We had to be up a wee bit earlier than we had been doing as we were being picked up at 8:25am. The taxi arrived promptly and he dropped us off outside the Hotel jägerwirt rasy for the coach to come and take us to the airport. We didn't have to wait all that long. there was another pickup in St Johann and that was it. We arrived at Salzburg airport in good time and I got the skis checked in straight away but we had to queue to check-in for a rather long time as the girl on the desk was rather slow. Our luggage allowance was 20kg each and our bags each weighed over 24kg, they didn't say anything, but I think we were pushing it a bit!

We were in Terminal 2 (the new terminal that is only open in Winter) more commonly known as the Cowshed due to it's rather large empty nature. The flight took off on time and we were back in the UK for 2pm. The luggage came off in good time. We then caught the bus to the car park to get the car.

I think I've said this before but the standard of driving on the motorways in this country is absolutely appalling - we saw a huge amount of shocking driving betwee the airport and home, it's no wonder there are accidents.

After getting unpacked we popped to Asda to get something for tea and then sat down to view the photos we'd taken on holiday.

As the only place outside of Kitzb&uumlhel we'd ventured to was Brixen on Wednesday so in order to get some more value from our Allstar passes we decided to head over to the Steinplatte at Waidring, a 40 minute bus ride away.

The weather was quite a bit more promising today, in fact when we got to the top of the gondola it was absolutely glorious. As for skiing it was actually rather good - quite a number of long, wide blues and reds. It was quite busy - especially at the huts! We both had a good day's skiing and it went very quickly.

We caught the bus back at 3:20pm as we had to pack as tomorrow we're going home. It took quite a while to pack and for some reason I was getting a bit flustered. Once we'd finished we went down to the Chinese restaurant for tea, which, as it had been on the two previous occasions was excellent.

A couple for drinks in the hotel bar rounded off what was a really good holiday. It's so much of a shame that this was the last time we'll be staying at Hotel Haselsberger as it closes in March. If we want to come back next year we'll have to find somewhere else to stay and that may prove tricky especially over race weekend.

We decided to go back up onto the Hahnenkamm today - after Nikki's horrendous day yesterday she wanted to get her confidence back on some familiar runs.

After a few runs around on top we decided to ski down the Fleckalm which wasn't too bad. We stopped off and had lunch down at one of the hutson the way. Once we'd reached the bottom we got into the Fleckalmbahn gondola and went back up. Unfortunately by the time we got back to the top the cloud had come down making in difficult to see. Nevertheless we managed to ski back to the Hahnenkamm gondola and got that back down to Kitzbühel.

It wasn't too late when we got back to the hotel. We had a drink with Andrew and Christine before Lois took them off to th station to get their train. As they only live in Keighley, about half an hour from us we'll be seeing them again!

That meant Niki and I had to eat out on our own tonight. We went to Restaurant Alt Kitzb&uumlhel (Augustiner Bräu which was excellent - the food was outstanding - and it was no smoking to boot!

As we'd got the Allstar ski pass we decided to venture a bit further afield today.

Brixen im Thale has quite a vast area to go at and was only a short bus journey away. When we got there we got a piste map (well we got a few actually - to take back to the hotel for other guests who may want to venture out this way) and decided where we were going to head.

We did a number of runs and managed to get back to the top of the gondola on one occasion, but it must have taken another three attempts before we managed to find that run again!

There were a considerable number of groups of people of varying levels some of whom didn't seem to be in control of their equipment... The terrain was rather bumpy as it had been snowing overnight and although I was having a good time of it Nikki wasn't particularly enjoying herself. That was confounded when whe took a rather hefty fall. After that we decided to call it a day and headed back down to get the bus. We had over an hour to wait and so went for some lunch at one of the huts next to the gondola.

For tea we went back tot he Chinese again - it was Andrew & Christine's last night as they're setting off back home tomorrow, The experience was equally as good as last night's and as well as the free glass of plum wine we were also treated to a complimentary dessert of lychees and fruit salad which was rather nice.

A few drinks back in the hotel bar rounded the evening off very nicely. Andrew and Christine don't leave until late tomorrow so we'll catch up with them before they go.

As I'd not had a particularly good day of it yesterday we decided to head up to the Kitzbüheler Horn for a bit a familiar territory.

