The Life of Sloth

March 2007 - Posts

• neige, alan, burgers

  hungover riding doesn't work so we`ve been putting alan to bed early and farming the pow first lift till last. loving it a bit too much. sloth landed a switch bs1 today - sweet! petrol came over to play. jarmarl straight over the wall in the park, front flips for goodey, cracked rib for sloth, dented rail for black. ste foy tomorrow - beaucoup de poudre Published with BlogMailr Posted Mar 23 2007, 07:03 AM by le_sloth with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Snowboarding, France

• Back in the UK

  Massive shock to the system arriving back in London on Monday morning - immediately noticing how different everything is to NZ. One of those strange feelings where it both feels like ages since I was here and only 5 minutes ago. Headed straight down to Otford on Monday to catch up with my dad before he went off to Cheltenham. Tuesday I went for a look around Sevenoaks and couldn't resist having a look round Waitrose - still great quality food in there. Cheese, oatcakes, bran flakes (proper ones!), hot cross buns. Love it. Seemed to be quite a few empty shops in Sevenoaks, even Maccas has gone! Loads more restaurants though, but less pubs/bars. Terrible coffee and muffin in Coffee Republic - surely it's not hard to get that right?! Had to take the FEAR on and get up to London in the afternoon, dropping in at Jarmarl's first of all for lunch. His flat loads posherer now - all looking good. Over to mine to do an inspection on the property - pleased to find that my tenant has kept it in immaculate condition . The same cannot be said of the grounds though. My [mis-]management company seem to have done absolutely ***-all since I left - the major works are now 3 years overdue. Unbelievable. . Went for a look round Balham, having a decent coffee in the Nightingale - always rely on them! Things really have got even better in Balham - aside from Waitrose taking over Safeway, there are 4 new delis, loads more bars and restaurants, all looking great now. No wonder house prices have got so ridiculous round there.  Had a look round a very empty TSA - no luck getting any gloves though. Got myself a bit confused trying to get from there to Waterloo - amazing how quick you forget things! Matt, Jarmarl, Oscar, James, Chris, Maisy, Colonel all came out to the pub, got pretty messy (well, I did) and ended up at the curry house over the road. Wednesday, Chris, Maisy and I went out walking near Sevenoaks - something I'd been looking forward to ages. Great weather, great scenery, great to be back with the boys. Walked from Ivy Hatch via Ightham Mote, One Tree Hill, Bitchet Green and Stone Street. Pint and crisps at the Padwell Arms then lunch at The Plough. Shame no ploughman's lunch but food was pretty good anyway. Dave came down to Sevenoaks in the evening for food at Strada. Anyway, we're supposed to be getting the snow train in an hour or so but Mr Jamroll is still working at it and not packed. Shitsticks! Just got news that all Eurostar services are suspended due to a fire. No no no!!! To be continued....    Posted Mar 17 2007, 02:04 AM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: England

• Big Dumpy on way to Lesley!!!

  Here it is - at long last it's finally the day we're off to see Lesley and her mountainous beauties. Woken up far too early - 5:45am, too excited. If I don't get any sleep tonight (will be blaming Dan Black) that should set me up nicely for being up for around 36 hours. One of the reasons we didn't sleep too well was thanks to reading this just before bed: The weather has been amazing throughout the French Alps this week and conditions are generally excellent. The Portes du Soleil has had beautiful sunshine all week and the best riding can be found in the Avoriaz area. The parks in Avoriaz (110/170cms) are also in very good shape. In Alpe d’Huez (119/250cms) there is great riding through the entire Grand Rousses area. All but one lift are open and the pistes are in lovely condition. 30cms of new snow is expected to fall on Monday, which means it could be a powder week next week! Over in the Tarentaise area, some resorts such as Val d’Isere (125/175cms), Tignes (140/220cms), La Plagne (140/260cms), Les Arcs (69/245cms), Meribel (52/192cms), Courchevel (110/188cms) and Val Thorens (155/175cms) have similar excellent conditions. Our rep in Val Thorens said that it was the best snow they had ever skied on last week. So, all in all a lovely time to be out on the slopes in France, and things are set to get even better if new snow falls next week as forecast. (cont'd) In France, the warm and sunny weather will last until Sunday, and then the temperatures will fall and the snow will arrive in abundance. It looks like it is going to dump in France on Monday! Holy crapola! With news like that, we immediately packed the diving gear. Fingers crossed, we'll be back in the trees around Deux Tetes sometime Monday with the big Massey. Sweet. Well, Fancy That is packed, Alan is tired, the schnitzel is crumbed, yet nobody's heard from the Pope or The Stone. Anyone, anyone, Beneke? Team Rome ready to farm. over and out for now Le Sloth  Posted Mar 16 2007, 04:37 PM by le_sloth with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Snowboarding, France

