http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/This is supposed to be a site about freeheel skiing adventures in the frozen wonderland of the Scottish Highlands - however with the reality of global warming, these excursions might get a bit scarce so instead you get other bizarre tales from the Republic of Drooper!en-EUhttp://backend.userland.com/rss092http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/http://data5.blog.de/design/preview/d8/ed6d25d08a7f5c7c3f039867dd2263_160x200.jpg <p>This was Nobby's last weekend as a Scotland resident before ill-advisedly heading back down sarf - and what better way of spending it other than some top quality sliding down the glorious white stuff somewhere in the Cairmgorms...</p> <p>We all piled up on Friday night and illiegally camped in the Bongo and a couple of my tents somewhere in the outskirts of Aviemore - being midummer in Scotland it didnt really get properly dark and we set outside drinking tescos finest imported lagers for a while .Don Juan's eyelids and facial muscles were the first to capitulate, although the rest of him took another ten minutes or so before giving up and retreating to the Bongo luxury roof apartment, Nobski and Alex weren't far behind which left Lynn and me to talk shite, drink honey vodka and cheap beers until 2.30 when it was starting to get noticably lighter.</p> <p>So, with head pounding and guts feeling like a pair of old curtains in a top loading washing machine, we headed up to the ski centre after the usual morning rituals:<br> Bacon Sarnies<br> Don Juan Faff<br> Causing major bio-chemical weapon alert in Aviemore public bog<br> More Don Juan Faff<br> Watching red squirrels</p> <p>it turned out that winterhighland.com had been organising some sort of midsummer mad skiing session, so we weren't the only eejits heading up through the barren rocky wastes of the out of season ski centre though quite a few folk heading for the train were giving us 2nd looks as we delved amongst the piles of old socks, ebay skis and other semi-retired equipment which had avalanched out of the back door of my car - eventually after a geologically measured faffing time, we were ready to march up through the ski centre in a hopeful hunt for skiable snow patches - stopping en route for the traditional filming moments ("I've been walking 500 yards and I'm bolloxed already" etc etc)</p> <p>The summit of Cairngorm was clear - a great view over to Ben Macdui (complete with large-ish skiable snow patch) and down Corrie Raibert which didnt seem to have a skiable snow patch - so we decided to head east into Marquis Well where some of the winterhighland bods had confided the legendary status of a skiable 100m snowslope...</p> <p>It was ace! 20 people of various shapes, sizes, ages and skiing and boarding abilities - the slope was like a steepish red run section and teh snow was old sugary stuff which was surprisingly easy to ski on - the 5 minute trudge back up the slope wasn't</p> <p>Alex spent the afternoon flying off the kicker (yes, someone had spent a couple of hours building one) before having a bit of a domestic with Lynn and heading back to the top station cafe for some emergency pit stop coffee - Nobski probably skied the most, Don Juan did a spectacular leave-the-skis-behind wipeout before sliding the lower snow slope backwards headfirst into wet peat</p> <p>Ace - and there's still some crazy isolated snow patches in them there hills!</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2008/06/22/midsummer-s-day-skiing-4349426/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2008/06/22/midsummer-s-day-skiing-4349426/Sun, 22 Jun 2008 22:26:24 +0200 <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/media/photo/img00096_1/2265320" title="Nobbski"><img src="http://data3.blog.de/media/320/2265320_718838b694_s.jpeg" alt="Nobbski" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/media/photo/img00094/2265321" title="MJ"><img src="http://data3.blog.de/media/321/2265321_f644c7f43a_s.jpeg" alt="MJ" vspace="5" hspace="5"><br> </a>This was the plan on Sunday, I would teach Nobby the finer arts of ski touring, using choice members of the lounge ski squadron equipped with climbing skins hired from Braemar Mountain Sports - we would be loaded up with good quality mountain food and we would be well kitted out and have the correct Braemar and Blair Atholl map for a tour up Glas Maol...</p> <p>What could possibly go wrong?</p> <p>1. Leave all copies of the correct map at home and replace with a large pile of assorted maps from other parts of Scotland, Norway and Deimos teh smaller moon of Mars</p> <p>2. Leave the pies in the bunkhouse kitchen!</p> <p>3. Dont pre-check the equipment</p> <p>4. Have an argument in the car park as to the potential paint damage caused by parking too close</p> <p>The weather was ace though - wind still, a bit of hill-fog which was gradually lifting exposing the whole of Glenshee under gorgeous winter blue skies... so we decided to keep to edge of the Sunnsyide area and head up to Glas Maol - invloves 2 small 100m ascents and descents before a 300m ascent up to the summit - Nobby took to x country skiing like a Russian to vodka and really found the correct skinning up technique very quickly - lardarse me couldnt keep up! One of the downsides to ski touring is taking teh skins off on a up-down-up-down-up tour like at Glenshee so there was always un peu faffage at the start of each descent - the first one was easy - even for Nobby on his first ever day telemarking - teh second descent was a total nightmare - there was a gorgeous run from the Meall Odhar top down to teh foot of the Glas Maol run - loads of unpisted powder snow for us to make flowing ssss shapes in as we turned gracefully down the fall-line... </p> <p>Ah - there were quite a few Nobby and MJ sized craters after the 45 minutes it took us to get down 100m of steepish red-run - Nobby was started to stress a bit as his performance expectation suddenly turned a wee bit Portsmouth to Port Vale - i couldnt work out why I was finding it so difficult to get the turns in after the first five or so - Nobby was down about 10 minutes before me and thenI lost a ski completely - the quick release binding had come undone again (funny that since I hadnt fixed it since the last time 2 years ago - note to self - smack head with large cast-iron frying pan) - there was even a small party of ski tourers at the foot of the Glas Maol run watching our flailing performance with much amusement</p> <p>So under clearing skies, in a still wind at the foot of Glas Maol with Nobby being addled in telemark-frustration and me being an unfit sweaty mess with a stoat's kidney for a brain, we set back off up Meall Odhar, Nobby - 100 ski steps per rest and me about 13 - finding some easier unpisted runs to turn gracefully down avoiding the fall-line and spotting numerous white coated snow hares on the way...</p> <p>We still had time for Nobby to get his proper skis on and for both of us to have a go at the Tiger - the steep run down from the summit of Cairnwell - it got quite cold in the queue for the Nosal style single chairlift but it was totally worth it - even if my right ski fell off just after getting on because i hadnt done up the binding correctly</p> <p>It was a fantastic way to spend an ace day and atone for the silliness of a few hours earlier - the snow was truly alpine - and it was ace to get down with just one miniscule insignificant wipe out...</p> <p>More snow on the way - the Pentlands were still white at sundown tonight so hopefully there'll be some comedy moonlight action this week.... </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2008/01/09/glenshee_ski_touring_sunday~3548996/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2008/01/09/glenshee_ski_touring_sunday~3548996/Wed, 09 Jan 2008 00:04:13 +0100 <p>After half a week of on-off-on snow in Edinburgh and weather warnings and blocked roads on Friday night, me and Nobby headed up to Glanshee in the replacement tazmobile - the journey up was quite exciting - the last few miles up from Blairgowrie was a minefield of deep slush filled potholes which if you hit at anything more than 5mph they turned into geysirs of slush up the windscreen and over the roof followed by 10 seconds of zero visibility, after the 15th time it got a bit scary</p> <p>The road was closed at the Spittal of Glenshee but the bunkhouse was on the snow-free side - the road was supposed to be open at 6am but the powers that be in various council incompetence departments meant that at 9am there was a 2 mile queue of cars all waiting for the cops to turn up, perform a risk assessment and publish in 15 well known languages including Old Icelandic, Sumerian and C++, open the gate and convoy drive up the pass to the ski centre- it's times like that which make you wonder how Scotland actually manages to have a tourist industry...</p> <p>Despite the initial chaos, the Glenshee folk pulled out all the stops and about half the runs were open - me and Nobby spent the rest of the day zooming down the various blue and green Sunnyside runs (remember that the standard piste grades get a bit superfluous in Scotland due to the usual splattering of icy patches, rocks, bewildred ptarmigans etc etc) - the conditions were good old Scottish - a full-on blizzard at times with relative calm periods of wind-blown ice bits interspersed with the sound of lonely snowhares looking for a casserole dish</p> <p>After a quick stop for curry pie - we headed over to the Cainwell side, where unfortunately we got stuck in a queue for the access button lift behind an inpatient dad and his young son who hadnt quite mastered the art of button lift riding - that'll be another child put off winter sports for life then - the day was all set up for a grandstand finish until Nobby skied full speed into a snow drift and lost one of his contac lenses in the resultant face plant - I still got beaten down the final red run by a semi blind, curry pie exhaling lardarse</p> <p>Ace day!</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2008/01/06/it_s_snowing~3538856/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2008/01/06/it_s_snowing~3538856/Sun, 06 Jan 2008 23:17:30 +0100 <p>Q: What do you do when you and your mates are staying in wet Fort William and the morning dawn's bright and frosty...<br> A: You jump in the rusty old van and you all head to Aviemore...</p> <p>This trip was a reprieve of Dr. Al's world famous in Macclesfield Wierdos of Telemark film from the last days of 2005 - though this time we had an extended crew:</p> <p>Dr. Al - filmmaker and slalom skier on ebay skis from the lounge<br> Nobbski - slalom skier on his own skis<br> Dr Mike - slalom skier on hire skis from the red squirrel bacon sarney house at Loch Morlich<br> Dr Lindsay - telemark skier on the waaaaaaay-too long green lounge skis and ebay plastic telemark boots<br> Dr Emily - learner slalom skier on the hire skis from the bacon sarney house<br> Me - on waaaaay too short red lounge telemark skis</p> <p>After having a beautiful cold blue sky journey complete with icy skids on Loch Laggan-side and almost head on with the psycho truck drivers of Kinguisie, the bacon sarney man informed us that the ski centre was shutting lift sales due to capacity being reached - that didnt matter - we would be walking up of course - if we factored in the usual faff time we might get some skiing done before sundown, in October 2354 - so this time we had to limit faffing to a mere 45 minutes - just enough for me to realise that I'd left my rucksac back at base - that didnt matter - I'd just empty the festering undergarments, damp swimming towel and other souvenirs out of a random sports bag and carry that up instead</p> <p>It took us about an hour and a half to trudge up through the icy and gravelly zig zags - and about another 20 minutes was wander up the footpath to the summit of Cairngorm - following the new year crowds of train passengers past the sign telling them not to proceed beyond this point?