We skied the usual runs and I felt a bit of confidence coming back - even if I did have a couple of silly falls! We skied down to the Mittelstation and had lunch at the Adlerh7uuml;tte, whihc was really nice. We also saw (but didn't speak to!) our old ski instructor Hans. He was the instructor we had when we first came at Christmas in 2005 but I wasn't hkeen on his style!

In the afternoon we headed back up and did a few more runs before it came in cloudy and the light went really flat.

For tea we decided to go to the Chinese restaurant just down the hill from the hotel. It was really nice - the family that run are very welcoming, the food really good and best of all - no smoking. We all enjoyed it and they even gave us a gift of a bottle of Chinese plum wine (of which we were given a sample glass - served warm and very tasty!). We all enjoyed it so much we decided we'd come nback again tomorrow - so we reserved a table.

It then was back to the hotle for a few drinks.

No ski school this week, we were skiing on our own, As we'd enjoyed the ski safari we did on Thursday so much we decided to do it again. For some reason (not sure why ) I'd lost some confidence maybe it was because it was slightly icy and so didn't quite enjoy it as much.

We skied right across to Breitmoos and got there for early afternoon. The bus back to Kitzb&uumlhel was at 3:20pm. It wouldn't have been possible to ski all the way back again so we went down to Hollersbach in the gondola. We had a drink in the cafe and were going to have a bit of lunch but we were hijacked by a slightly drunk Austrian chap who decided to come and join us! He was very difficult to understand, not sure whether that was to do with his accent or his drunken state - maybe a combination of the two!

So we didn't have any lunch and made do with a snack bar in the gondola back up. The bus was prompt and there were quite a few getting on. In fact it's a good job we did get on where we did because we got a seat. There were a huge number of people waiting to get on at Paß Thurn and it was a squash getting everybody on!

For tea we decided to go to the Zinnkrug, again the Andrew and Christine. The food was really nice but it was extremely smoky and that made it very uncomfortable. We were all glad to get out!

The slalom race was in two halves and the first run started at 10:15am. The finish area was in a different place than it was for the Super-G and the Downhill. In fact the VIP Zone was on the other side and we were slightly above the finish area, not the best vantage point but not bad.

The first run was won by the Austrian Reinfried Herbst - much to the delight of his fans! Unfortunately he skied out in the second run and the overall race was won by Frenchman Julien Lizeroux.

Afterwards we had another walk into town and what a contract from yesterday - it was more or less deserted. In fact it was like a mass exodus, people were leaving by the car full! The stalls that were readily serving lashing of gl&uumlhwein yesterday were being packed away.

Last night was the last night we were being fed at the hotel and so we had to go out for tea. We went out with Andrew and Christine (a couple who arrived from England by train on Thursday) and we went to the Huberbräu. The beer was nice, but my pizza was a little disappointing - the base was rather stodgy but everyone else's food was fine. It was a little bit smoky (yes smoking is still allowed in Austrian establishments).

We'd just about finished and were about to leave when we were joined by a couple of lads obviously a little worse for wear - they were pleasant and harmless enough and quite amusing. It was about an hour later when we left! Not a bad evening really.

As we sat down to breakfast there were droves of people heading towards the race course. There were different bands with various sorts of musical instruments, cow bells and a huge amount of air horns!

Didier Cuche's parents were at breakfast and so I wished them all the best for Didier.

We joined the throng just before 10am and headed towards the VIP Zone which we imagined would be heaving. As it was it wasn't too bad when we got there but it did start filling up as the start of the race approached although it didn't get quite a packed out as we thought it would. We did have a bit of room to move however for a short period of time I did have a rather tall fellow stood in front of me obscuring my view.

It was incredible to see the speed at which the racers come down the mountain. Thankfully this year there was no repeat of the horrendous accident akin to that of Scott Macartney last year, but the American TJ Lanning took a tumble and he had to be airlifted off. The news came through later on that he was okay.

The race was won by the Swiss skier Didier Defago - and not Didier Cuche but at least the Swiss technicians staying in the hotel were happy as he won on Lange boots and Rossignol skis.

