Dazza's 40th

We are just back from a super weekend near Shepton Mallet where we were helping Darren to celebrate his 40th birthday (yes, some of our friends are that young!).  Darren had found a restored farmhouse which was a fantastic location for a country house party.  Most of us arrived on Friday evening for a chilli followed by a game of "Who's in the Bag?".   On Saturday, I had planned to go up to Bath to watch the rubgy and the most of the others were going to go horse racing.  In the event, the racing was cancelled so we all went up to Bath - the boys for the rugby and the girls for some retail therapy.  It was a good game with Bath having a thumping 37-13 bouns-point win over Worcester. 

 

  

 Saturday evening saw some rather strange attire and some even stranger hair-do's as we all took part in a murder mystery dinner party - "The Champagne Murders". At the end of the evening, after plently of bubbly, it transpired that it was the dastardly Brian Sewer (a.k.a. Mark) who dunnit (hardly surprising, with a name like that).  

On Sunday, we all went clay pigeon shooting.  It was a first for many of us but, with some good instruction, we were all able to hit a few clays despite the targets getting harder to hit as the session went on.  The final result was fairly close but, as it was his birthday, we naturally had to let Dazza win.  It was then back to the house for a nice roast dinner and some more games.

On the piste again

Last week we were off skiing again with Claire and Darren.  This was our second attempt at cross country skiing  and this time we went to Dobbiaco in the Dolomites.  The village is not the prettiest we have ever been to but it is all very well set up for cross country skiing with a brand new World Cup stadium and once you get onto the trails the typical stunning Dolomites scenery soon becomes apparent. As always in this part of the world, the food (and the grappa) was plentiful and superb!  We had lessons on five mornings with a couple of rather nice young lady instructors from the local ski school.  We were doing the classic technique most of the time and did some fairly long trips (>20 km) on a couple of days.  We only came home in the dark once, though.  Just when we thought we might be getting the hang of it all, we had a go at the skating technique for the first time on our last day.  This felt really strange at first but, amazingly, we were all able to make progress after a couple of hours tuition.  At the end of the day, Diane decided to stay in the stadium and practice while the rest of us went for a little excursion.  During this, Claire and Darren forced me to wipe out on a steep descent but I had the last laugh when, for reasons best known to herself, Claire decided to stop to eat some snow on the way back. When we got back to the stadium for the last time, of course we had to have a little race.  Clara was so keen for her man to win that she laid down in front of me just after the start, giving Darrren an unassailable lead.  However, despite being the first over the line, he still could not take the trophies for the over forties (just), the over fifties or the ladies!  Unfortunately, the ski race to Cortina took place on the day we had to leave (so we did not have to wear our stretchy lycra suits for breakfast in the hotel) but there is always next year, and our feet might have recovered by then, too!