</p> <p>After battering a few strolling families and invading hordes of aliens out of the way, we all assembled just off the summit - before donning the skis and sliding off down the hill into oblivion</p> <p>Wipe out the day went to Dr Al for leaving the skis behind him after not realising that snow is generaly accepted to be a variant of the colour white, and gravel is usually the colour of gravel and Dr Al skin layers</p> <p>Ski instructor manouver of the day has to to go to Nobbski for his ski backwards - teach Emily to wipe out technique</p> <p>Yee - ha 2008 skiing season has started!</p> file:///Users/pcwpcw/Desktop/P1000213.JPG___##7##___ <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2008/01/01/drooper_new_year_cairngorm_expedition~3515758/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2008/01/01/drooper_new_year_cairngorm_expedition~3515758/Tue, 01 Jan 2008 20:34:56 +0100 <p>Saturday was supposed to be another trip up to the 'Gorms - and actually get to do a really good qulaity ski tour, gain some endomorphins, lose some lard etc. However, I awoke (late) to the news that blizzards over the Highlands had blocked some of the access roads like the Blairgowrie/Braemar road, the A9 at Drummochter etc. I was tempted just to head to the pub and watch the bound to be thrilling afternoon that was England vs. Italy and Scotland/Wales - however just when I was thinking about rugby at Murrayfield, I had a sudden flashback to 2000 when just before my ML course, I'd decided to head down to the featureless Borders country to get some (well needed) mountain navigation practice... That was the day when England were already 5 nations champions and just had to give those hopeless wooden spooners, the Scots a good seeing-to at Murrayfield. I remember wandering around Windlestraw Law with the then GF, counting steps, losing the compass, thinking that the mighty Martin Johnson's boys would be finding it difficult if the same blizzard was down in the city (they did and Scotland won!)...</p> <p>So at about 11am, I made the impulse decsion to stick the old Dynastar old style skinny skis and leather boots in the car and had SOUTH to the hilly country just 15 miles away, which judging by the forecasts must have enough white stuff to do a tour...</p> <p>Driving there was exciting enough, the roads were all clear heading towards the Borders on the A7 road, the side road to Innerleithen was clear too, until...</p> <p>I went round a bend and straight into a whiteout and unploughed road... This is the sort of thing which used to freak me out but living in Norway for a while at least gave me a bit of exerience of snow driving (and a few snowy ditch visits and off-road escapades) so I turned up Baccara Yessir I can Boogie and motored on...</p> <p>Windlestraw Law is a flat topped bog of about 650m high and the highpoint of the road is about 400m most of the ascent is straight from the parking place. So I sorted out the skis in the shelter of the back seat then bravely strode out into the elements only to get 100%splattered with slush from a passing car out for another snowy drive. Ace! I put my skis on and fishbone style staggered up through the show covered heather, complete with mistery holes until the wind swept plateau where I gave up all pretentions of doing a real back country ski tour, sang a quick rendition of the Grand Old Duke of York to the camera (having forgot that there's no sound) and hightailed it down the most snow covered part of the hill, a land rover track... wiping out at all opportunities. Damm those leather boots and the ancient skis! (Bad workmen etc rule appiles to telemark skiers too)</p> <p>Still - if the cold weather keeps up I might go back there after work sometime this week....</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2007/02/11/borders_blizzard_skiing_adventure~1723671/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2007/02/11/borders_blizzard_skiing_adventure~1723671/Sun, 11 Feb 2007 22:16:42 +0100 <p>After last weekend's aceness, yesterday was a disaster...<br> The cunning plan was to stay in on Friday night and not go to the pub - get up early, grab our already-packed kit, load up the ultra-relaible Suzuki jeep and head up north for a flat-mates skiing session. It didnt all go wrong from the start as we actually managed to stay in - however the amount of faffing in the morning was at least European championship standard, if not Olympic - despite alarms going off at 6.15 - it was still 9.30 when we departed the house in the wrong direction.</p> <p>Back on course, we cruised out of town - heading out towards the Forth Bridge - where my co-pilot noticed the subterranean level of the fuel guage. This, being a regular occurence did not have me undully worried, until I remembered that there are no motorway services until half-way to Perth - so an unscheduled half-hour tour round Dunfirmline led to a dilapidated Jet garage which only had 2 working pumps and a long queue of vehicles. After a full tank, the mild engine coughing and spluttering had turned to a serious case of vehicle TB - it's quite disconcerting when, foot on the floorboards, there's massive backfire whilst you are in the motorway slow lane doing 30 with some bloke in a van doing 70 bearing down on your arse.</p> <p>Disconcerting say I. Downright dangerous say most. However, there was skiing to do so we pressed on.</p> <p>3 hours later, we were at Aviemore, where we drooped the house Legal Department off to do a walk around Rothiemurcus woods. That's when the fun started, the car struggling to make it uphill from Glenmore Lodge, 100metres at a time between huge backfires, exhaust clouds and engine conk-outs. It got windy, the blue skies of our morning's travels turned into an icy cairngorm wind and clouds closed in on the tops. I tried to summon up a Monkey! cloud by blowing on my hands but alas 1970s japanese tv shows didnt seem to change the reality of the situation: my £166 car is a bag o'shite!</p> <p>Eventually, after a couple of long stops, oil checks, shouting, swearing and kicking of wheels, we arrived at the full ski centre car park, though there was a steady stram of traffic coming down.</p> <p>It was about half-two, it had taken us 5 hours to do the 100 mile journey - but at least we were kitted out and raring to get on the slopes - I was desperately trying not to think of the lift pass costs, when a bloke gave me 2 passes "Here - have these - it's fooking shite up there!" (insert Inverness accent) - so we got on the controversial train and headed up into good old fashioned Scottish skiing conditions: ice bits fresh from the plateau , carried by gale force winds right into your face. Personal Service. Ace.</p> <p>We did a couple of ridiculous runs - wind, snow, ice and gloom before the clever-wish-I'd-thought-of-it-sooner plan:let's get the flock out of here and head somewhere sheltered. The runs lower down were considerably more pleasant - you could see more than a metre and could hear people beyond the wind howl around your gore-tex hood and the constant chatter of multiple personalities somewhere in the sub-consious. However, just as we were getting into the telemark-sving of things, the management in their infinite let's keep the customers happy sort of style , suddenly closed all the lifts for no apparent reason and everyone was forced down despite the complaints, arguments ang general ill-feeling (* there must be some sort of economic model based on having a limited customer base of gullible scumbags such as myself). So that was it, 5 hours up, 3 hours back (car seemed to go better downhill) - just for 2 runs in a whiteout, 3 lower down and two trips up a t bar.</p> <p>Skiing next weekend anyone? </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2007/01/28/aviemore_road_trip_fiasko~1637126/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2007/01/28/aviemore_road_trip_fiasko~1637126/Sun, 28 Jan 2007 13:39:44 +0100 <p>Woke up this morning after a long broke-in-January thing to do (watching telly all night) - complete with eye and brain ache... took a look at the ski conditions on winterhighland.com and made a snap decision to get up to Glencoe. The drive along the M9 to Stirling was inspiring - with sun shining off the snow on the Ochills, Ben Ledi, Vorlich etc. Of course, the weather had turned by the time I'd back-fired and stuttered myself to Crianlairich - and all the usual sights like Ben More, Ben Lui and Ben Dorain were lost in the cloud. Half of Scotland it seemed had been better organised tham me and got their arses up to Glencoe in good time - the carpark which usually has tumbleweed and ptarmigan ghosts caressing its dusty wastes was jam packed - so that every passing place along the access road was full too. Road and car park rage led to lift queue rage - I dont think I've ever seen so many folk in a Scottish ski centre - it was like Easter in Norway and French half term combined - and stuffed into Glencoe's creaking centre. Still - it's a thousand times better than watching telly all day, hoovering or doing the self assesmnet tax form. The turns all came back - which felt ace - despite the blizzard and zero visibility. I'd only managed 3 short runs on the middle section - each with about a 20 minute wait at the t bar or the rickety old one man lift - I was witness to the day's bizzare happening when some boarder got hung up by his rucksack - they stopped the lift, leaving him hanging for a while before he unclipped the sack and got down by standing on his mates shoulders...that old chair caught me out once when I fell onto the emergency stop button - in front of an impatient lift queue of short tempered Weegies - the hung up boarder escaped lightly with a cheesy grin!</p> <p>The last hour was ace - the conditions improved - you could SEE! It was the usual inspiring end of day trip - got down from the top the centre to the car park with two wipe outs - one a wendy version was just me being crap - the second was ace - did the Haggis Trap jump at full speed and landed on my arse - which is an improvement on last time I went to Glencoe and wimped out.</p> <p>So the winter has arrived... hope to get back up to the snow again as soon as possible. I spent the journey home backfiring and stuttering and dreaming of fresh new trips - hopefully some proper backcountry and not piste posing! </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2007/01/21/glencoe_post_blizzard_aceness~1596847/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2007/01/21/glencoe_post_blizzard_aceness~1596847/Sun, 21 Jan 2007 22:35:19 +0100 <p>OK so global warming has made the Scottish winters grey, wet and depressing - spare a thought for our poor Nordic cousins the other side of the North Sea - they have less daylight hours than us for longer during the winters - and the only thing preventing them from copying their cute rodent friends, the lemmings and finding a large cliff to jump off, is the presence of snow - makes everything so much lighter and truly uplifting. Also good to ski on.