No food in the house

Hello. Just back from holiday in La Plagne, France. Now starting the mother of all laundry days.

I won't bore you with the details, but I will say that we had sun and snow in the right quantities and the only injuries I received were a bruised leg (from running over a small child) and two bruised elbows (a consequence of sleeping in an eighteen-inch wide bunk bed). It was the safest ever snowboarding trip I've been on because I shared a chalet with eight doctors and an optician (who mended my glasses when I sat on them). I've stuck some photos up behind the link on the right.

On the last day we managed to get the absolute final last cable car up the mountain - we had to commando roll under the barrier and they slammed the doors shut when we go off at the top. The result of this determination to savour every last second of the last day was that we were chased down the mountain by very excited search-and-rescue dogs, who sweep the mountain at the end of every day for bodies. There is nothing like a large Alsatian snapping at your heels to improve your snowboarding skills. In fact, my subsequent idea for fast-track snowboard lessons is to give novices a snowboard, place them on top of a black-run and unleash dogs on them.

PS the socks were great, although I had to use bits of trimmed down mouse-mat to stop the boots rubbing.