After the race we stayed on to watch the the Kitz Charity Trophy. basically there are 20 teams comprising various ex-professional skiers and celebrities each competing on a small slalom course. Formula 1 organiser Bernie Ecclestone was the referee and other British celebrities included David Coulthard (who fell and wasn't wearing gloves so he cut his hands to ribbons) and Ronan Keating - who snow-ploughed all the way down - but at least he made it down on one piece.

Once the charity race finished we walked into town - my goodness it was absolutely crammed, there were people everywhere! People falling down drunk - not a pretty sight!

We didn't go out after tea and just had a few drinks in the bar.

First thing we did was to pop down to the Hahnenkammbahn to meet Renate to get our ski school badges. From there we went across the road an took up our positions in the VIP Zone (standing) ready for the Super-G race. we were there for just after 10am although the race didn't actually start until 11:30am we were able to soak up some of the atmosphere.

The weather started out glorious and got a bit duller as time went by, but it did remain dry for the whole time. It was a good race which was won by an Austrian Klaus Kröll much to the delight of the crowd.

It was around mid afternoon by the time all the racers had come down, we had a wander around town before heading back to the hotel.

In the evening we were having a drink in the bar when the Swiss skier, Didier Cuche walked in (his parents are staying in the hotel). As he was going I cheekily asked him if we could have a photo with him to which he agreed , but I'd switched the flash off on my camera earlier and couldn't find the option to switch it back on in a hurry so the two photos we have came out a bit dark. He wasn't hanging around for me to sort the flash out - he's got an important race tomorrow!

Today we skied the Ski Safari which was excellent. We did all the runs across to the Pengelstein and then got the 3S across to the Paß Thurn and skied most of the runs over there and then down to the bottom Paß Thurn chairlift. A total of around 35km skiing - which isn't bad going! It was quite hard going and tiring but we both really enjoyed. We got a taxi back from Paß Thurn to Kitzbühel.

After tea we went down to Sigi's Pub which is part of the Hotel Jägerwirt as Jochan from our ski group and his girlfriend who was in the other ski group are leaving tomorrow and they were meeting there for a drink. We had a couple of drinks and then came back to the hotel. The rest of them were planning on doing a pub crawl but we didn't fancy it.

We met the group at the usual spot, the Hahnenkammbahn. We then went up onto the Hahnenkamm and skied quite a bit up there and over across towards the Steinbergkogel, where we had lunch.

After lunch the visibility got quite a bit worse and so Nikki and I opted to go down in the gondola raer than skiing down - especially given Nikki's fall the other day.

When we got back we popped back to the hotel and then went into town where we bumped into one of our ski group and his girlfriend, who was in the other 'sister' group to ours which is incidentally run by Renate's daughter Jackie. Apparently both groups were skiing down the mountain one behind the other. Two of the lads in Jackie's group were messing about trying to jump over mounds of snow when one of them ended up not managing one jump and going ski tips first into a mound and breaking his leg - painful

After tea we had our usual walk into town and then a couple of drinks in the bar .

We met Renate and the rest of the group at the Hahnenkammbahn and we caught the bus across to the Kitzb&uumleler Horn. It was snowing all day which did make visibility a bit poor and the light very flat. Nevertheless we skied quite a bit on the t-bar run that Nikki and I did on Sunday.

From there we attacked the red runs down from the top, which actually weren't too bad. though looking up from the Alpenhaus they do look a bit steep! We had lunch up at the Hornköfl-H&uumltte which was very nice. We then did the reds a few more times before skiing down to the Mittelstation to get the gondola down as the full run down is still closed even though there is quite a bit of snow .

After tea we had another wander into town before coming back to the hotel for a few drinks.

We had to be at the Ski school for 9:30am and we were! We then had to 'audition' to see which group we were to be in. As Nikki and I ski at pretty much the same level it was no surprise that we were in the same group. We saw Brian, the instructor that we had last year and had a bit of a chat to him but we weren't in his group. This year our instructor was a little Austrian lady called Renate.

We went up onto the Hahnenkamm and did a few runs down one of the smaller slopes so that Renate could get a feel for all of our abilities and from there we did quite a number of blue and red runs - down the Fleckalm, where we had lunch then up onto the Steinbergkogel, we even did a black run - the thing with Renate was that she didn't tell you where we were going or how steep it was, we just had to follow her! It was a good if tiring day. It's a good job we have been going to the gym as had we not been then I doubt I would have been up to the amount of skiing, As it was by the end of the day my thigh muscles were killing! The last run of the day was down the Hahnenkamm and Nikki took a bit of a tumble and hurt herslef quite badly - she fell and must have landed on one of her sticks because her abdomen was really painful.