• Wandering across the world

  Leg 1 complete - still got both legs thankfully. Now sitting killing time at Melbourne - got a couple of hours till flight to Adelaide. Been up since 4am NZ time, so Alan is all over me. Mostly smooth flight over with Jetstar - reckon they're the pick of the cheaper airlines by far. Comfy leather seats, new planes and you only pay for what you want (handheld personal video is cool, even if I fell asleep so missed the end of my movie!). There's that Lily Allen LDN vid on here now - now catchy as that song is, pretty sure she just comes across as an annoying trout. There's a new word. And another thing - who was it who arranged for that girl to be standing at arrivals wearing a Thin Lizzy t-shirt?!?! Surely a sign of things to come. Not that I'm revealing anything about an upcoming new release from Fancy That Productions . Still baffles me as to why airports don't just have wireless t'internet available everywhere. I don't mind even if they charge something reasonable for it, but to just not have it at all is ridiculous. Leg 2 - Melbourne-Adelaide You go up, cruise along a bit, quick snack and you're back down again. Quick flight that one. Love the Virgin Blue announcements as we land "Well, I dunno about you lot, but I'm pretty stoked we've landed that one safely. Awesome afternoon for a few beers on the beach if anyone fancies it? Nice one, maybe catchya again some time?!" Yep, that's the proper Aussie staff they've got on there. Ok, so there really seems to be a theme developing now. WTF? How come when I got picked up at the airport, the 2nd song that comes on the radio is none other than "The Boys are back in town"?!?! . Thanks for phoning that one in. Big temperature change here - 37c today so Sloth sweating like a madman. Straight to the storage unit to get the board and kit together. All good. Back to SJ's Dad's place for a barbie and general chilling with a few wines, then Alan really kicked in around 9pm - realised I'd been up since 1:30am local time. Leg 3 - Adelaide-Singapore Checking in from home - that works for me - no queuing at airport whatsoever. Was only 1kg over my limit with board bag and big pack - had been a bit of concern after last time we went to leave here with a 38kg bag! Flight was about 6 hours but went v quickly - watched Babel (good, I think) and got nailed on Super Mario Bros. Watched one of the early episodes of Phoenix Nights - had forgotten how brilliant that is. Genius, pissing myself laughing. "Come and get your black bin bags....". Food not bad, not sure Singapore Airlines are as good as Malaysian to JAL tho. 6 hours to kill at Singapore airport - headed straight to the rooftop swimming pool, got 80 laps in, followed by relaxing by the pool with a Singapore Sling. Going for a massage in a bit then time for another beverage before getting back on the plane for 14 hours or so. See ya in a bit!  The last leg - Singapore-London Here I am at long last, back in Kent at the moment. Somehow it's taken me since Friday afternoon UK time and only just got here this morning! Got a bit of sleep here and there on the plane, otherwise got stuck in to my new book - Louis Theroux's The Call of the Weird. That massage at Singapore was awesome - highly recommended to anyone going through there. Got me so relaxed I could barely stay awake. My back's in a bit of a mess at the moment too - my supposed low stress lifestyle? Apparently it's bad posture at my desk and sleeping position. Arriving into London I just couldn't believe how big the place is compared to everywhere else - those lights just go on forever! Why do you have to walk so damn far at Heathrow? And they turn the travellators off - just what you need after a long flight! . Bit of a sunrise as I came in on the tube - big differences already - buildings etc. Gonna be a big culture shock next few days. Started off at 6c when I arrived but is now 18c down here - what's that all about??!?! It's only early March FFS!  Published with BlogMailr Posted Mar 10 2007, 03:37 PM by le_sloth with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Australia, New Zealand

