Christmas nieces, biking and snowboarding.

I spent this Christmas at my sister's place in Farnham with my nieces and my brother in law Aran. It was a great week off work and one that I really enjoyed to travel around the country catching up with friends and having fun.

We went down to Romsey late on Christmas Eve to see some relatives. My cousin Lisa who runs a restaurant there and traditionally has a late night Christmas Eve party after the place has closed for business at around 10pm. There were quite a few people there and it was great to catch up with some of them, which I hadn't seen for a few years. My sister and I used to spend a lot of our childhood Christmas's in Romsey playing with our cousins. We have plenty of fond memories of the place.

Christmas day started late for us all with a much needed lie in after the previous late night. When it came to the present opening this picture is the calm before the frantic opening. Fortunately Aran was there to make a note of who sent what to my nieces.

About half an hour later here's the big mess of wrapping and presents all over the living room. I'm sure that Aimee and Elise both enjoy the present opening more than the actual presents on the day.

For Christmas lunch we all went down to Lynn and Jeff's place who are Aran's auntie and uncle. They only live just up the road so we could all have a few drinks and walk home. We spent most of the day and evening drinking, eating too much and playing games.

The best way to start Boxing Day is with a Slipper Game. It was one of the presents that Aimee got and I was more than happy to play with my lovely nieces. Unfortunately I came last, despite collecting my ball gown, golden slippers, pumpkin, mice and invitation I wasn't allowed into the ball to meet my prince charming. Both Aimee and Elise managed it though. Maybe it's a girl thing.

Later on in the morning I had a chance to get some mountain biking in at a local army training ground. There weren't quite any mountains or even really high either, but there was quite a bit of mud and a few forests and one hill climb. Here's some of the terrain that I had to cycle though, lots of tank tracks filled with muddy water. It was a nice ride to work off some of the previous couple of day's excess food and beer.

On Sunday in the Christmas week I went up to Manchester to try out the new indoor snow slope Chill Factore. I took my snowboard and equipment up there and met up with my friend Jeff who was skiing with me. Here's the entrance way to the slopes.

Fortunately snowboarding was just like riding a bike for me, despite not having boarded for a couple of years I did remember all my skills. My first run down the slope was quite successful and I didn't fall over and remembered how to turn and stop. However it did remind me how much less fun it was to snowboard indoors rather than outside on the real mountains.

You do spend ten minutes queuing for the button lift and then about twenty seconds to come down the rather short slope. It's also very artificial snow as there are constant conditions with no ice or proper powder and also very few uneven slopes. It was a good primer and confidence builder but nothing more really. With only 90 minutes for £22 it couldn't be said to be great value for money as we got about a dozen runs in, but after 90 minutes we had had enough.

Here I am coming down the slopes, I'm the black dot that waves to the camera at the end. Dave took the video as he came along to meet us afterwards for some food and drinks.

I went from Manchester up to Preston for the New Year, met with Jeff and his very pregnant wife Claire, and also Steve and Leslie. Jeff's house must be one of the biggest and best houses of all my friends. It's an old victorian house that has four bedrooms, a study, living, dining room, kitchen and garden all set over four floors. As an idea of how large it is there are three doorbells on the identical house next door. Here we all are just before going out for the New Year celebrations in Preston.