1. Tell them the details about the product you want (brand, model number, etc);
2. Skimp contacts their network of well-known, reputable retailers in order to get their best price;
3. Skimp then e-mails you back within 24 hours (on weekdays) with the best price it found;
4. You confirm your order with Skimp, who then puts you in touch with the retailer, and you buy directly from them – no middle man!

Requesting a quote is free, and if you like the price that you’re offered, the whole service costs you only a tenner! That wouldn’t even get you a Darwin Stubby these days! And best of all, I get 25% commission for any referrals I send through to the website! So for all you Aussies that need a new OLED TV, Washing machine, or D-SLR: don’t forget to tell ‘em that “gerrod sent ya”!

Sadly for said travel coin, the dude who had dropped it prior to us picking it up never actually recorded his drop. I e-mailed the guy when I picked it up and asked him to log the coin into the cache, but after a month there was still no sign of this happening. And since I knew we’d be dropping off the coin on Saturday, I was forced to “grab” it from his hands (instead of logging it out of its cache), which means its travel history will now be slightly skewed. So etiquette lesson number one: log your trackable items as quickly as possible.

Lesson numbers two and three concern the things you put in a geocache. Firstly – food is a big no-no. Animals have a keen sense of smell, and will often attack the cache to try and get to the contents inside. Worse still, don’t put half eaten food in there, like this “delicious” looking orange chuppa-chup that we found on the weekend. That’s just disgusting.

Finally, a word on advertising. If you’re really looking to search out a new audience, perhaps placing ads inside a cache container seems like a great idea to you; I, however, think it’s about as classy as the dudes that hand out those “collector cards” (*ahem*) in Las Vegas. Cheap, and nasty!

I didn’t even bother trying to work out the nature of the business that this guy was advertising; though on reflection, I can only assume it was something to do with the hire and sales of one-eyed penguins. And now that I think of it, perhaps Kristy should have paid the ad some more attention – after all, she’s always wanted a penguin…

As it turns out, the close-up look isn’t quite as impressive as the Google maps top-down approach, but it does give you an idea of just how big it is. Pretty big.

Right next to the white horse is Uffington Castle, however this one is a bit of a conundrum. See, all that actually remains of the castle is the site upon which it was built – a huge circular landmass surrounded by a ditch (most likely an old moat). But, there’s really no signs of anything actually having ever been constructed there. What’s more, apparently it wasn’t even a castle, but instead just a hill fort!

Still, a huge ex-moat-like-ditch can be rather entertaining, as Julian proved to us. See, he has this great trick which you can use to traverse from one side of a ditch to the other, by simply running down one side as fast as you can, and then expending your built up momentum to effortlessly ascend to the other side. Sadly for him, the uphill journey proved slightly steeper than he had anticipated, which threw all of his calculations off, and saw him running face-first into the grass. Oh, if only I’d been videoing…

While we were in the area, we also took a short wander down to Wayland’s Smithy – two words which when combined somehow mean, “old tomb”. Apparently there were 14 people buried in there, but they’ve long since departed (heh heh) and now it feels more like a man-made cave.

Truth be told, it wasn’t all that exciting, but the walk in the sunshine and fresh country air was delightful! The company wasn’t too bad either, though we had suspected that would be the case when we started out.

9: Very interesting! This is a computer animated film, which follows the journey of a little hessian sack doll who wakes up in a world where humans have been wiped out by machines. It’s a bit dark and mysterious at times – its one of those films where discovering the past leads to an understanding of the future. It was also very short, so even if you do end up watching it and hating it, you’re not going to be there for long. Sensational on bluray. gerrod.com rating: 7/10.

Seven Pounds: I had never heard of this film before, but was trying to pick out something in the RomCom genre for Kristy’s viewing pleasure. The photo of Will Smith on the case looked like it was straight out of Hitch, so I figured it was a probably winner. I also didn’t bother to read the box too closely – something about changing the lives of seven people – so we watched it in ignorant bliss.

Turns out that the film is very gripping; it definitely has a bit of romance in it, but it’s by far more of a drama. The less you know about it, the better – but it’s good. Very good. There were tears by the end. gerrod.com rating: 8.5/10.

The Invention of Lying: Fail! This movie turned out to be the RomCom, yet I had thought it was purely a comedy. It’s a Ricky Gervais film, so I had expected it to be of the calibre of Ghost Town. Sadly though, it wasn’t – it was slow, and it didn’t hold my interest. I think it held Kristy’s interset even less! Sure, there’s a few laughs to be had, but overall, its definitely missable. gerrod.com rating: 5/10.

