Latest posts for the topic "Ian Wickham in LGB"

Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 11:05:58 GMT

I had a text last night from Wickers to say they had just had a massive dump of snow as he was travelling, plus the clutch has just gone on his car, so he is having to get a flight from Geneva to Stansted to get home, the car will follow later on I presume via international breakdown.

What is it with travel and people on this website this season????

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 11:20:30 GMT

Driving to the Alps eh ;)

I'm just kidding. That's rough, hope everything is sorted out and the Wickhams get home safe and well.

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 11:46:25 GMT

Yep, hi guys we are back safe and sound minus car, it dumped on friday night Saturday morning which made travelling home a bit of a pain and yes the clutch went on the car, bugger.
It went just outside Geneva so spent the night in a place called Annamass and travelled back via Geneva yesterday, the five star cover people were excellent with organising the car pick up,
Taxi's and flights home even sorted out a hire car at Stansted and they were constantly supportive by phone with all the hanging around we had to do, even translated via a three way conference call with the french police who had to be notified as the break down was on the private autoroute,they even paid for the excess luggage charge at the airport, lucky for us my brother in law was behind us so he was able to take little W to save her any distress.
So I now have to wait for the repatriation of my poor car which could take up to ten days, the car is still under warranty so it should not cost me any money hopefully !!! just now the pain and expense
of a hire car till I can organise a courtesy car from the garage in Norwich when they receive mine back from France.

In case you are wondering I did stipulate with Axa, the five star company I use, that I will not fly Ryanair and yes they booked us on a flight with easyjet :wink: :wink:

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 11:49:00 GMT

What do you drive Ian? Glad all is well 8)

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 12:02:40 GMT

Wickers, glad you are all okay. We shipped out Friday night after considering the weather forecast. We drove across the Jura very slowly in heavy snowfall, avoiding a few French cars in ditches!

I think you would have been pretty safe with avoiding Ryanair in Geneva. I don't think they fly there :D

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 12:03:56 GMT

Seat Altea XL, had it a couple of years now and never had a moments trouble, what I'm pee'd off about is that I had to leave three sets of skis in the top box :evil: :evil:

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 12:08:03 GMT

Ian Wickham wrote:Seat Altea XL, had it a couple of years now and never had a moments trouble, what I'm pee'd off about is that I had to leave three sets of skis in the top box :evil: :evil:

Ahhh, the old Seat clutch problem, eh?
I had a Leon FR tdi for 2 years, and it was a brilliant car. Except that the soot filter was far too sensitive and had to be replaced under warranty 3 times after putting a speed limiter in place on the car, and strangely enough THE CLUTCH WENT after something like 30,000 miles.
I understand there is an issue with the clutches on the diesel models?
Hope you get sorted soon, sounds like your cover was good and you got sorted out ok.

How was the holiday itself mate?

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 12:34:50 GMT

The holiday was great weather was snow,fog,snow fog,sun,snow,snow so conditions were really great did a fair bit of off piste the kids loved that nothing too daring just between the pistes, I got taken to the snow park by Little W and was made to do some jumps she sailed across them and I at least did manage to get over them without falling so she was quite impressed that the old fella survived but I did draw the line at the half pipe.
What I did notice that there was quite a few idiots about this year and I don't want to sound anti snowboarders because I am not but one nearly wiped out Mrs W on night skiing evening, and there were a few other near misses through the week :evil:

A few other interesting notes:

1. Approx. 10% of skiers wore helmets
2. No ski instructors wore helmets
3. Restaurant prices increased by 15%
4. Half litre of house wine Euro9
5. Small beer Euro3.5
6. Plat du jour Euro11
7. Spag bol Euro8
8. Pizza Euro10
9. Cola Euro2.8
10. Small plate of chips Euro3.5
11. Large plate of chips Euro6
12. Menu Enfant Euro6-Euro8

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 12:41:46 GMT

Ian Wickham wrote:

1. Approx. 10% of skiers wore helmets
2. No ski instructors wore helmets
3. Restaurant prices increased by 15%
4. Half litre of house wine Euro9
5. Small beer Euro3.5
6. Plat du jour Euro11
7. Spag bol Euro8
8. Pizza Euro10
9. Cola Euro2.8
10. Small plate of chips Euro3.5
11. Large plate of chips Euro6
12. Menu Enfant Euro6-Euro8

Interesting Ian. Regarding prices, many of the places we ate at in ADH were cheaper than those, but its still not bad for France.

As for helmets, I reckoned on about 50% of skiers wearing helmets in ADH, so a definite increase on last season at other resorts I went to.
Good point re instructors, as I have never seen one wear a helmet.

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 13:00:41 GMT

Tony_H wrote:
As for helmets, I reckoned on about 50% of skiers wearing helmets in ADH, so a definite increase on last season at other resorts I went to.
Good point re instructors, as I have never seen one wear a helmet.

Easily pushing 75% wearing them in Schaldming I reckon. I don't know if that was due to the low amount of British there???

Large Weissbier Euro3.80 - Not too bad I thought.

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 13:29:19 GMT

Glad you had a good week and got home ok. Incidentally we had no problems going by train, I even got some sleep :wink:

Interesting prices there, very similar to Val D'isere, although it depends which restaurant you go to, hot chocolate could be as much as 4 euros but the cheapest we found was 2 euros.