</p> <p>So I was over in Oslo last weekend for the first time in 2 years - supposedly selling Walkabout trips to the norskies by wandering around the reiseliv2007 trade fair dressed in a kilt - which made the commute from Lier to Lillestrom through grey, rainy, miserable Oslo slightly odd. However when I came out of the hall a few hours later, 10cms of snow had fallen...</p> <p>So a slighty madcap scheme was hatched which involved paying a visit to Steinar up in Hallingdal and persuading Rune (who looked like he needed sunshine, snow, exercise anyway) to drive. Of course, by managing to visit Erik and Stine in Asker and Line in Lier all in the space of a few days, it did turn out to be quite a mad trip. I dont think Rune was quite impressed with my "oh its only a few hours" speech when in fact it took us nearly 5 - but then we did stop for "polse" - norwegian hot dogs on the way</p> <p>It was ace - and I managed to make film too....</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2007/01/19/hallingdal_return_to_winterland~1584376/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2007/01/19/hallingdal_return_to_winterland~1584376/Fri, 19 Jan 2007 20:49:43 +0100 <p>Droooper trip New Year 06/07...<br> the drinking, poker games and take over of DJ Purple Haze's dancefloor was legendary. The weather was not. Braemar is supposed to be the most snow-sure spot in Scotland, it even has a shop selling telemark skis and yet we were force to endure 6 days of rain, mountain biking wipeouts and dodgy walks up Aberdeenshire hills into hurricane force sleet storms...</p> <p>having said that, the great tradition of rained off winter trips is that it always gets good just as you're heading back to the office/fertility clinic/meeting with probation officer etc. This new year was no exception and the 2nd Jan dawned bright and sunny with a distinct covering of white stuff above the 600m contour line.</p> <p>So after taking the vast supply of bottles to the recycling, tying bikes, skis, cows, goats, chickens etc. to the car, searching the village for missing car keys, untying aforementioned items, hiring HM customs and excise to take car apart, finding keys in coolbox, retying aforementioned items to the car, we were ready.</p> <p>Glenshee was ace - covered in about 2cm of fresh snow on top of an almost frozen turn n' gravel base. The team consisted of the usual suspects - Nobby and Al on "old" slalom skis, me on Steinar sin blåski and Lindsay on the short red Tuas. Carn Asoda looked gorgously white and majestic (it usually looks like a big messy gravel strewn ski centre) above the centre - we all purposely strode carrying our skis for about 5 minutes - until it dawned on the crew that at least one of the team is an overweight undersexed illegitimate son of a travelling teatowel salesman. At that point, we all headed back down the green* run we had previously been staggering up to the nursery slope/kids sledge run where Nobby built a jump and got some big hair, Al made another film (see below) and got his ski legs back and Lindsay and I snowplowed our way into oblivion. Ski ee-aw.com returns!</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2007/01/08/new_year_new_skiing_oportunities~1531406/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2007/01/08/new_year_new_skiing_oportunities~1531406/Mon, 08 Jan 2007 23:56:03 +0100 <p>I was going to keep this blog updated with all the skiing adventures of the latter part of the winter; the deep powder and tree adventures of Courchevel, returning to Scotland just in time for a real winter and another 7 weekends of skiing and larking around on the plateau, Glenshee and an absolute doss sliding about on the arse end of Ben Lawers...</p> <p>but nah... that was then</p> <p>However, I have just been on the first proper trip down Carlswark the Wonder Cavern for nearly a decade. Not much has changed, still muddy, stil a horrendous amount of stooping, crawling and oozing around in copious quantities of slime. In the dark.</p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=656475"><img src="http://data2.blog.de/media/475/656475_04194fc149_s.jpg" align="" alt="peaks drooper 002" title="peaks drooper 002" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p>It was ace! Although it was a shame I didnt see any cavers like the girls out of The Descent, I did have Nobby for company as well as a minor case of Weils disease! </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2006/06/29/carlswark_the_wonder_cavern~922099/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2006/06/29/carlswark_the_wonder_cavern~922099/Thu, 29 Jun 2006 23:20:01 +0200 <p>Scottish skiing is ace! You can only dream about the fluffy, soft powder snow, wide open pistes and zero lift queues of say, Stranda... as soon as there's a hint of white stuff in the air, the Scottish centres will try all sorts of dubious marketings scams to get you up there. They would even have hired Eirik Raude if they could (Erik the Red - of the naming Greenland real estate scam) - however he's not available since he was a blood thirsty viking and he died in about 1020AD. </p> <p>So visitscotland had Glencoe down as the place to go...</p> <p>"Runs at the top of the hill are good. Lower runs can be thin in places. Occasional icy patches."</p> <p>correct translation - upper runs have some snow although bumpy, watch out for rocks and bare patches. Lower runs borderline, suicidal in places, severely manicly depressed throughout.</p> <p>It was good to ski around the turf! </p> <p>The best bit about today's skiing was surviving the Etive Glades blue run which was as bumpy as a conference of chinese emporors at the top, icy amongst the gravel and turf spots lower down. The new (ebay) telemark skis were a revelation - if I can survive the bumps, turf and ice of Glencoe on a good day, then I may even be able to get down La Face next week...</p> <p>Alps in week, ye-haaaa!</p> <p>Of course, snow is forecast in the Highlands this week coming so before heading down to Courchevel there may well be time for an afternoon/evening trip down Cairngorm's white lady run...</p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=386865"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/media/865/386865_fed7f221c3_s.jpg" align="" alt="ski kiter" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2006/02/26/ski_glencrap~596077/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2006/02/26/ski_glencrap~596077/Sun, 26 Feb 2006 23:54:47 +0100 <p>after our scientific adventures of saturday, it seemed only proper to dig out the telemark skis and head up back to Cairngorm and see how the lemonade bottle was faring whilst avoiding the rocks and ice and finding some glorious powder snow...</p> <p>of course, these things sometimes dont go to plan...</p> <p><em>A cautionary tale of backcountry ski navigation featuring MJ and Dr Wiggy</em></p> <p>Starring:<br> MJ (overweight, unfit and obsessed with telemark skiing, Stoke City and Swedish women)<br> Dr Wiggy (underweight, not unfit and obsessed with kite skiing, climbing and Swedish woman)<br> Hunky Dunks (overweight, injured and obsessed with climbing, Man U and Peruvian woman)</p> <p>Hunky dunks gets a role in this story as when we dropped him off i Aviemore he left us a gaseous present in the car so eggy and smelly, we had to drive up to the ski centre with the windows open and yet it still lingered like a makeover show on day time telly...</p> <p>Dr Wiggy and I eventually set off up the Fiaccill ridge after the usual faffing...at 10.30 - more than a bit late for a day on the winter hills though the plan was to walk up the ridge to the plateau and then skin up to the summit of Cairngorm... then hopefully we'd have a couple of hours to play around telemarking though the fresh snow. Things went pretty much to plan, Wiggy setting a resonable pace, me sort of keeping up, the skis on our rucksacs being a bit of a hinderance with the wind gusting in ever increasing strengths and the cloud closed in</p> <p>by midday, we reached the plateau and donned our skis - me using the new ebay tua tourers and Wiggy using Steinar's blue skis. Wiggy had left his climbing skins at home so we had to paste blue swix wax to the base of his skis to stop them being <em>bakglatt</em> that's an ace Norwegian adjective describing the tendency of cross country skis to go backwards suddenly when moving forwards uphill. I was using my trusty old climbing skins for that uphill grip - however I've only glued one properly and the other one is missing its clip - so the spirit of mountain emergency improvisation, i used the spare compass to bind it on. That setup worked for about the first 50 meters up the summit slope of caingorm but I managed to step on the loose climbing skins and Wiggy was already bakglatt - it seemd that blue wax (fluuffy powder snow -5 to -12 degrees) was the wrong choice - probably given the usual scottish conditions red wax (slush circa 0 degrees) would have been better - disaster sort of befell me a bit higher up as suudenly my binding broke ... merde! I called over to mon amis francais - however, him being an antarctic veteran and all that realised that it was just the voile release binding releasing itself when not wanted</p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=374376"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/media/376/374376_a25e89a02b_t.jpg" align="" alt="Wiggy in whiteout" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=374377"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/media/377/374377_cab1d48778_t.jpg" align="" alt="MJ trying to de-freeze the camera" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=374378"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/media/378/374378_1d644ce6bf_t.jpg" align="" alt="rime-frost" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p>however after much cursing and avoiding of rocks and zizagging upwards of slopes and fixing of bindings and waxing of skis, we eventually arrived on the summit of cairngorm. The ozone collector was already pasted in a good covering of wind blown rime frost... we were more bothered about wolfing down lunch</p> <p>the descent from Cairngorm was fookinace! only way to describe fluffy snow, easy angle slopes and a lesser frequency of rocks than on other trips this winter. We even managed a turn ot two. However, this is where the silliness starts...</p> <p>it was a whiteout - that means it's very hard to discern angle of slope, rock etc. and it's really easy to lose sight of your mates if you fall into that skier's buzz when everything is working, the glide of the skis, the turns, jumping over rocks... On Cairngorm, there's a numpty path directly and due north back to the ski centre which has soem excellent and easy ski terrain just a few degrees eastwards. So when after about 10 minutes of descending without any big wipeouts, we should have been at the top of the ptarmigan tow line in the ski centre, whereas Dr Wiggy and I were looking at a group on a winter skills course learning to snow hole with increasingly steep slopes under us... oops! Ou est le station de ski? Houston nous avons un problem!</p> <p>We'd not been skiing northwards back to the ski centre like we should have been and it took a few minutes of deduction and an eductaed guess to work out that we were about due east and 1 km from the top of cairngorm - we had to ascend a good 100m and head westwards into worsening whiteout conditions...