(Takes 15 minutes, Serves 2-3)

Ingredients

• 1 clove of garlic, crushed
• 1-2 anchoives, chopped (for the dressing)
• Freshly cracked black pepper
• 3 tbsp of plain greek yoghurt
• 2 hearts of romaine lettuce, chopped lengthways
• 2-3 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and diced
• Anchoives (for the salad, optional)
• 1 chicken breast, fried and chopped (optional)
• 2 rashers bacon, fried and diced (optional)
• Croutons (optional)

On Tuesday night, we met up with cousin Louise, and her sister (hence also cousin) Kylie. Kylie is fresh off the boat from Queensland, having only landed in London on Thursday the week before. It’s way cool having more family over here now!

On Wednesday night, both Kristy and I had “after work drinks” to go to, and in both cases, catching up with old colleagues. It’s been ages since I had a night on the turps, and boy did I feel it the next day! It was nice seeing my old workmates again however, so all worth it in the end.

Thursday was a total write off. I feel like I spent the whole day in the wrong place, at the wrong times. I was glad to be home on Thursday night; but more on this later.

Nick and Giovanni arranged a Friday night get together at one of my favourite bars in London – Bar Kick. Unfortunately, since the French were playing the Welsh in the rugby, and since it’s a French bar, the place was absolutely packed out. I left around 10:30 PM, feeling very hot and exhausted. It was too crowded to take any photos inside, but this is the tube that I caught home:

Julian and Shelley stayed over on Saturday night, and amongst a boatload of food, and a game of hearts, we also watched the movie Surrogates. It was ok; perhaps one for the Bruce Willis fans out there, and fairly harmless entertainment for said fans’ wives. gerrod.com rating: 6.5/10.

And that brings us to Sunday, in which our highlights have been gym, salmon fishcakes, and a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother. See? Not a lot happening at the moment, but I guess that’s how things roll in winter in London. Oh, blue skies and sunshine, where for art thou?

We turned up around 2 PM, and we were both hankering for a late lunch. The only downside of the markets was that every store seemed to offer something that we wanted, but we only had limited stomach room (let alone cash to burn)! Making a decision was near impossible! We eventually settled on Moroccan Flat Bread filled with lamb and tomato – delicious!

Since we were on our way to Al and Becca’s for the evening, we also picked up a mixed pack of 12 mini cupcakes from Crumbs and Doilies. Their flavour of the week (month?) was “salted caramel”, though I must admit I had difficult working out which ones they were, and which were the vanilla. Not that I was complaining; that was merely an excuse to eat more – you know, to do some more thorough testing…

We definitely want to check out the markets again; next time I’ll be getting a half-dozen oysters (only £5!) followed by a nutella crepe.

Still, we managed to round up a team of nine, and along we went for the ride. It was actually a pretty decent evening in the end – even the drinks weren’t terribly overpriced, at €5 for a JD and coke. We don’t know how our team (“Quizzing in the Name Of”) fared, as they only announced last place, and the top three (of which we were in neither); but we did secure victory in the Aluminium Foil Sculpture round.

Basically, we had to make something out of a sheet of aluminium foil, on the theme of a circus. Todd took the bull by the horns, and sculpted us a cannon (i.e. the human cannonball) – and quite an impressive one at that! It even had wheels, and a 1p coin in the back to weight it correctly!

Impressive, no?! Was there ever any doubt that we wouldn’t win? Especially compared to one of the other teams who simply wrapped three champagne flutes in alfoil, juggled them, and then dropped (and broke) one. Pah! Pathetic.

Best Eat In Meal

We ate at the restaurant at the bottom of the Granges and Teppes lifts on Thursday, and we were blown away by the value for money (well, it’s all relative!). For €12, I got a huge lasagne (big enough for two really, but hey – we were skiing all day!) as well as a side salad with lettuce, tomato, walnuts, and some other stuff. The meal was so big that I couldn’t even finish it – yes, I’m as shocked as you are, but it’s true! I also ordered the first café crème that I’d had all week, and it was fantastic.

Best of all, the middle of the restaurant had a huge fireplace, which had a shelf around its protective grill, so you could put your gloves/beanies/goggles/etc there to dry off while you ate, and then enjoy toasty warm fingers/heads/eyes/etc for the first 22 seconds when you stepped outside!

Best Take Out/Picnic Meal

On our first day we had randomly arranged to meet everyone for lunch at the base of the Mont Vallon chair. Kristy and I shared a massive tuna mayo baguette, and a bottle of lemon fanta, which came to the princely sum of €10. Yes, it wasn’t the cheapest place on the mountain, but that baguette was delicious, and it was worth it just to sit and bask in the sunlight for a while.

Best nutella crepe

Aubain and I were straight out onto the slopes as soon as we arrived on day one. Having not eaten lunch, we stopped for a quick snack at the top of the first lift we took, where I promptly ordered: “One nutella crepe thanks love!”. Turns out the bird didn’t speak Australian, as instead of starting to prepare my piece of chocolate heaven, she simply looked at me with a somewhat confused expression on her face.