The Swiss ski team technicians are staying in the hotel all week, which means from tonight until Saturday we can have an evening meal without having to go out. We had to have whatever the Swiss chaps were having - but as Stefan's cooking is always good that didn't matter.

After we'd eaten we went out into town for a bit of a walk to burn off tea and then came back and had a couple of drinks in the bar before heading off to bed ready for whatever Renate has in store for us tomorrow!

Not sure whether it's the pure mountain air, the Austrian beer but most likely I suspect it is the amount consumed but I always seem to suffer with blocked sinuses on the first day of our holiday and today was no exception. Anyway it didn't hamper us!

The first thing was to get our ski passes - we needed a 13-day card (even though we'll be having a break for the Race it was still cheaper to get a card for 13 days rather than two separate 5 day passes. We decided to get the Allstar card which means we can ski in any of quite a number of resorts in the area for only a few euros more than the Kitzbühel only ski-pass. We did the same aas we did when we came last year and went up onto the Kitzbüheler Horn and skied around up there.

The runs are quite good to get the old ski legs back! We had lunch in the Alpenhaus restaurant, which was okay although as it is a large self-service joint the quality isn't up to that of some of the smaller huts.

The weather was pretty good in the morning but the light became rather flat in the afternon as it got duller. Once we'd finished skiing we came down and booked ski school for four days starting tomorrow.

We, along with Keith & Julie, the other two English regulars staying at the hotel were invited for dinner at Ulli & Lois's. Lois picked us up at quarter to 7. It was a really nice evening but not a particularly late one.

As our flight form Manchester was at 8:10am we had to get up early - 3:30am no less! We got the car packed up okay, although getting two pairs of skis plus enough luggage for a two week ski holiday into a MINI is no mean feat! We left home around 4:30am and got to the Shuttle Park at Manchester airport just after an hour later.

The flight to Salzburg was on time and we arrived in good time, in fact it was about 11am local time. The luggage came off relatively quickly and we went to get our coach where we were met by the rep Alyson, who we know from our previous visits as she's been in Kitzbühel all the time we've been going!

It was around mid afternoon by the time we arrived at the hotel - to a nice welcome message on the blackboard!

After we'd unpacked we headed into Kitzbühel to get a few provisions as well as our tickets for the Race (which we'd reserved in September).

In the evening we did intend to go out for something to eat but instead ended up having a few drinks and a snack in the hotel bar.

As it's Friday we had to leave a bit earlier due to Nikki having her early morning meeting. The traffic wasn't too bad at least.

I concentrated on getting my Plone content finished, which I managed, although I was rushing towards lunchtime as I wanted to get off as I was finishing!

Nikki had a hair cut appointment in the afternoon and I re-packed my bag as I wasn't happy with it. Now I'm more at ease with it, though really I could probably do with a bigger one as an awful lot of stuff is crammed in!

We took Indie to the cattery, she seemed to be much more at ease in the car this time than she has on previous journeys. On the way back we called in at Morrisons to get something for tea.

The evening was spent catching up on the Super-Combined ski racing from Wengen.

It was another fairly slow journey into work again.

I spent the morning styling the Plone website and got it somewhere near to what I had before - in fact I made a couple of improvements along the way.

At lunchtime I popped to the Post Office to resend the eBay package I'd had returned the other day. Then in the afternoon I started to look at some work on another of our websites - in fact one that I did a few years ago. I was led to believe that the changes required wouldn't be much and I reckoned on about 5 days work, however when I looked in more detail there was a considerable amount more there than I thought, consequently 5 days will become more like 15! Oh well can't win 'em all can you! It does seem a bit daft though, me having to do all this work on a website that will be consigned to the history books once we get the Content Management System (Plone possibly).

The journey home wasn't a slow as it has been on previous evenings. We did the usual Thursday routine of keep fit and gym. Then caught up on some more television after tea.