• Cheap As Chips

  Been out at a one-day music festival today, Cheap as Chips (or Chups if you pronounce that right over here). Probably around 10,000 people or so, hard to tell really but looked about the same size as one of those events on Clapham Common. Weather was perfect - warm, sunny and breezy to keep things cooled down when the sun kicked in. The day certainly lived up to its name too - tickets were only $25 and we only managed to spend $15 between us! Cheap as chips. How does this all work out then? Noticed anything missing here? Well, in a world first, this Sloth went through the whole day with nowt but a bottle of water and a coffee. The whole event was alcohol free ("Get into it, not out  of it" so they say.) Didn't even really see anyone smuggling anything in. Would that work in the UK?!? Erm, I think not. Made for a very nice chilled atmosphere though - reminded me a bit of The Big Chill.   Excellent music line-up for a Sunday - Fat Freddys Drop (7 piece dub/reggae band), various DJs playing drum'n'bass, breaks and stuff, then topped off by Shapeshifter, who we'd missed seeing in Queenstown. Shapeshifter are a live drum'n'bass act, playing real drums n stuff with wicked vocals. This was their only ChCh show this summer, they sell out everywhere and are live band of the year, best album, best single etc. Not that they have a lot of competition in NZ . Anyway, yeh so they played an awesome 90 minute set, going from chilled stuff to some brutalness - we were loving this . Excellent end to the summer. Thanks to RDU - great radio station. Been catching up with a few missing posts this evening too: Doubtful Sound Cruise First week in Christchurch - a very bothered Sloth! More riding in Bottle Lake Forest Can't believe that this time next week I'll be en route to UK! Very excited, love it. Have picked up a whole load of Fancy That this weekend, no thanks to the Fancy That shop in ChCh though - Mr That we're gonna have to do something about the state of this branch, it's a bit of a blemish on our otherwise untarnished record.   Posted Mar 04 2007, 04:52 PM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: New Zealand, Christchurch, festival

• Bottle Lake Forest : Update

  The other day I wrote about the riding in Bottle Lake Forest - well I went back again this evening for more. Wow wow wow!! So last time I thought this place was wicked fun, but it turns out I'd only been riding about 1/3rd of the place - bit of a problem with the map, thinking I was at the top car park when in fact I was at the other end . It had been another lovely sunny day and I was in desperate need of a break from the computer, so packed Mildred up and headed out. Started on the same trail as before, but upon reaching a junction, followed some other riders off to the right. This place really is the definition of flowy singletrack! In and out of the trees, plenty of different routes to take, perfectly bermed corners, little jumps (and big 'uns if you like that), the lot. All this with barely anyone else riding it! Followed trails on and on, biggest of grins on Sloth's face. Actually got to a point when I was almost getting concerned about how far from the car I was, cos there was only around 40 mins of light left, but sure enough I popped back out into civilisation again. So much more still to play with in there - this place is open until 11pm and gets a lot of people down there for night rides - might well have to get myself some decent lights and have a crack at it. Anyone keen for a bit of that action? See you there when I get back from UK.  Posted Mar 01 2007, 09:02 PM by le_sloth with 1 comment(s) Filed under: MTB, New Zealand, Mountain Biking, Christchurch