Thankfully Aubain – fluent in both Australian and French – came to the rescue, and said “une crêpe nutella”, which she had no trouble understanding. Now to me, they sounded pretty much identical, but I guess this is why Australian’s aren’t known for their language skills.

Anyway, her ignorance of the Australian language (as well as the pre-made-then-reheated crepes) cost her the title of “best nutella crepe”, which instead has to go to the little green crepe stand in Meribel-Mottaret. We only discovered it on Thursday, but you can bet your bananas that we were right back there on Friday. €3.50 of pure nutella ecstasy!

Best toilets

The cold weather (and possibly the altitude, though I don’t know how) was playing havoc with my bladder all week, and no matter what I tried, I needed to pee as soon as we hit the top of the first lift. (Too much information?) The toilets at the top of the Morel lift (or more accurately, at the bottom of the Altiport (Meribel) lift) were always there to offer a little piece of ceramic comfort. Not only were they immaculately clean, but there was only two stairs to traverse to get there! That’s a huge comfort when you’re busting, and wearing ski boots – ordinarily a fatal combination!

Coldest lift

Yes, it’s not really an award that any lift would want to win, however the St Martin 2 chairlift was so much colder than any other, that I just had to give it a mention. Kristy, Eva and I had the “pleasure” of riding up it on Thursday afternoon, only moments after learning that it was -17˚C at the base. High up in the air, between two valleys acting as a wind tunnel, we almost died of frostbite. We tried to comfort ourselves by thinking the warmest thoughts that we could… curry… beaches… under floor heating…

Kristy decided to take things one step further, riding about 2/3rds the way up with her ski jacket unzipped! I tells ya, she’s hardcore!

Our chalet was in Merbiel, which – along with Courchevel and Val Thorens – is part of the largest ski area in the world, known as “The Three Valleys”. One thing I can definitely say about the area is that there is an absolute metric crapton of snow – way more snow than I’ve ever seen before. And, since we were also higher than we’ve ever skiied before (the highest slope we hit was just over 3000m), the quality of the snow was generally amazing.

We were very lucky to enjoy perfect weather on our first few days, but the clouds rolled in on Tuesday night, bringing with them a fresh dump of snow. By morning the weather hadn’t improved at all; four of us did venture up to the top of our closest mountain, but the fog was so thick we could barely see each other, even just a few metres apart. It took us about an hour to very cautiously ski back down!

Still, even though hitting the pistes were out of the question we weren’t going to let all that fresh powder go to waste! And given that our “backyard” consisted of a fairly steep, wide open hill, Giovanni and Suzie found some shovels and slaved away building a huge kicker! I must admit, it took quite a bit of courage just to hit it, and it seemed even bigger once you were in the air! But the landing pad was like a well fluffed pillow, which I think we were all very thankful for…

The visibility certainly improved on Thursday, though the snow continued to fall well into the afternoon – so much so that they didn’t bother grooming the slopes until after the resort had closed for the day. Still, boatloads of powder, freshly groomed runs, and perfect visibility added up to an unbeatable day of skiing on Friday – just a pity it had to be right at the end of our trip!

Aubain, Ingrid, Kristy and I took the opportunity to venture as far as possible, and after about three hours, we managed to make it to the eastern most point of the resort, and into The Fourth Valley – one of the most beautiful places that I have ever seen, in all the world. Photos don’t do it any justice!

This trip was also both colder and hotter than any other ski trip we’ve done. Thursday and Friday were especially cold – it was -17˚C at the base of one of the lifts, and that doesn’t account for windchill, nor the 1,000 metres or so of extra altitude at the peaks. I was mostly warm enough in two thermal layers, a fleece, a neck warmer, and the hardshell outer layers, but the wind rushing in and out of my goggles (which prevents fogging) was enough to give me a brain freeze! It’s even worse when you’re sitting on an “open plan” ski lift, as you’re not moving to keep warm, you’re up in the air, and you’ve got no protection from the elements! Brrrrrrr!!

On the contrary, our ski chalet was way too hot! Everything had in built heating – the rooms, the floors – even the sofas! And there was a problem with the wiring, which meant none of the thermostats worked properly (neither did the lights – they flicked on and off at random – but that’s another story). Most of the time we needed a door or window left open just to balance out the temperature a bit, and the hot, dry air meant everyone woke up feeling dehydrated each morning. Still, we can’t complain too much – too hot is definitely better than too cold!

All in all, it was a pretty amazing trip, and given how far in advance it had been planned, I’m still in disbelief that it’s already over. My fingers are crossed for a second ski trip this season; I just can’t get enough of it!

More photos in the skiing and the kicker albums.