I was called out again this morning - at 5:30am. It was exactly the same problem as yesterday and as Roger had emailed me instructions as to what to do I was able to sort it myself. Once I'd sorted it I went back to bed but couldn't get back to sleep.

we didn't get a call from postie this morning, nor did we need to call in at the Post Office, but the journey to work was a wee bit slow.

Due to yesterday's problems with Plone I had to set about redoing all my work. Due to the fact that I had two meetings and we were going out for our team Christmas lunch I only managed to get the users set up and a small amount of content done. I was meant to do some other work starting today, but that's had to be postponed!

As for the team lunch we went to Sukhothai in Chapel Allerton. As usual the food was excellent.

Nikki and I both went to the gym not long after getting home after yet another slow journey. Not sure what was wrong but the traffic was backed up along Stanningley bypass and even up the slip road towards Pudsey. The gym was up to its usual busy Wednesday self, but we managed to get on everything okay.

After tea we just caught up on some more television.

What a bloomin' day! It started off quite badly and then got worse, but then it did get a little better!

Firstly I was on call and got called at 6am then posite paid us a visit - delivering the Helly Hansen thermal tops I'd bought from eBay. That meant I didn't get back to sleep.

We called in at the Post Office again to pick up the parcel that wasn't there yesterday - at least today it was actually there and it was, as I expected the book I ordered for my mum - but not just one copy, but two! I thought I'd only ordered one, but oh no when I got home I dfound I'd actually ordered two! Also there was one of my eBay items returned. I posted it out at the end of November and it didn't get delivered to the recipient so I got it back! Anyway I have emailed her to see what she wants me to do.

After our stop off the journey was blighted by buses and slow traffic, but amazingly we still got to work roughly on time. I continued doing a bit more reading about Plone and then Martyn from the service centre paid me a visit to help get the email and LDAP set up. We did the email and which was quite straight-forard but LDAP was a different kettle of fish... We eventually managed to get the plug-in visible and then when we came to install it that's when the problems really started. It would appear the plug-in install failed and we weren't able to get Plone back working. So we saved the old version and installed a new one in the hope that we might be able to access the old content.

Alas and alack that didn't help, leaving me with the prospect of having to redo all the work 've done over the last few weeks.

Later on Nikki rang to say she'll be bringing her apple Mac computer home and so would need me to drive across to the hospital so we could load it into the car - so I suppose that was a good end to the day!

We spent the evening packing and got the majority of it done, thankfully.

We navigated the major roadworks that appeared in the centre of Pudsey last week and called at the Post Office on the way to work to pick up another parcel that they'd tried to deliver on Friday. As it was they couldn't find it so we left empty handed. It didn't delay our journey too work too much.

I added a bit more content into Plone, had a look at trying to understand how Plone workflows work properly. Paul also wanted to add some content so I gave him a bit of guidance. Our overall boss, John Walker wanted a demonstration so Paul and I duly obliged. We think he was impressed, but he doesn't give much away!

It was the usual Monday evening of keep fit and gym. I spoke to my mum on the phone when we got home. I also had a text from my sister Denise to say she'd put petrol in her new diesel Honda Civic. Thankfully she hadn't driven it too far and she got it drained so it should be okay. It could have been a very costly mistake!

No prizes for guessing what we did this morning - yes that's right went to the gym!

The weather was rather windy and it remained so all day, that also meant the temperature warmed up a bit.

We nipped down to Asda to get a few minor provisions and then set about watching the ski racing we'd recorded. Nikki also did the ironing, I made a lasagne for tea.

I ordered a couple of holiday brochures for next year's ski trip and I also thought I'd apply to be a contestant on Deal Or No Deal - but I couldn't complete the application form before it was bed time and some of the question they ask you - well! Whether I get on remains to be seen but hey it's worth a shot!

Nikki had her car booked in for it's MOT at 10am and before that we had to go to DHL in Kirkstall to pick up some Sasha tickets that Nikki had ordered from Germany on Wednesday evening! When we talk about Sasha we don't mean the DJ, oh no this is a German popstar that Nikki has got into after hearing him on Austrian radio. She's booked us a trip to Munich to go and see him in May. While we were down that way we also had time to pop into Severn Sports to pick up our skis after having them serviced. We'd normally stop and have a natter, but we didn't really have time today.