</p> <p>it was a long twenty minutes of arguing with the you've got lost demon before the raucous sound of hundreds of kids on their half term hols filtered though the wind and we'd got back on track</p> <p>After that cray few moments, skiing down to the car park with self-releasing bindings on marginal runs with the usual craters, gravel, boulders and crazy snowboarders was a doddle!</p> <p>Ace trip - a couple of lessons learnt (note to self - go buy a GPS) and hope to get out there again with Wiggy soon, unlikely of course if he reads this</p> <p>postscript: I drove our winter skills course back to Edin but rumour has it that Hunky Dunk's fart was still lingering in BAS car though this had been much replenished by the time they reached the motorway at Perth</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2006/02/21/locationaly_challenged_on_the_plateau_in~579181/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2006/02/21/locationaly_challenged_on_the_plateau_in~579181/Tue, 21 Feb 2006 01:34:48 +0100 <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=374311"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/media/311/374311_301c0b651a_t.jpg" align="" alt="Hunky Dunks and his massive tool doing some drilling" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p>Fine examples of cutting edge Anglo-French cooperation...<br> 1. Concorde<br> 2. Eurostar<br> 3. First World War<br> 4. Eric Cantona<br> 5. Dr Wiggy's lemonade bottle...</p> <p>the latter of course, is the most important!</p> <p>Everyone knows that the hole in the ozone layer was first discovered by the intrepid scientists of the British Antarctic Survey - that's why we all need to drive our kids to school in our 4*4s as often as possible otherwise the hole might shrink - a little know fact about BAS is that they let a Frenchman down there to conduct vital ozone checking experiments, kite skiing adventures and penguin gynaecology. Of course with funding from the venerable UK tax payer you cant just send down a prototype rimefrost-free zone collecting device (the lemonade bottle) without testing in the harshest local conditions possible (apart from under my duvet after 10 beers and a kebab)...</p> <p>so there we were at the weekend installing Dr Wiggy's measuring device on the the met station at the top of Cairngorm in -6 and a stiff breeze. I of course was invited along for my expert knowledge of the terrain and my car battery lugging capabilities as much as my rugged good looks and ability to mimic an emperor penguin with a French accent. Hunky Dunks was along for the drilling. Sue from BAS and Bill from Heriott Watt were doing scientist type things. The car battery lugging didnt happen much as the ski resort sorted a trip up the railway and then carted all the gear up from the top station in the back of a piste basher - however I did get to hand over the screw drivers and spanners at the appointed time and got to experience working in cold temperatures again. Ace!</p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=374261"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/media/261/374261_22492920da_t.jpg" align="" alt="loading the Cairngorm piste basher with important scientific equipment" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=374265" title="Share your media"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/media/265/374265_dc7472ecea_t.jpg" width="100" height="75" alt="inside the met station/mountain rescue hut"></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=374266"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/media/266/374266_ec4a55ff3d_t.jpg" align="" alt="Dr Wiggy testing out the de-rimer" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=374272" title="Share your media"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/media/272/374272_6474219c1e_t.jpg" width="100" height="75" alt="After 2 minutes, it was still frost free"></a></p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2006/02/20/l_hiver_est_arrive~578989/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2006/02/20/l_hiver_est_arrive~578989/Mon, 20 Feb 2006 23:52:56 +0100 <p>totally knackered after piloting the LDV back from Loch Lomond at the heady speeds of at least 49mph...the Drooper trip to Kenmere was calling so I cast my raft off from the jetty of appathy and set set sail into the sea of excitement</p> <p>in other words, I got in my mum's car and drove off down the m74</p> <p>However, I did have my illustrious co pilot for company and stimulating conversation. She was tired and moody and me, bein incredibly attuned to such things, tried to enliven the journey by quizing her on her favourite sexual positions. That was in the Borders. The silence was akin to US-Soviet realtions circa 1963 and lasted at least to Carlisle which she rather hillariouly mispronounces car-liss</p> <p>have invented a new game of cunning evilness and childish stupidity... giving out the wrong advice re. english pronounciation so now we have "honestly" without the silent h...hhhonest guv</p> <p>anyway, by the time we reached the hut at Kentmere (nearly burning the clutch out in the way) most of the republic of Drooper was either 1. asleep 2. sleepy </p> <p>we had time to dole out the leftover Conic Hill whisky and swap venison recipes with Mr Lees before enduring an intense night of hypothermia in the tropical camping barn...trying to think warm whilst avoiding condensation drips... oh for a good old Norwegian snow hole (much cheaper too!)</p> <p>Sunday morining started bright and not very early and was a good chance to meet up with all the sleepers from the night before and catch most of the London bound crew before their early departures..<br> shame coz the weather down in the Lakes was utterly gorgeous...sunny cloudless skies and sixty mile views in all directions</p> <p>so me, Iza and Annett went off to do the Kentmere Horse (the rest of the Drooper gang did the whole Horseshoe on Satrday - though that seemed to add to the sleepiness of the hut on Saturday eve as much as Natalie, Richard and Fiona's gorgeous cooking) so we chomped off (sans-map) off up to Mardale Head, where I left my glasses to be a not very tasty or even particularly healthy verson of sheep foodso if you see some wooly bleaters with 20:20 vision and a sore stomache in the eastern Lake District please let me know...</p> <p>Al, Iza, Paivi and Annett at the end of the trip in Kentmere</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/wggC8awODT.jpg" title="Kenmere drooper gang"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/wggC8awODT_small.jpg" border="0" alt="Kenmere drooper gang"></a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2006/01/31/drooper_lakes_kentmere~521196/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2006/01/31/drooper_lakes_kentmere~521196/Tue, 31 Jan 2006 00:10:55 +0100 <p>last weekend of January 2006... no snow on Conic Hill (not a big surprise as it's only 300m high) and a mere skittering on Ben Lomond and a wee crown of whiteness on Ben Ime (circa 1050m) in the Arrochar Alps over on the far side of Loch Lomond. The last weekend of January should at least have white capped hills as far as the eye can see all over the Highlands but this year it's a winter drought and the hills are a pale shade of smudgy brown - even under the sharp clear blue winter skies...</p> <p>it was the 2nd WS trip of the year - featuring a minibus load of US and Swedish execs and engineers in town for a company jolly and under our guidance for some fun in the hills and hangover clearance. Of course, the two greenest delegates didnt even make it all the way along Corstorphine Road before the previous evenings beer and kebabs brigtened up the pavements by Murrayfield. The rest of them had an ace time and all managed to get up the lofty hights of Conic Hill to share a bottle of Glen Moray in the icy wind before legging it down to the Oak Tree Inn on the shores of Loch Lomond at Balmaha</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/100_1680.JPG" title="bit of snow on Ben Ime"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/100_1680_small.jpg" border="0" alt="bit of snow on Ben Ime"></a></p> <p>of course, by the time I got back into Edin I wasnt really in the mood for a 3 hour car drive down to Kentmere in the Lakes </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2006/01/30/where_has_the_snow_gone~521122/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2006/01/30/where_has_the_snow_gone~521122/Mon, 30 Jan 2006 23:39:53 +0100 <p>It's Saturday night...</p> <p>am 1?<br> a) hoovering in vast amounts of ale out there in the numerous bars of clubs of Edinburgh</p> <p>b) making love to a European princess with a sexy accent and come to bed eyes</p> <p>c) lying on the settee peering over my quivering beer belly at the skis leaning against the lounge wall</p> <p>.... no contest there!</p> <p>The Lounge...a ski tour<br> Left to right<br> 1. Elan x-country 215cm with sns bindings, blue, various scars and craters as well as some decades old wax on the underside ... purchased from an Oslo jumble sale for 35kr. back in Feb 1997 - these were my faves for endless trips alone around the Nordmarka forest after work... meters of snow, prepared tracks and just the silence of the woods and a few moose for company</p> <p>2. Random 1970s downhill planks 180cm - found in the hall cupboard during a previous broke period which produced a random urge to sell everything in the flat not bolted down at Ingliston car boot sale in order to fund a trip to the Lakes</p> <p>3. Salomon SR7 downhill planks 185cm - these were canine testicles just a few years ago but have now been superceded by carvers as the skis to have. However they are purple</p> <p>4. Dynastar telemark/mountain touring skis 215cm - these were the first skis I actually bought new with my own money and have cable bindings - the best trips with these skis all took place at Steinar's Oppheim Leikestova skibums commune house (complete with extreme women drought) - the pick of which has to be the trip up some almost 2000m peak to the south of Jotumheimen which took all day to skin up, have a painfully short cup of tea in the icy wind complete with a desperate conversaition about aforementioned lack of women in our lives just before spotting the 2 figures skiing across the lake still in view, our outrageously imaginative pondering about who they could be (acresses, weather girls, heiresses, independently weathly eco warriors etc etc) - Steinar then belting down the hill through the deep powder, glowing crimson with an awesome sunset, me following witha few wipeouts along the way... just in time to meet up with - a couple of very fit 70 year old grandmas out for a ski...<br> oh - and the golden eagle which buzzed the car as we drove back through Hemsedal afterwards made the trip immense!