled with its church on the island in the centre; the trouble was that we couldn't actually tell that the church was on an island as the lake was completely frozen and snowed over. In an attempt to take photos we stepped off the road and sunk up to our thighs in snow!

The town centre was a mixture of boutiquey shops and hotels - obviously the town was very tourist-orientated. Breakfast was a necessity as Sara's stomach was making itself heard, and this took the shape of hot chocolate and pizza. While eating we decided to walk to a church that was perched precariously on the side of a cliff overlooking the lake and town. The walk was very steep in places, and Sara isn't good at hills, so had to be pushed up the steepest bits. This was well worth the walk, as the views that were seen from the top were fantastic. This included the ski slope, which we hadn't realised was so close to the town (AND to the lake). It also looked REALLY steep - was that really where the others had gone?

The skiers were by this time starting to get quite tired, as long-unused muscles started to make themselves felt, and the combination of skiing hard and expending lots of energy with no breakfast that morning and only an airline meal the night before could only go on for so long. A vote to stop for lunch was passed unanimously (once Martin R had found a screwdriver and made his bindings completely airtight!), and we made our way down the hill to a posh-looking restaurant at the bottom. A good lunch was duly had, with Keith going for his usual mixed grill and the two Martins going halves on a peppered steak and a plate of pasta, all washed down by four bottles of Union Pivo.

We came out of the restaurant to find that a group of Slovenians who had arrived at the same time as us were already leaving and were packing the car next to ours. As we retrieved our gear that we had stashed in our car for safe keeping, the Slovenians made a comment about Martin R's spectacular wipeout on the ski slope. When asked how they had recognised us they said "It's the buffalo (referring to Martin R's ski hat) - it's a bit difficult to miss!". With hands full of ski gear Martin R duly waved his left hand in which he was holding his ski hat, as if to say "hello" from the buffalo, and then we set off back up to the ski slope.

It was only when we got to the top that Martin R realized that the buffalo was no longer with him, and despite making a mad dash back to the car, the hat was nowhere to be found. The only conclusion to be drawn was that Martin had dropped his hat as he was waving it, and the Slovenians had taken it with them once we were out of the way.

This depressing lack of honesty over something of such little material value really got Martin down, and although Keith and Martin F managed to cajole him into returning to the ski slopes and doing another hour's worth of runs, his heart really wasn't in it and he decided that he would rather go to Ljubljana that night and spend a day looking around the town, rather than spend a second day skiing. Meanwhile, Keith was pushing the limits still further, and was spending most of his time tackling the black run. Sometimes he survived, other times he didn't, and it was just pure bad luck that Martin R happened to be going back up in the ski lift, camera in hand, on one of the occasions that he did not make it. Wipeout!!

Damn you, Isaac Newton!

Ribbit!

Creme, Gertrude, Kirsch, Grenadine & Hooch

Sara then kept everyone amused by juggling the frogs, while the rest of us pottered around getting ourselves ready to go out and find somewhere to eat.

We were pleased to see that our choice of location also seemed to be the location of choice for the locals, so we decided to stay there to eat. Martin R and Sara went for peppered steaks, while Keith and Colin had mixed grills and Martin F had a chilli pepper pizza.

England: Liz had arrived at Mark and Rob's flat to be told almost immediately that Ljubljana airport was closed. This turned out to be true in that it *had* been closed on Tuesday - as Sara and co. can attest to(!), but it was now fully open. A hasty repacking of thermals then ensued!

Slovenia: Martin R made a phone call to Liz to check that everything was OK with the next wave of players, and that there had been no last-minute hiccups. Liz reported that everything was OK at the UK end, and that everything seemed to be going smoothly. However, "last-minute" was actually a whole night away, and little did either of them know of what was to happen the following morning.

Eventually, after more beer and vodka and some desserts of various local delicacies, we returned to Magda's. Another Mandarin nightcap rounded off the evening very nicely, and we retired to bed ready for our assault the next day on the ski slopes of Kranjska Gora.

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