A Pod, South Terminal, Gatwick Airport, UK

May 30, 2012

Having never driven further than Southampton on my own, I made it to Gatwick Airport (in 2:48, for those who like to know such things), got the bus to the terminal and went to find out what happens if you prepay for car parking and then turn up ten hours early. No one knew. I went to claim my pod. I'd imagined a box in the middle of the terminal. What I found was Philip K Dick's purple-tinted vision of the future underground. Corridors lit in purple, pods stack...

Mayrhofen, Austria

Mar 30, 2012

On Friday I got up late. Had breakfast and Tina joined me. Then I went up the mountain. It was grey and chilly down in the town, which it hadn't been all week. The ride up was fun - I was hanging in a small yellow box in a cloud. I could see nothing. Not even the gondola in front of me and when I got to the top, nothing. No view. Couldn't even see across the runway. It was an absolute whiteout. Still there are skiers and snowboarders out. I think they're mad. Hel...

Mayrhofen, Austria

Mar 29, 2012

I spent the first half-hour of snowboarding in a mood. The snow was too cold to lie in comfortably, unlike the other days. I'd been expecting it to be just as painfully hot so I'd left my hat behind and now my head was cold. Why did I have to do these exercises, why don't you understand that if I'm concentrating on swinging my arm around, I can't concentrate on my feet and I will crash. But then we were allowed to pretty much just go, swooping and turning all the...

Mayrhofen, Austria

Mar 28, 2012

More snowboarding. Sam had taken the day off with injuries. We started with some exercises. Falling leaf with hands on hips or behind backs. Nose-down and brake with a snowball balanced on the back of each hand. When we got to the flatter bit, Cherry and I worked on our turns and I began to feel comfortable with them. I was starting to link them, starting to build up speed and starting to enjoy the snowboarding. This left the instructor free to help out Helen who...

Mayrhofen, Austria

Mar 27, 2012

I was such a zombie on Tuesday. I didn't bother with breakfast. We went up the Penkenbahn again, we were taken to the blue run again and we did some more exercises, designed to get us used to controlling the board. I was beginning to get comfortable with the thing, beginning to gain confidence and starting to turn a little bit. The instructor tried getting us to touch our legs as we turned but the moment I tried thinking about hands and knees instead of concentra...