</p> <p>5. Head 185 planks - purchased off the glorious ebay with the intention of being the house rock and heather and frozen grouse skis for use in Scotland. Tried and tested by Izabella during the 2nd New year skiing snow patches at Cairgorm day</p> <p>6. Carvo carver skis 180cm - bought last year of ebay as an experiment - completed with a lonely pair of Rottefella toe clip bindings found after many years at the bottom of my underwear drawer... these are ace for piste skiing and definitey make the whole telemarking thing a million times easier. With these skis, I may even master this elusive technique if I get myself reincarnated a few hundrd times</p> <p>7. Steinar sin blå ski - these are my favourites - not as easy to ski on as the carvers, but they have style! Steinar won these in some downhill telemark race (Alperittet Stranda possibly) and immediately painted them with blue matt emulsion paint... so they woud be the last to get nicked during on piste emergency piste stops<br> - the best trip on these is undoubtedly the Galdhoppigenrennet race in 98, when I didnt even manage to come last (was last individual but beat a couple of teams) - this is the race from near the top of Norways highest mountain down to the Spiterstulen hut in teh valley below - about 1000m - there's no piste or lift system so you have to walk up and the route is steep and scary (97 race had a rather disturbing large blood stain half way down). I walked up with Steinar, Erik and the gang - had to wait a while on the top, for my latest start number, getting psyched out by the enourmous steep bits, rocks etc as well as the speed some of these norskies were getting up to (down in circa 2 minutes)...</p> <p>31 minutes later and one unexpected meeting with a silver birch down near the finish and I was as hyper as a three year old in a vat of red bull and completely in love with this skiing malarky</p> <p>8. Green Tua Blade telemark skis - another ebay purchase though in fact I was after the bindings (stick em on the carvers in time for Courchevel - SIX WEEKS TO GO!)... however, this snow shortage will be over by then...</p> <p>and there'll be some stories to tell!<br> <a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/100_1671.JPG" title="lounge skis"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/100_1671_small.jpg" border="0" alt="lounge skis"></a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2006/01/22/the_lounge_a_skiing_odyssey~494020/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2006/01/22/the_lounge_a_skiing_odyssey~494020/Sun, 22 Jan 2006 01:03:01 +0100 <p>from the archives of course...(distinct lack of snow at the moment!)</p> <p>English based Droopers - get the vomit buckets out!<br> This is a story loosely based on the real and completely unimagined trip to Glenshee we had yesterday You have to admit that Edinburgh has the edge over Sunny Staffs when it comes to short distance to snow covered hillsides, basking in a weak winter sun and caressed by the faintest hint of spring in the slightest breeze (tell a lie there the wind was from the North and was fooking cold) </p> <p>The particiPANTS: Mason, Haber, Vicky, Nicky and Jen plus a long lost soul from the initial Drooper membership list, Mr Mark Jones (who once was a fellrunner but now is a hard working father whose rapid dose of cranial expose is getting positively Haberesque). </p> <p>The venue Glas Maol, above Glenshee, the 69th highest hill in the land and is rather shapely and rounded just like the cathedral at Brest-Litovsk. We could mention the sunny weather, snow covered hills in almost all direction and the fantastic on piste skiing you could sneak yourself if you were daft enough top attach a couple of Telemark skis to your rucksac but the real event of the day has to be the secret polybagging course discovered by our Mr Mason under the dubious pretext of a bit of ice axe practice. </p> <p>Low friction shit off a titanium shovel in a vacuum might do it justice. I wendied out of course due to the urgent need for skiing and found half a hare (a flap of skin, bit of leg and maybe some liver) just after completing an unprecedented 4 consecutive telemark turns, but Mason managed to hit terminal bivi bag velocity and steer a course though the pile of rocks at the bottom of the snowy gully called the poly bag run. </p> <p>What a doss! </p> <p>So if you have the URGE ( a pleasant tasting but foul looking Norwegian soft drink) then get your arses up here coz there is snow in them there hills and I have a room load of spare skis and Mason has a bivy bag with holes in and a wild look in his eyes. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2006/01/10/another_reson_to_live_in_scotland~459202/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2006/01/10/another_reson_to_live_in_scotland~459202/Tue, 10 Jan 2006 21:20:15 +0100 <p>here's reminising about missing the mountains, from another time (post-Norway pre-Scotland)</p> <p>..the journey was great - at the crack of dawn I set forth negotioating the quiet streets of whittington with all the reflexes of a zombie (with a hangover), pausing only to get the paper (quality liberal broadsheet of course) and speed read The Sport while Mrs Pearce wasn't looking. </p> <p>It took exactly 4mins 43 secs for me to chance upon a wide enough gap in the Tamworth (pronounced Tam-wuff to those from WS14) bound traffic jam and to head exitedly of Lichfield where I waited exactly 4 mins 43 secs at the Birmingham Road traffic lights and 4 mins 43 secs at the Shoulder of mutton x-roads before the lanes to shenstone and the lure of the nose-to-tail-43.4 kmph - open - road carried me away into commuter dream land. </p> <p>At Stonnall I had to wait exactly 4mins 43 sec to find a wide enough gap in the Birmingham bound traffic jam on the Chester Road and i crawled excitedly past the garden centres, Porsche garages, and curry empori of the West Midlands suburbs, while the sky steadily brightened from a lush shade of grey to an even lusher shade of grey.</p> <p>At Steetly i had to wait exactly 4 mins 43 secs for a green light to turn right up to the immense altitudes of Barr Beacon (195m above sea level) where out of my spotless windscreen I could see all the way to Walsall and even West Bromwich (it was good air quality that day you see). </p> <p>From the Beacon I rolled down to Great Barr where I waited exacly 4mins 43 sec to cross the a443 past on to Great Barr High School where I got stuck behind a whole herd of 4x4 housewife transporters doing the school run, for considerably longer than 4mins 43 secs. </p> <p>By the time I pulled into the car park at Perry Barr I was late as normal, got stuck in the lift for 4mins 43 secs, and got thrown out of the system while logging in, but being the career orientated yuppie I am, was immediatedly assigned to the top secret Special Duties Filing Team where the main intellectual stimmunltaion of the millenium was.... </p> <p>does the Fuckpiece and Firkin come after the Fed Up and Firkin?<br> (For the journey home reverse the first paragraph)</p> <p>jealous? (who me?) who said anyone was jealous and longing for endless slopes of deep powder, cruiseing though snow clad trees in perfectly executed telemark turns......... </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2006/01/10/another_reason_not_to_live_in_the_west_m~459175/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2006/01/10/another_reason_not_to_live_in_the_west_m~459175/Tue, 10 Jan 2006 21:12:36 +0100 <p>Drooper New Year 05/06<br> <strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong>**<br> A summary:<br> 32 Droopers (1 Scot, 1 Finn, 0.5 Swede, 1 Pole, 2 French, 1 German, 1 Canadian, 24.5 English)<br> 136 bottles of wine (102 red, 34 white)<br> circa 600 assorted beer bottles<br> 2 real ale kegs<br> 10 assorted single malts<br> 1 bottle of sherry<br> 1 ceilidh<br> 1 animal sounds quiz<br> 7 gorgeous dinners<br> 1 hot tub<br> 7 days of excitement in gloriously cold crispy weather...<br> 12mm of snow on Cairngorm</p> <p>which brings us to...</p> <p>MJ teaches Al to Telemark on Cairngorm - New Years Eve<br> <strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong>*<br> Just like every other morning in the hut, Shane is up at the crack of Dawn and has gone Munro Bagging on his own, Duncan and Karen have gone too, Custard is grouchy coz he wants to be out there too but cant afford to be more than 10m from the nearest flushable porcelain and I have loudly woken him up at 07.00 from his only consecutive 10 minute slumber in the whole night... still we had to be up early as today is teh big international x country ski expedition to that deep powder heaven known as the Cairngorms...</p> <p>Monsieur Bagette is representing la France, Trish: la Suede, me and Al: l'Angleterre, Izabella: la Polande - however a quick stop at the Loch Morlich bacon sarnie shop... "Och, there's nae snae, pal!" and Bagette and Trish have bailed and decide to go for a more constructive walk in the Rothiemurcus forest instead</p> <p>We finally get our skiing wigs* on in the Cairngom carpark at 11.00 -there is indeed no snow - in fact the surrounding hills are looking a decididly semi frozen mid winter brown and the car park is looking as uninspiring as...er... a carpark. We try to avoid unwanted attention and comments from saner member of the human race as we load up the skis and wander up through the ski centre towards to snowiness of the Fiachaille ridge leading up to the plateau</p> <p>A couple of hours, 14 drinks stops and numerous stories from the achieves featuring nakedness and reindeers to keep Izabella entertained and we are on the plateau... Al spots a relatively rock-free snow patch and the heavy badly balanced rucksacs with skis seem to be worth it...</p> <p>Telemarking Instruction MJ style<br> 1. see this ski...it clips onto your boot at the toe<br> 2. see that slope - just head downhill<br> 3. see those rocks - best shut your eyes as it hurts less</p> <p>Al is the perfect Telemark pupil as he learns to wipeout in an uncontrolled manner complete with the required ammount of yeee-ha!-ing, banshee shrieking and insane laughter. Learning to turn comes in lesson 16.4 (year 16, term 4) so we don't bother. However, Al does a passable arse-out snow plough a couple of time without falling over so he is a good bet to master the turn before the collapse of western society as we know it.</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/100_1651.JPG" title="Cairngorm Telemark lessons"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/100_1651_small.jpg" border="0" alt="Cairngorm Telemark lessons"></a></p> <p>More importantly, Al has the video camera...</p> <p>However, after a couple of very entertaining telemark moves down the scary icy slope of death (at least a green run), catching the attention of numerous intrigued mountaineers and a RAF mountain rescue helicopter, we decide to head up to Cairngorm (well it is a Munro after all!).</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/100_1659.JPG" title="al wipeout"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/100_1659_small.jpg" border="0" alt="al wipeout"></a></p> <p>A SHOCK AT THE TOP<br> shock a) we are not alone in our ski induced insanity... a couple of ski-mountaineers and a telemarker have skinned up from Loch Etchecan and are beaming with excitement about having found snow on such a gorgeous winter's day<br> shock b) we meet Roystar, Pete and Lizzie on the summit... not that unusual to meet fellow Droopers on the summit of hills, but these 3 had taken the train up! De-schpicable! Remind us to get a bigger Drooperbrew bucket!</p> <p>Anyway, with a setting sun on the way and a suitable Drooper audience at hand, we decide to head off down Cairngorm into the ski centre... much hillarity and wiping-out ensues - mostly filmed by Al. He also mananges quite a few face first wipeouts as well as some scrotum torturing splits-type mannouvers... he even manages to film himself wiping the snow off the lens after the penultimate wipe-out.. we headed down the easy blue ziz-zag run, which consisting of a couple of mm of snow on top of an icy base, is proving to be an excellent telemark training venue. Well maybe not. But we do manage to get down the hill equally as far as the the 3 other skiers who had longe since left us behind. </p> <p>Competitive Spirit Rangers 4.