Tuesday – sun and cloud
Pretty uneventful flights on both Virgin and Delta. Wendy has a Baker Cyst so we stump up for extra leg room on the Virgin flight. £40 each, very roomy and wider seats. Amazing the food on the Virgin flight was not only edible, first time in years, but also quite enjoyable. On board entertainment was great. Watched Spectre, pretty good, and the latest Steve Jobs film, pretty crap. Saved the Martian until our return flight by which time I should have read the book.
2nd flight was Delta, Atlanta to Salt Lake. Unfortunately for Wendy her gamy leg was giving her constant gyp.
Got to our home for the next 3 months only to find the place was a filthy tip. It had not been cleaned, nor bedding / trowels changed. Phoned owner and housekeeper left a rant message.
We were both knackerred after 24 hours traveling and Wendy’s was in agony with her leg. Checked into the Best Western hotel for the night. I’ll be sending the bill to the owner – I can feel a lawsuit coming on.

Book with Delta and you use the same plane and check in desk as virgin, but with the added advantage of being pre-screened at a podium, like a naughty school boy, being asked a load of inane security questions and then having a label superglued to the back of your passport. Whereas Virgin don’t seem to need these questions! Obvious really as everyone knows that terrorists would never fly Virgin, after all there’s 70 voluptuous, busty, perpetual virgins awaiting them.
Well it seems my giant piece of meccano in my right thigh has never been encountered by the screening numpties. I get a thorough groping and pat down. Can well understand that. But to then send me through again, scan my watch, grope my feet and wand me all over yet again.
I’m a white, 66 year old, with no turban or beard. What do they think? I’ve got a bomb secreted inside my leg and will be using my plastic dinner knife onboard to extract a bomb from my leg. Pots for rags.
Meanwhile tests on the effectiveness of screening reveals that 95% of test attempts get through. All that money and misery, caused by a bunch of 7th century rag headed barbarians and still they only stand a chance of stopping 1 attempted attack in 20. Isn’t about time there was a dramatic shake up, starting with some common sense profiling.
Wednesday – very cold (-11 C) and sunny
Well the hotel was very comfortable and what a great breakfast.
Certainly seem to have lit a fuse under owner and housekeeper. Housekeeper returned my call at 05:00 and by 08:00 house was spotless, with clean towels and bedding, along with – profuse apologise. Owner has volunteered to pick up hotel bill.

Our new home.
Nip round to Carols for coffee and to pick up the most important items, my ski gear.
Afternoon is spent in a supermarket as trolley pusher whilst Wendy directs operations. Her gamy leg is still paining her. Pass on Costco and Wendy’s drug test – can you believe a 67 year Nana has to go for a drugs test before she can volunteer at the local hospital. Life is H&s / lawsuit bat crazy.
When are these supermarkets going to drag themselves into the 21st century. You lob it in the cart; you take it out the cart; they put it in paper or plastic bags (yes you even get a choice over here and they’re free); they put the bags in the cart; they wheel it to your car; you take the bags out the car. What about some common sense and hand held scanners.

View from our lounge onto golf course and snowy bridge
Subway for tea. Now I know we’re in America.
Looks like my MacBook is having panic attacks (kernel panics) and crashing. Restored it but still very poorly. I wouldn’t mind but I wasn’t bringing it in favour of the iPad Pro but the MacBook trumps the iPad pro for serious web design. Need to run some more diagnostics and figure out whether it’s hardware or some dodgy software.
Manage to stay awake until 20:30.
Tomorrow’s acid test day. Will these 50 weeks of recovery, torture, exercises, gym, yoga and physio really pay off? Will I be able to ski?

My parents spanked me as a child.
As a result I now suffer from a severe psychological condition known as “respect for others”.

More from Pat Condell. This time Europes betrayal of women:
Thursday – snow and cloudy, very cold

Up at the crack of sparrows. Breakfasted, geared up and on the slopes for 09:00. Today’s the day I’ve been looking forward to for the past 50 weeks. Excited but a certain amount of trepidation. Will my leg hold up to the stresses of skiing. Will these 50 weeks of recovery, torture, exercises, gym, yoga and physio really pay off? I must have averaged at least 1.5 hours of exercise every day. I had a clearly defined plan with a single objective – to be fit for skiing today.

First day back on skis.

Paradise with 217″ snow so far this year.

Love those Aspens in the sun and snow.
Thanks to everyone involved in my recovery from Wendy, surgeon, nurses, USA physio therapists (I’m sure they were ex CIA torturers), ski patrol who got me off the mountain, but most of all my to my UK physiotherapist (Mike Pettigew) who pushed me no constantly and dreamed up new tortures.
After lunch we drive down to Wholefoods – Wendy’s treat – for some more shopping.
Drop the Hertz mobile off and have a pleasant stroll back. From now on its shankes pony or free bus. Quite looking forward to it.
Sadly Wendy’s knee is still giving her gyp.
After half a bottle of red wine I’m in bed by 20:00, knackered, sleeping the sleep of the just. Probably dream of skiing.

When are you going to take some serious action against these lazy scrots who park in disabled slots
On the way out today I walked past 6 disabled slots all occupied by cars with no disabled sticker. One a giant range rover was even arrogantly parked across one and half slots.
Personally my hope is that their leg muscles atrophy away to nothing, so that they find out what it’s like to need a disabled slot. Secondly that their sperm count drops to zero to stop these idle lazy scrots, with no consideration for others, from polluting the gene pool. It is bad enough anyone illegally parking in a disabled slot, but to think that these muppets are paying good money to get fit and yet are too lazy to walk an extra few feet. That just about takes the biscuit, heaven forbid they should reproduce.
Some suggestions would be either a £500 on the spot fine, proceeds to a disable charity; membership suspension; a scrots gallery with photos of offending vehicles; towed away; a wheel clamp on their vehicle with the key deposited at the top of Darwen tower to give them a bit of exercise.
What, if anything, are you going to do about it? I’m more than willing to play my part and hand in offending car numbers if I feel that some serious action is being taken. It’s oh so simple. Car numbers announced over tannoy – “will the scrot with registration number XXXXXXX, who is illegally parked in a disabled slot, please remove it immediately or their membership will be cancelled” – with two strikes and you’re out.