Most expensive large beer was 8 euros (!), cheapest was 3 euros (at happy hour, 5 euros normally).

A lot more people wore helmets there too, I did a quick check in the gondola one day and out of 12 people, 10 were wearing helmets, and luckily for hubby he was wearing his as he had a nasty fall on our last day and banged his head. Weather was atrocious I might add, no visibility and 2 foot snow drifts on piste.

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 13:52:42 GMT

I wore a helmet for the first time this year in ADH and I must admit I felt a lot more comfortable.
I cant explain why that is.

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 13:55:04 GMT

Stewart Dowling wrote:I wore a helmet for the first time this year in ADH and I must admit I felt a lot more comfortable.
I cant explain why that is.

Comfortable or confident? From what I saw, you were a lot more relaxed skiing in a helmet.

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 14:31:01 GMT

Sorry for turning this in to a helmet thread Ian, as long as we can leave the 'helmet/no helmet' debate out of it and make it genuine observations from the slopes then it should be OK. If it does turn in to that I think it should be locked.

Quite a few instructors (and ski friends) in Banff (LL & Sunshine) were wearing helmets. Most people on the slopes were wearing them too, even a lot of the English tourists and beginner skiers. I wore mine a few days but it is very snug fitting so when it was especially cold it became a lot more rigid and uncomfortable. Also haven\t had my hair cut for 6 months which can't help. Either way, the wearing of helmets for whatever reason is definitely on the up.

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 15:50:05 GMT

Ninety per cent of skiers/boarders in Arosa wearing helmets last week.

Lots of instructors, too, were wearing lids.

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 18:12:38 GMT

Pablo Escobar wrote:Sorry for turning this in to a helmet thread Ian, as long as we can leave the 'helmet/no helmet' debate out of it and make it genuine observations from the slopes then it should be OK. If it does turn in to that I think it should be locked.

Quite a few instructors (and ski friends) in Banff (LL & Sunshine) were wearing helmets. Most people on the slopes were wearing them too, even a lot of the English tourists and beginner skiers. I wore mine a few days but it is very snug fitting so when it was especially cold it became a lot more rigid and uncomfortable. Also haven\t had my hair cut for 6 months which can't help. Either way, the wearing of helmets for whatever reason is definitely on the up.

Ross, it's a free world talk freely your with friends ...... I certainly do not get protective over threads, freedom of speech brothers :wink:

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 18:31:11 GMT

I would say about 90% of people in Finland wearing helmets including instructors, which I have never seen before.

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 18:33:00 GMT

RoseR wrote:I would say about 90% of people in Finland wearing helmets including instructors, which I have never seen before.

Perhaps finnish people have soft heads :wink:

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 18:34:28 GMT

glad you got home ok...5 star cover just has to be worth it...must of passed you in LGB on the Sunday before last ...it looked a nice place albeit a bit spread out ..went on up to Clusaz and had a look ..it looked very busy.

What was the resort and the skiing like

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 18:38:46 GMT

daved wrote:glad you got home ok...5 star cover just has to be worth it...must of passed you in LGB on the Sunday before last ...it looked a nice place albeit a bit spread out ..went on up to Clusaz and had a look ..it looked very busy.

What was the resort and the skiing like

I was there, powder and fog for most of the week

Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 19:03:40 GMT

Tony_H wrote:

What is it with travel and people on this website this season????

:hunf: I'm seriously beginning to wonder what it is too. I've just had an email from the TO saying that our flight on Saturday has had to be changed because of 'opperational reasons'. Fortunately we are leaving earlier (not a day later like last time). Unfortunately our lift to the airport is now not possible. :roll:

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 19:35:59 GMT

Glad you got back ok Wickers - Bandit is right Ryanair don't fly from Geneva. Bad luck with the car - I have Seat Leon just coming upto 30K should I be worried I wonder - my passenger electric window has gone which I believe is another common problem. My daughter also has a Yaris...Fortunately we are not driving but flying Ryanair to Grenoble on the 13th :roll:

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 19:41:15 GMT

Are you going to update your blog, if you do let us know so we can some pics. :D

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 19:57:23 GMT

ParalyticSkiCrazie wrote:Glad you got back ok Wickers - Bandit is right Ryanair don't fly from Geneva. Bad luck with the car - I have Seat Leon just coming upto 30K should I be worried I wonder - my passenger electric window has gone which I believe is another common problem. My daughter also has a Yaris...Fortunately we are not driving but flying Ryanair to Grenoble on the 13th :roll:

Wash your mouth out and go straight to bed ........ and don't mention the "R" word again :wink:

I did not know about the dodgy clutches until Tony brought it to the forum, I'm certainly gonna hit seat for full costs :evil:

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 19:59:17 GMT

snowb4ndit wrote:Are you going to update your blog, if you do let us know so we can some pics. :D

I'll down load Mrs W photo's soon but I'm more into Video which I'm working on at the present, it will happen all in good time teach :wink:

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 22:25:04 GMT

Ian,
Welcome back. I'm sorry about your car, but at least you will get it back, eventually, and hopefully complete with skis in roof box :D

You've missed a lot of wibble, a few pillow fights, and some interesting discussions - plenty of reading for you to catch up on :D

Ally

Re:Ian Wickham in LGB

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 22:33:10 GMT

Glad you are back Ian, missed your rapid wit!

Sorry about the car, but hope LGB was good for you.