It took a while to adjust to the new house. Still kinda am. By the time we moved in Christmas was only a few weeks away. We spent Christmas at my parents house but they were unfortunate enough to be one of the many homes that lost power over the Xmas period – so we had Christmas by candlelight. We had a generator and an aga so it wasn’t all bad. In fact it was a real team effort, everyone pulled together and it made for an altogether better holiday. Even my brother came home from Spain for a short visit. #GoodTimes.

Seemingly within moments of arising from all the Xmas festivities, the New Year celebrations were upon us. Cue more vodka, partying, excessive food and an overwhelming sense of joy, love for the world and all those around you. #GoodTimes.

New Year’s Day. Everyone and everything can just fuck. Right. Off. The head is pounding, legs ache (too much dancing?!), random mysterious bruises have developed in the mere 40mins sleep you managed to grab before sunrise removed all hope. The reality that another year has passed and what have you really achieved? Before 10am at least 5 people have asked what your new year resolutions are; what, the resolutions EVERYONE gives up on by around midday on the 2nd? Dicks. You crawl to you bed and hide under the duvet. #BadTimes.

The rest of January and February were fairly uneventful – the hangover eventually stopped, shortly after Sophie’s birthday do, around about the 6th. Which was nice. I turned 32 (whimper). Work was RIDICULOUSLY busy (which is good and bad) and we were in need of a break…

 Cue a week snowboarding in Meribel with our good friend Traynor. Definitely #GoodTimes! I bought Rob a new snowboard for Xmas (some would say I had a plan all along) and we hired a cool little chalet in Meribel village right on the slopes. It was great fun.

Rob and I are still learning to board whereas Traynor ski’s and is far more accomplished. My powder time was also cut short after a pretty bad stack that left me beyond winded, a 3 hour walk away from ‘home’ and pain over 8 weeks later. It was still good though and wouldn’t have changed any of it for the world. You can check it out yourself. We used this awesome company, UFC, to make a short video memory of our trip , filmed on Go-Pros, which was also good fun making (maybe Rob and I have caught the ‘being on camera’ bug?! No. Don’t panic).

Prior to my ‘accident’ we had our first experience of true apres-ski, half way up a mountain. The problem was with the epic atmosphere, the free flowing drinks, dancing hosts/esses, the amazing DJ mixing it up with live musicians, the table dancing, the colours, the lights, the sunset… it was all too easy to get carried away. I forgot momentarily we needed to get down the mountain again.

That was amusing. Fucking dangerous but very amusing. And no, luckily no footage of that!

However… later that evening we did decide to do a bit of night skiing. Well, Traynor did. This was caught on film. I don’t think I have heard Rob laughed this hard in a long time…

Quarter 1. #Done.