<br> Intelligence and Better Judgment United 0. </p> <p>Wiping out on icy ruts, frozen footpints and rocks hurts. Gives you carpet burns in places best left unmentioned in fact. </p> <p>We disembark from the telemarks after 3 hours of adrelanine induced entertainment and head back down the hill totally hyper, hungry and armed with an enourmous beer thirst...</p> <p>...and an urge to see in 2006 with haggis neaps and tatties and the World Famous in Laggan Animal Sounds Quiz</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/100_1661.JPG" title="Cairngorm plateau"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/100_1661_small.jpg" border="0" alt="Cairngorm plateau"></a></p> <p>Fookinace! </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2006/01/08/drooper_new_year_to_slaggan~453190/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2006/01/08/drooper_new_year_to_slaggan~453190/Sun, 08 Jan 2006 22:14:54 +0100 <p>It's Thursday night, there may or may not be skiing conditions at that arse end of the Cairngorms otherwise known as the Lecht this weekend so in the spirit of winding up tomwards some snowy adventures... here's one from the archives...Braemar Telemark Festival 99 - about 6 months after coming back from norway and about 1 week before moving to Scotland<br> <strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong>*<br> Drooper<img src="/img/smilies/grayshy.gif" alt=":." class="middle" border="0">......last tango in Glenshee<br> <strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong>*</p> <p>......the word Last is the main one here......</p> <p>yes after years of coming spectacularly last in variuos Norwegian skiing comps, the habit seemed to have stuck in scotland......<br> but the skiing was ace and I'd do it all again...</p> <p>The course was the not too steep racing piste above the cairnwell restaurant (the round building if ewe've been there before)...they gave us practice<br> runs during which I didn't even fall over on although the jump halfway doon was<br> looking even more unobtainable than Stoke City automatic promotion, the gates were evenly spaced (say like a super g) and the rounabout and the<br> uphill x-country bit at the end was relatively short........piste of piss, thought I, unusually confident after a fine nights drive up from sunny<br> Staffs, and I spent the pre race time looking for my cowbell and heiaheia gang (a la ski sunday)....a few former Lymington Ventures were up for the<br> infamous Nobby's 21st (whose claimm to fame in the whole day was domino-ing a whole line of snowboarders on the beginner slope)....... they were hard to find in the worsening blizzard as was the start house at the top of the race......it was colder than Anglo-American relations post Banana War....<br> I watched all the various Scots and visting Norskies shoot out of the start hut and speed telemark downslope into the snowstorm "Ah" I thought "they're all quite good"<br> and when it came to start nr. 9 and the 3-2-1 countdown there was a rather loud echoey "shiiiiiit" resounding in my head as I carefully made my way doon the course....I hadn't actually fallen by the time i got to the jump<br> but was turning far too much and not turning too much...my lard encrusted thigh ex-muscles were burning like a morning after balti and the sudden<br> appearence of a dose of workmans trooser syndrome meant that that my fat arse was getting a tad chilli...<br> suddnly the rup up to the jump loomed out of the whiteness....<br> "ah fuck it!" I thought, as i Eddy the Eagled my way into Scottish telemark<br> history and......<br> ........<br> .<br> .<br> .<br> .<br> .<br> ....fell rather mightily with crunch on my belly and slid down the next gate.....</p> <p>2 minutes later I was down...the finish marshall said,<br> "you'd have been better off without a heavy rucksac on your back"<br> "just habit I suppose" I said as I sauntered off for an afternoon of yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-ha!ing through the blizzard in the company of<br> Vicky's housemate Loo </p> <p>It was jaevla bra as they say in Hallingdal and other parts frequented by crap Telemark skiers </p> <p>ps I wasn't actually that far behind the 2nd to last so maybe next year<br> MJ<br> lycra clad workman trooser sufferers anonymous</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/12/16/one_from_the_archives~390297/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/12/16/one_from_the_archives~390297/Fri, 16 Dec 2005 00:16:55 +0100 <p>featuring:</p> <p>Cap'n Greenbeard - a portly legendary scourge of the Spannish main and his crew: LusciousLindsaybeard the figurehead, Fionabeard with her enourmous canon and the hulking brutish figure of Brownbeard the First Mate</p> <p>Cap'n Yellowbeard - sculduggerous scoundrel of the seven seas and his unwilling followers: Looperbeard the Lookout and Edbeard the drunken helmsman and navigator</p> <p>Cap'n Redbeard - the fairest piratess of them all and her crew; HunkyDunkybeard the first mate, Silverbeard St Clair the shipsmaid, and Richbeard the poor pirate with the purple helmet</p> <p>The first skirmishes took place in the village, in fact the pesky locals stole the cunningly placed message bottle from its hiding place - the phone box and placed it in a nearbt wastebin. The rotters! </p> <p>The next thing to go wrong for Admiral Chisholm (a not so distant relation of Seaman Staines) was the airfield preventing the placing of a message bottle within its borders. Like all good pirates, the good Admiral Chisholm ran off.</p> <p>After an uneasy truce lasting exactly 1 hour, Captain Yellowbeard and his crew snuck up on Greenbeard who had their thoughts upon the upcoming moorland top ale house. After a short waving of cutlasses and firing of cannons, Captain Yellowbeard stabbed Greenbeard through the beard with his favourite rapier but Greenbeard got a shot off with his trusty dueling pistol which he had hidden within the cavernous depths of his pirate attire. A draw was decalred. At this point, the two crews merged by means of a 2:3 rights issue and public listing on the Aleutian stock exchange. They went to the pub.</p> <p>Meanwhile, Redbeard forged onwards and nearer to the treasure.</p> <p>Exiting the pub days later, the Green/Yellowbeard crews were accosted by a acouple of the local lawmen. However these were soon bribed and threatened into servitude and sent onwards to waylay Redbeard's crew who at this point were forging ahead, partly due to HunkyDunkybeards navigating and partly due to the tyranical leadership of the infamous Redbeard herself. This ploy failed as the beaters were soon keelhauled and flayed alive by Redbeard's cat o nine tails.</p> <p>The Admiral, during this point was staggering around Eyam Moor looking for a stone circle. He was desperately lost and staggering through enormous swathes of razor sharp heather, cursing his navigator for having eloped the previous year with a Herdwick from Swaledale whilst stealing the compass . After an hour, it occured to the Admiral that the stone circle was quite possibly not of the size of Stonehenge and he began to despair. However, a cunningly placed and very smelly sheep carcass eventually pinpointed the position where he was able to hide another messagebottle before swashbuckling down to the plague village where he was to bury the treasure...</p> <p>The treasure, aaargh!</p> <p>Treasure, you see, is best never left in daylight and Eyam the plague vilage has one of the best treasure-leaving spots between Baslow and Bakewell. The Admiral arrived in his untrustworthy white chariot and just about managed to squeeze his portly frame into the murky depths of Carlswark the Wonder Cavern just as the merry sounds of pirating filtered through the surrounding woods...</p> <p>The three crews arrived at Carlwark the Wonder Cavern's Gin entrance at the same time and there was much "aaaargh"ing, waving of cutlasses and glinting of eyes. A stand off in other words. Redbeard took the lead and sent her trusty HunkyDunkybeard down the cave. Greenbeard followed, making sure that the Green/Yellowbeards crew were not to be cheated. The Admiral went down there too - wearing a convenient viking helmet which was possibly not the best choice as the horns kept getting stuck in the cave roof.</p> <p>It was dark down there. Muddy. And slightly cold. The Admiral even pinged a button on his navy great coat as he forced his belly through a tight bit. HDbeard was first looking in all the wrong passages and so it was Greenbeard who found the tresure first, screaming with pirate joy as the chest was openened exposing the gold and silver coins and gold bars inside. At this point, HDbeard said the secret pirate word and showed himself to be the hidden crewman of Yellowbeard. He offered to carry the treasure out of the cave himself. A task which Greenbeard was only happy to leave, as carrying the heavy treasure chest up a 20ft cave entrance would impinge on his natural good looks and beer thirst. Redbeard was waiting at the entrance, overjoyed that her crewman was the finder of the treasure, dismayed when he handed over the box to Yellowbeard who in turn was dismayed to find that his trusted Lopperbeard the Lookout was in fact Lt. Looper of His Majesty's Customes and Excise...</p> <p>It never pays to be a pirate!</p> <p>As they say in salty, foggy coastal villages the world over... </p> <p>"Aaargh"</p> <p>Pub, anyone?</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/12/12/ayeaye_cap_n_the_result~381540/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/12/12/ayeaye_cap_n_the_result~381540/Mon, 12 Dec 2005 20:49:34 +0100 <p>AHOI ME HEARTIES!</p> <p>You are the crew and comrades of the legendary pirate, buccanner and salty dog of the sea....Redbeard/Yellowbeard/Greenbeard</p> <p>There's Treasure in them there hills and you have to find it...</p> <p>You and the crew have to search the swampy swamps of death to find your very own pirate map...together with a list of coordinates which will lead you to the secret...</p> <p>Each coordinate will have a message in a bottle containing a letter. All the letters lead to a spelling of the rough area where the treasure may or may not be...</p> <p>Your crew may or may not contain agents of His Majesty's Navy under the command of the slippery Cap'n Chisholm...</p> <p>Your crew may contain traitorous secret crew of teh other cap's so beware of sculduggery or you may get impaled by an ovine rapier</p> <p>HERE BY RULES!<br> 1. The crews can be attacked by another crew and if defeated will be pressganged into the victorious crew<br> 2. the crew must compose and perform a sea shanty or other aquatic ditty to be performed in the most embarassing manner possible<br> 3. attacks on crews can only happen in open country<br> 4. you must have some safety equipment (bivibag, head torch, anchor, shark repellent, peg leg varnish, parrot feed, plank lengthener etc)<br> 5. alehouses are an attack free zone of pirate tolerance and goodwill...maybe</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/12/12/ayeaye_cap_n_the_challenge~381500/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/12/12/ayeaye_cap_n_the_challenge~381500/Mon, 12 Dec 2005 20:38:02 +0100 <p>Do you remember the very memorable and dodgy Channel 4 documentary about the New York S+M scene? The one where some loon nailed his foreskin to a table and another got his nob rigourously chafed by a blonde in a pvc minidress using a cheese grater... well the real nutters were into stuff too extreme to be deemed worthy of a late night documentary even with an adult and disturbing material warning... The out-takes have some sad old perv breaking down in front of the camera, his face blacked out, his voice creaking with emotion and self loathing...