It was about 11:30am when we went to pick Nikki's car up. It passed the MOT although there were a couple of points - she will shortly be needing a new front tyre and the exhaust has a bit of corrosion, though nothing to worry about. From there we went to Home Bargains, TK Maxx and Aldi in Bradford. We then came home and had a bit of lunch before catching the bus into Leeds. We got a few tops in the Sale at Nevis Sport and some more ski socks from TK Maxx.

We were going to have some tea out but had a drink in all Bar One and then decided to come back and get a takeaway from our local Chinese, Mr Go Wah, something that we haven't done for absolutely ages! He doesn't seem to be open all that much these days. His food used to be really good but I didn't think my chicken curry was up to much to be honest, but Nikki thought her chicken and cashew nuts was fine.

Nikki had a meeting at 8:15am and so we had to leave a bit earlier than normal, but I got up a bit earlier anyway as Postie brought us yet another parcel and guess what - it was yet another bloomin' ski jacket a bit of an eBay bargain though it has to be said! That means I've got a couple that I bought earlier to go back on eBay!

Again I cracked on with the Plone content that I'd been doing yesterday, I had a few minor issues along the way, but that was mainly down to me trying to include some jQuery into the equation - well when the subject of the topic I'm writing about is jQuery I've obviously got to include some examples haven't I?

We finished work a wee bit earlier and Nikki went off to the shopping and then after tea we started sorting out what skiwear we're going to take on holiday - believe me it did take the whole evening!

Once we'd finally finished we caught uo on a bit of television and so to bed...

Another fairly mild morning again, although the street did have a slight covering of frost.

The heating engineer seems to have done the trick with the heating as the office wasn't as stifling when we got in this morning.

I spent the day with Plone, I had a chat with a couple of people about getting the email side of things working and getting the LDAP add-on installed. I finshed off the styling work and then started adding some content.

It was the usual Thursday routine of Nikki's keep fit class and me going to the gym, although we had a bit of a delay as we had to come back home to get our entrance cards as Nikki had forgotten them!

After tea we watched some television and even though we got home around the same time as last night we appeared to have more time - explain that then!

It was a wee bit milder this morning and in fact it was raining a bit when we got up.

I fixed a small bug that I found yesterday and then gave Nick and Steve a bit more help with their CSS in the morning. At lunchtime I nipped out to fill up my car with petrol as opposed to doing it on the way home. It cost £37 to fill up which was pleasantly surprising as it had got up to around £50 before the price of petrol started falling.

The afternoon was spent doing a bit more with the styling on Plone, I've got a colour scheme I'm quite happy with now, although it's not particularly exciting I think it will please the masses.

I didn't feel that tired today - we kept opening the door in the office to let in some fresh air and that seemed to do the trick. A heaing engineer came to look at the heating as well because that wasn't working correctly. He's adjusted the valve so hopefully that should make things a bit more comfortable.

We went to the gym early in the evening so that we had a bit more time, however that didn't seem to pan out that way, it was still nearly 9pm before we had tea! Not sure where the time went!

I upgraded the firmware on my phone in the hope I might be able to get Google Mail working on it but it didn't do the trick. A bit more investigation required...

Another cold day today although there wasn't the covering of snow that we had yesterday morning. In fact the weather forecasters are saying it's going to remain cold until at least the weekend, It makes a change to have a prolonged cold spell in winter as we haven't had one for quite some time, in fact on the news this evening people were asking if the cold temperatures had broken any records - but oh no the current low of -9°C is nowhere near the lowest we've had in recent years - which is apparently -17°C so a bit to go yet then!

I spent the morning continuing with the work on Plone and then I helped Nick and Steve out with some frustrating CSS work in the afternoon. Basically all we were doing was trying to style a small box with two input fields, but I think there was a problem with the way the fields were defined via Spring and we had some conflicts somewhere in the CSS. We stripped everything back and started from scratch and that seemed to go most of the way to curing the problem.

Not sure whether it's the room we're working in or what but both today and yesterday I've come out of work with a splitting headache.

In the evening we caught up on some ski racing and a couple of other bits. Sad people that we are we got into Deal or No Deal over Christmas and I've set it up on Sky+ so we don't miss it.