</p> <p>"...er I go skiing in Scotland!"</p> <p><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong>****<br> Just as I get myself a months work in ITland it starts to snow and Nobby calls up with "there's some awesome conditions at Glenshee - it's on the web, deep powder snow everywhere...best start to a season for years...!"</p> <p>That was Wednesday. In true Scottish style, by the weekend the thaw has set in, on Friday night Nobby arrives by train from Durham and I sponge a few beers off him down the Argyle before late night toast and tea made with milk 5 days out of date...</p> <p>Saturday morning, the 6am alarm aounds for ages just as I'm dreaming about Elin Tvedt the famous Norwegian weathergirl. Ha det Elin. Hello rainy Edinburgh, a long drive and a day on the slopes. We have to decide which centre to go to. Glencoe and Nevis Range are rainy swamps with perfect conditions for mudboarding, Glenshee has had an overnight thaw, The Lecht looks OK but takes ages to get to. Aviemore it is then.</p> <p>2 hours and one Swedish folk music tape later, we're in Aviemore looking for an open ski hire shop trying to avoid the tumbleweed and the rusty shop signs blowing in the wind. We eventualy find somewhere near Glenmore Lodge for Nobby to get some skis from...they sell bacon rolls too so we load up on the lard for the rigours ahead.</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/oy6C4qZhTp.jpg" title="Ski Afro"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/oy6C4qZhTp_small.jpg" border="0" alt="Ski Afro"></a></p> <p>Nobby has a heart attack when the nice aussie bird tells him that the price of a linited area ticket up the funicular for the two of us isnt £24 but each. Considerably poorer, we shuffle into the Piccadilly Line at Covent Garden and ten minutes later are expelled at Cockfosters into a total whiteout. The conditions are pretty much better than average for Aviemore as it isnt windy and there's no rain or gale force ice bits in your face. We both ski like unfit fat bastards down the easy traverse leading to the zig zags. In fact, I'm not sure it would be called a piste in a proper ski resort. It seems more like the access road except that this time there's nutter snowboarders looming in and out of the fog...</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/Image026.jpg" title="Nobby skiing"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/Image026_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>We do the easy stuff for a couple of hours until Nobby gets bored. He suggests we have a go at the White Lady run (a red run of some fame) It's got about a meter of deep powder snow (about 1 meter long and about 34 cms wide by the side of an enourmous open patch of damp bog) - on the upper slopes, the snow is actually quite good and by the time we're doing our last run down, Nobby has perfected some awesome wipeout in muddy holes manouvers and I have even managed about ten telemark turns in a row without falling over. Then it all goes a bit wrong. Where the White Lady steepens into a proper gully and the skiing gets harder, I run into a particular unpleasant type of slush and lose my left ski. After accidentally waking a couple of sleeping ptarmigans and extracting some unwanted snow from my arsecrack, I reach for the lost ski and dislodge it downhill. It goes on for ages. Bear in mind that telemark skis dont have brakes and will slide on downhill forever and that I've forgotten to make up some leashes out of the shoelaces in my pocket because I'm too tight to buy some froma ski shop. Soon I'm plodding on downhill looking for a ski which has long since diseappeared into the gloom.</p> <p>Half an hour later, I'm trying to think of some story to tell the piste crew to keep a look out for a left telemark ski somewhere on the White Lady, when I spot a bit of hideous yellow colouring half burried under a snow bridge in the burn...</p> <p>just in time for an awesome session of avoiding gravel whilst skiing on down to the carpark and the end of a fantastic first foray for the season..</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/G9V589U93T.jpg" title="Nobby on car park run"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/G9V589U93T_small.jpg" border="0" alt="Nobby on car park run"></a></p> <p>Nobby on the car park run black run (black gravel in places)</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/12/03/first_ski_of_the_season~358476/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/12/03/first_ski_of_the_season~358476/Sat, 03 Dec 2005 21:57:36 +0100 <p>I used to work in Chicago<br> An old department store<br> I used to work in Chicago<br> I dont work there no more</p> <p>A woman came in for a handle<br> A Handle from the store<br> Handle she wanted<br> Knob she got<br> I dont work there no more<br> Aaaagh!</p> <p>I used to...</p> <p>sailors/semen<br> ewe/rammed<br> paxo/stuffing<br> hat/helmet<br> kitkat/4 fingers<br> width/length<br> ruler/12 inches<br> herbert/rodgerd<br> richard/dick<br> hen/cock<br> finish/end<br> exit/entered<br> terra ingonita/explored<br> spoonbill/stalked<br> northern trunk road/A69<br> translation and interpreting/cunnilingus<br> batholith/intrusion<br> Battle of Hastings/invaded<br> Dentist/Filling<br> Eggs/Laid<br> Nitrates/Fertilsed<br> Pin/Prick<br> Voyager2/probe<br> Ding/dong<br> Book keeping/double entry<br> Beef joint/spit roast<br> Bacon/porking<br> TVP/meat<br> Margarine/spread<br> I can belive its nor butter/delight<br> Cocaine/ecstasy<br> boom/banged<br> drift mine/shafting<br> nail/screwed<br> hammer/nailed<br> honk/bonked<br> Starling/Thrush<br> Dialing code/STD<br> emu/rod<br> czech/pole<br> stampcollection/lickin'<br> cormorant/shag<br> tiptop/cream<br> blue whale/sperm<br> lard/man fat<br> applause/the clap<br> debenture/member<br> branch/root<br> William/willy<br> pass/tackle<br> MOT/serviced<br> gear/equipment<br> spoon/forked<br> velvet/felt<br> Aplha Course/intercourse<br> half a foot/6 inches<br> Cap'n Birdseye/Fishy Fingers<br> axe/chopper<br> William/willy<br> Traffic Calming Measure/humping<br> BigMac/Whopper<br> Donkey/Dobbin<br> hacksaw/tool<br> fork/prong<br> nikwax/impregnated</p> <p>silver bath/golden shower*<br> Back door/rear entry **<br> Diamond earrings/pearl necklace **<br> single explosion/gang bang **</p> <p>* from Rob ** from HD</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/11/28/old_chicago_town_12_inch_extended_mix~343889/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/11/28/old_chicago_town_12_inch_extended_mix~343889/Mon, 28 Nov 2005 14:14:49 +0100 <p>2 hours sleep, the airbed is virtualy deflated, the front room stinks of sweaty snoring bodies and stale beer, I'm out in the kitchen meeting the Stfford folk and trying to work out if they have a problem with us overloading the hut. It looks like good weather outside, so I make tea to try and raise the hut. Popular-ish idea in some quarters, not so in the majority!</p> <p>Eventally, the usual eon of faffing happens but we do in fact set out on a walk. The Uberfeller being young and keen have decided to go and do Cader Idris. Vicky, Steve, Daly et al not being as young but still being as keen have driven towards Bala Lake and are going to walk back to teh hut along the Aran mountain ridge... Me, Pugs, the Dollytwins, Dollytwinsmate Fiona, Richard, Sophie and bloke are walking up past brown pants gully to the boggy plateau behind. The weather was good when we started but soon turns to sleet and a strong wind. Richard has holy boots and an epiphany. He heads back down the gully to do emergency food shopping and the rest off us head into the whiteout. The ground is dead boggy but the snow covers most of the deadly patches so it's like crossing a minefield of sudden death swamps. Everyone falls in at some point. I've got a 1:50 type map which doesnt have the fence marked alonside which I know has a duckboard path. It's hard naigating without a watch as well as avoiding a swampy dunking but we find the fence as well as Duncan and Karen who have set off earlier but seem to be having the same snow fun time experiences.</p> <p>We get somewhere about 50 meters from the trig point on Aran Fawdwyy find a cairn, pretend it's teh top and hightail it back down into the lee, which is hard to find since the wind has changed direction and still seems to be in our faces. Funny, that innit! Always seems to happen. In the gathering gloom, I tell Meli a joke about a cliff and the shadows. Hmm, it wasnt funny then and it isnt now!</p> <p>Eventually we are back in the hut, drinking tea and warming up. The others tun up, weather beaten and happy. I try to organise a gang of choppers as tonight is veggie stir-fry and sheery triffle night</p> <p>Starter<br> A selction of finest left-over Walkabout Scotland summer season crisps</p> <p>Main course<br> Ginger and garlic vegetable stir-fry with noodles<br> Stir-fry vegetables in black bean and soy sauce<br> Chilli and Leek Fiery Welsh Dragon</p> <p>served with chips a single slice of tomato and special boiled rice</p> <p>Desert<br> Pint of Sherry Triffle</p> <p>Posh cheese, tea coffee, more sherry, port and beer</p> <p>Evening entertainment consisted of a fine 80 verse rendition of Old Chicago Town, follwed by Sunshine Mountain, Ilkley Moor bah'tat, Yogi Bear, Shag a Wallaby and Singing in the Rain and followed by a long and very dance-able set by DJ DM on the dodgy Lulu kitchen cd player - even the Stafford MC crew joined in... and at by the end they were outnumbering Droopers (the Uberfellers being down to just Adele)...</p> <p>At this point the spare bottle of sherry kicked in and the evenings events beacme a little hazy (details spared to save the innocent and teh not so innocent)</p> <p>Sunday, was a little hazy too... Al and Duncan managed to be Droopers up a hill the rest of us sat around, slowly tidying up, drinking cupos of tea, making more chips and talking about but not going to the beach</p> <p>An ace and truly inspiring trip!</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/IMG_1307.jpg" title="Droopers on Aran Fawdwyy Sunday"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/IMG_1307_small.jpg" border="0" alt="Droopers on Aran Fawdwyy Sunday"></a><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/IMG_1306.jpg" title="Snowy Arans"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/IMG_1306_small.jpg" border="0" alt="Snowy Arans"></a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/11/28/snow_wind_and_wet_bog~343819/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/11/28/snow_wind_and_wet_bog~343819/Mon, 28 Nov 2005 13:53:02 +0100 <p>Just a couple of hours from Telford, hidden in a secret Welsh valley and tucked under an enourmous crag between two muntain streams lies Bryn Hafod...site of some classic parties over the years and seemlingly never to dissappiont</p> <p>Pugs and I are trudging up the track after carefully parking the car on the bog so not to antagonise the sons of Glendower and the local farmers.. I've got a heavy rucksac containing most of the food as well as Pug's bag since he is fighting with a binbag containg two airbeds...