Well it didn't feel as though I'd been off work for two weeks when we went back today.

It was a bit chilly this morning and the street had a slight dusting of snow but it didn't hamper our journey.

I spent most of the day working on Plone I need to get it set up so that it sends an email to the owner of a document when that document has been published but O couldn't seem to get the email side of things working. I also need to get it set up so that we can use LDAP security but that appears to need an add-on downloading, which I obviously won't be able to do at work. n

The colour scheme I'd come up with when Idid the demo didn't go down too well, so I spent a bit of time changing it and basically that was my day over.

Nikki and I did the usual Monday keep fit and gym sessions and then watched just a couple of bits on television.

I also put one of the ski jackets I'd bought last year on eBay - well I don't really need three of 'em now do I?

Just as we did last Sunday we got up and went to the gym. It was due to be closed from tomorrow for three days for redecoration but for some reason it now isn't.

We spent the afternoon cleaning upstairs and I then changed the bed. Later on I gave Nikki a bit of a guitar lesson as I'd bought her a songbook for Christmas so tat she can play along. As it was the first time she's played a guitar she didn't do badly at all - I taught her the A and G chords and she picked them up, with a bit of practice she should have them off to a t. We had to stop after around an hour though as her fingers were hurting!

After tea we watched some bits we'd recorded including the women's slalom ski racing from Zagreb.

We popped to Morrisons in the morning to get some rubber gloves so that we could wash the cars, we got a takeaway curry to take round to Andy's for this evening and also took some bottles to the bottle bank for recycling.

The cars were both a real disgrace and so were in dire need of a wash. It was a bit chilly but we got wrapped up and braved it.

We went over to Andy's mum and dad's as arranged. We had a drink and then I set Andy's dad up an email account as he didn't have one. He also wants a CD-RW drive for his computer. It's quite old and uses Windows 2000 so I'm not sure whether a modern DVD drive would work. I said I'd see what I could do.

Once I'd finished we went round to Andy's. His wife Wendy was menat to be joining us but she'd decided to go out instead. So we had a few drinks and the takeaway curry we'd got. Nikki had a go on the Wii with Andy's two lads Jake and Josh while Andy and I just had a natter in the kitchen.

It wasn't a late night by any stretch of the imagination and we were home well before 10pm.

We got up relatively early as my mum was coming over. We'd arranged for her to come across at around 10:30am but were ready much before then as she always tends to be early. True to form this time was no different she was here for just after 10am. She wanted me to have a look for a couple of things on the internet for her, which I did and I ordered a couple of books that she wanted.

After mum had been we walked into Pudsey, I had yet another parcel to pick up from the Post Office (this time it was the Paul Weller CD boxset I'd ordered). We did a trawl of the travel agents to see what the best Euro rate we could get and they were all the same 1.01 . Usually we get our holiday money from the Co-op however this time they didn't have enough, so we got them from Thomas Cook instead.

Nikki did the shopping in the afternoon and I watched a bit of television. Then after tea we watched some more television - Skier's World that I'd recorded from earlier and then the film 'This Is England' which is a drama about a group of skinheads and was actually pretty good.

I also spoke to Andy about what time was best ofr us to go across tomorrow - he reckoned about 4pm.

We did have a lie-in this morning even though we weren't all that late to bed and we got up just after 10am.

I had a little play on my guitar before we headed across to see Nikki's dad in the afternoon. The roads were very quiet and so it only took us about 40 minutes.

Keith and Jayne had already got there by the time we arrived. We had a drink and then Myra had done some dinner - lamb chops something I'm not overly keen on if I'm honest - too much fat on them for one thing but the main reason is that when we used to have them when I was a child my father used to make me eat the whole damn things so that the bone was bare! A bit like peas - I have a dislike for them due to the way my nan used to cook them when I was a child - talk about over cooked I'm sure she used to put them on at the same time as she put the meat in the oven!

It was a quiet affair and we were back homer again before 8pm. I spoke to my mate Andy about going over to his on Saturday to get his dad's email sorted and then perhaps doing something on Saturday night.

We got up-to-date on the ski racing and also watched a couple of Skier's World programmes we'd recorded off the Travel Channel. It's given us some ideas for next year's ski trip - Big White in Canada looks interesting...