</p> <p>The light of the hut becons us onwards but we dont seem to be getting there quickly but soon after almost slipping off the rickety and icy bridge we're in the front room looking for the fisher price space shuttle and Mike and Lulu are dead surprised to see Pugs who has rapidly taken over as chief entertainer</p> <p>It's a huge trip, 20 Droopers, 10 Uberfellers, and 8 Staford MC people who are up to do some repairs on the hut. We're supposed to be 18 and I'm worried about getting us banned. After 13 hours of travelling, Pugs and I are not miraculously the last. Richard is turning up later with the London Love Bus.</p> <p>When the London crowd do stagger at 1.30am, mayhem breaks loose. The intelligent people run to their beds, the rest of us start drinking. The fire is gloriously warm, the beer thirst is deadly and the conversation gets sillier.</p> <p>At 4am, we're playing a game of as-soon-as-there's-five-people-left-we-can-all-go-to-sleep (3 sofas, 2 airbeds). Pugs soon blows up his airbed to full rigidity. Mine is limp and hopeless despite an enternity of blowing. Meli is the one to lose the stand off and head up stairs to the cold bedroom. Mike, Lulu and Steve are on the sofas, Pugs is on his rock hard airbed and mine is floppy. In the glow of the firelight, you can hear the wind blow outside and a steady and slight hiss... I'm getting floppier.</p> <p>"If you were a wild animal, what would you be?" says Pugs, to the room<br> "I'd be a snow fox", I mutter<br> "I'd be a tiger" says Steve<br> "I'd be a raven" says Pugs<br> "What would you be, Mike?" I give him a quick prod, he dribbles<br> "I'm a hyena!" Lulu decares from the far corner</p> <p>45 minutes and many varieties of object later...</p> <p>"If you were a method of suicide what would you be?" asks Pugs..<br> "I'd be chased off Beachy Head by hordes of naked women" says Steve, quietly hoping that we wouldnt notice the monty python plagerism and possibly we might even shut up and go to sleep...<br> "I'm a hyena!" says Lulu, loudly</p> <p>"Hissssssss" the air bed whimpers...<img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/shuttle.jpg" border="0" alt="Space Shuttle Drooper"> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/11/28/return_to_the_space_shuttle_drooper~343724/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/11/28/return_to_the_space_shuttle_drooper~343724/Mon, 28 Nov 2005 13:11:49 +0100 <p>Friday's weather... severe snow storms throughout the western UK and upland areas...police advice only to travel if essential...</p> <p>I cant travel to Bryn Hafod can I? I will have to send an email out, get someone else to do the food shopping and arrange to see Pugs another year..</p> <p>Do I;<br> 1. stay at home and watch the All Blacks beat Scotland on telly?<br> 2. ammass a further 30 panzer divisions, the entire Golden Horde and the fleet of Gustav Adolfus, stick the Wagner CD on and embark on another invasion of Poland...</p> <p>I decide on plan 2. but just as the first storm troopers are doing a quick explaratory raid across the River Oder..I get the "Lets Just Be Friends" speech...</p> <p>"Ach mein liebe Gott!" I cry in my best tank commanders accent as the Tiger tank runs out of unleaded, the Golden Horde pulls up lame at the first and the good ship Vasa keels over in Stockholm harbour after some fuckwit leaves the bottom gunports open.</p> <p>Change of plan... get my best green furry love troozas and long woolen undies out of summer storage, grab the menagerie of spare boots, hats, gloves, ski goggles, snowspade, find the car keys at the bottom of the dirty washing pile and head out at midday...</p> <p>2 hours later and I've hit the first traffic jam to the north of Biggar...the Pentland Hills are covered in, all of 10cms of the glorious white stuff and a couple of trucks are stuck on tehphill sections... In Norway, it takes something like an avalanche or landslide to cause a 5 mile tailback but in Scotland it takes 10cms of snow. Down there south of Hadrians wall it takes a lot less than 10 centimeters! Nobody really knows how to drive in snow here, but c'est la vie!</p> <p>2.5 hours later a tractor pulls one of the trucks off the road and the traffic flows slowy....</p> <p>3. hours and a daft woman in a 4x4 does athree point turnifron of a truck moving up teh hill near Coulter... another jam, this time big anough to get a mention on Steve Wright. There's a 30 mile jam doen in Cornwall! I've got to be bloody mad to be heading for a Drooper trip!</p> <p>At 5pm, I eventually hit the motorway and I'm suffering longjourney with only one tape madness! It's not even ABBA which is making it worse.</p> <p>By 9pm, I'm navigating Telfords well signposted maze of roundabouts looking for Pugs...</p> <p>A madweekend awaits...</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/11/28/snowy_adventures_on_the_a702~343670/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/11/28/snowy_adventures_on_the_a702~343670/Mon, 28 Nov 2005 12:41:09 +0100 <p>Ahoi there! me hearties, put down ye jugs o' ale and come an listen to me tale...or ye'll be 'avin a cat o' nine tails flayin' ye skin from ye bones!</p> <p>How Long John Silver Lost His Parrot....aaaargh!<br> For many a year after Long John came back from them south seas, missin' 'is leg and gainin' 'is parrot, he tooks tae wanderin' the taverns an' alehouses of tamworth shore. 'e could tell a good tale, could old Long John, what with that demented parrot and that peg leg bangin' on alehouse floor an' that gleam in 'is good eye looking at the servin' wenches. Aaaargh! </p> <p>Sometimes, loike when the hoo-erhouse was busy, Old Mate Cap'n Hook would come in and get Long John's parrot tae pick 'is nose, loike, Cap'n hook not being inclined tae such manouvres loike and it was one of thse times when Long John's parrot was helping the Cap'n with his nasal excavations that the evil man from the ministry came and took the bird away, siting failure to comply with import of exotic birds act 1977.</p> <p>Blackbeard, Bluebeard an' Redbeard grabbed their cutlasses an' chased the snivellin' scumbag down tae canal an' keelhauled 'im but alas the bird wasne'er ta'be see in these parts again. Aaaargh!</p> <p>Long John was scuttled with sadness and foundered on the wretched reef of despair. Well shiver me timbers! He even took tae long bouts of sobriety and sexual abstinence.</p> <p>Many years past an' Old Long John was destitute loike, 'im being an old one legged pirate without a parrot and only one good eye and he took to standing outside IKEA looking lustfully at flatpack tables and daydreaming of south sea islands and the luscious smell of melons on the wind...aaargh!</p> <p>Just when it looked loike Ol' Long John would end his sorry days in a shopping mall tavern, he was picked up by Stoke City and put to work as 1st Team Striker. He spent his waning days, hobblin' around the penalty area and was known to bellow (upon the very prescious and rare near scoring chance) "Thre'll be treasure in them there hills... and You'll better be on the Drooper Xmas Pirate Party to find it....aaaaargh<br> <img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/crossbones.jpg" border="0" alt=""> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/11/25/how_long_john_silver_lost_his_parrot~335488/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/11/25/how_long_john_silver_lost_his_parrot~335488/Fri, 25 Nov 2005 00:03:34 +0100 <p>Managed to get down to the Howgills despite having received a Friday night work shocker and having to leg it up North on Saturday...<br> Another well attended trip - gorgeous place the Howgills, shame that I didnt somehow manage to get up the hills or lay my eyes on Cautley Spout, the highest waterfall in England. Maybe it was the drinking or the humiliation of spending 45 minutes trying to do "Convoy" at charades...</p> <p>However, I did manage a run from the front door on Sunday morning complete with arseplant at aforementioned front door and getting completely covered in shite...</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/100_1571.JPG" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/m/mj-drooper/img/100_1571_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>After an enternity of faffing, we did manage a bit of a wendy ramble... 12km of traipsing around muddy fields of guwno (Polski for cowshit) and getting moaned at by landowners, we all mangaged a bit of a pig out in the Sadborough cafe... I could get used to being a lazy wendywalking fat bstrd (NEWSFLASH! you already are!) </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/11/24/drooper_howgills_november~335415/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/11/24/drooper_howgills_november~335415/Thu, 24 Nov 2005 23:30:34 +0100 <p>Compared to last year's debacle on the A class, we were better prepared, better trained (at least this time we had done some), better kitted out (I had even bought myself some supposed hill running shoes from Tiso's) but...<br> we dropped out (again!)</p> <p>The rain was an absolute monsoon... we didn't help ourselves by pitching our base camp tent on the Friday night in the muddiest spot in Cumbria but we sort of managed. Being only 111 meters from the beer tent helped. We thought we had an advantage having a late tsrt time (10.15), allowing us a relaxed start to the day and plenty of time for Mike to wet himself after his platypus bag leaked. Having exchanged a few pleasantries with monsieur Baguette (remember Waterloo, Agincourt, the usual stuff!), the almost dry Dr Mike and I set off into a howling gale...just in time for me to realise that the compass I had was broken...</p> <p>We staggered along for the next few hours, managing to run some sections, although most of the flat bits seemed to be into a headwind. On the steep downhill sections, it soon became apparent that the shoes sold to me by Tiso's were definitely not suitable... I was much to cautious much to Dr downhill-runner-Simpson's consternation. We didnt get lost this year though which was a good thing...just that the kilometers didnt seem to to be eaten up fast enough. </p> <p>After finding out that we had reached base five 15 minutes later than the cut-off time, it started to dawn on us that we would be having problems getting to the overnight camp on time.<br> By 3pm, this sad fact was pretty obvious especially as a stream of defeated B classers limped, staggered and rolled down the hill in the opposite direction. So after being blown off our feet a few hundred times, we decided to call it a day and for the second year running, Mike and I camped out and had to make our way back to the finish on the Sunday morning - after spending the night in the tent eating boil in the bag msg with added sauerkraut and alleged bacon bits. </p> <p>Heading back over High Street, we were faced with hail, a severe gale and glimpses of other KIMM runners staggering around. It was more useful to use the map as a face mask than as a orientation guide so when we found the lee of a stonewall, it took a few moments of sheepish map reading to work out that we were about to run down the wrong hill. </p> <p>Back into the gale and hail, it was another hour or so that we yomped back to the finish, which Mike passed in a slightly drier state than 26 hours previously, having slipped 100m from the end and landed in a small pond having deposited a couple of fellow runners there on the way.</p> <p>Ace weekend! Ace event! C class next year? </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/11/24/kimm_race~335402/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mj-drooper.blog.co.uk/2005/11/24/kimm_race~335402/Thu, 24 Nov 2005 23:25:24 +0100