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Last weekend Catherine and I went back up to Aviemore for another couple of days skiing and a long weekend away from work. We drove up to Ayrshire on the Wednesday night and Thursday morning, then up to Aviemore on the Thursday. Friday we went to Cairngorm where there was epic snow cover, it’s the first time I’ve ever used the Car Park and Fiacaill Ridge ski tows. Unfortunatly the 50mph+ winds and low cloud meant that only the lower slopes were open, and it was quite busy considering it was a normal working Friday. We stayed in Aviemore that evening too, both nights at the Hilton in Coylumbridge.

However for the Saturday Cairngorm would be even busier and the forecast looked better in the South, so we headed of to Glenshee. Glenshee was the last Scottish resort that we hadn’t been to, as unlike Nevis and Glencoe that are within 20 mins and 45 mins of Fort William, and likewise Cairngorm and the Lecht for Aviemore, Glenshee is in the middle of nowhere. There are some towns not too far away, but whilst Aviemore and Fort William are quiet, Pitlochry and Blairgowrie have nothing at all!  In reality it’s only 25 miles south east of Aviemore, but the road journey is 80 miles and takes 1h 45m – however it if you hold the map just right, Glenshee is almost on the way back to Ayrshire from Aviemore.

It was an excellent day with relatively low winds when away from the north west faces, and blue skies all day. It was probably one of the best days skiing we’ve had in Scotland with excellent snow conditions, some wind-blown powder and almost all the rocks covered. We explored Cairnwell, Carn Aosda and Sunnyside with the best conditions at Bucharts Coire. Some pictures from the day at Glenshee:

We’re now back to looking at Banff for March. Fingers crossed we’ll be able to sort something out as I’m really looking forward to going back to Sunshine Village. I’d like to get back on a board too for a day or so, though I probably really need some more lessons. Maybe.

This past weekend we had a long weekend off-island to go and visit my parents before Christmas and do some Christmas shopping in Glasgow.

However, I’ve always wanted to go skiing in Scotland before Christmas, just to prove it can actually be done! So despite only arriving in Ayrshire at 03:30, we set off for Aviemore and Cairngorm at 06:15 departing the same fog that had been present on the trip up from Lancashire. Fortunately the weather forecast was accurate and north of Pitlochry we broke out into a beautiful crisp, clear winter morning. Arriving at Aviemore just after 10:00, we headed straight to the ski centre.

The conditions were reasonable on the Ciste fairway, but the ice made the ptarmigan bowl unpleasant and the Cas out of our personal limits. However, we had a great time skiing on the fairway, despite having only had 2.5hrs sleep since 08:00 the previous day. Fortunately there were very few skiers and boarders out on Friday, so despite the relatively limited terrain and lifts, there was no need to queue all day.

Rather than head back to Ayrshire that evening, we decided to stay overnight at the Hilton in Coylumbridge. The next day we went to see the Cairngorm reindeer, then back down the A9 re-entering the fog just north of Perth.

It was an excellent weekend, and just goes to show that Scottish skiing is still a very viable option for anybody in the UK – it’s just a case of making use of it when the conditions are good. Hopefully we can squeeze another weekend in sometime in late January.

“What is the best spaceship from Science Fiction?” sounds like an interesting starting point for a geeky sci-fi debate – How would the Millennium Falcon fare against a Borg cube?  What about Battlestar Galactica and the Vipers vs. the TCS Concordia and her Rapiers?

One thing is for sure – all the best Sci-Fi spaceships have very little in common with real life rockets. The nature of real life rocket launch operations is a far cry from Mos Eisley spaceport, with the process being controlled by scientists, mathematicians, engineers and computers. With the Shuttle retiring, pure rockets were all we had left.

Until yesterday however, when Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo was unveiled.

Five years ago SpaceShipOne became the first commercial space ship designed for humans rather than satellites and science. But at that point, space tourism still sounded like the stuff of science fiction, right up there with moon biodomes and orbiting hotels.

Yet today we’ve got a suborbital system based on a platform that, whilst not exactly proven, is at least a real life system that has been demonstrated to work. Commercial launches may only be a couple of years away.

The best bit is SpaceShipTwo is a proper space ship!  She’s flown by two pilots, with joysticks, from a spaceport in the desert, and though I guess it would be asking too much to have a smuggler and a wookie up front, we’re on the right track.

I’ve set up Twitter to see whether or not it’s of any use. It’s really an experiment at the moment, and as I’ve nothing really that interesting to say probably won’t last!

The latest “Tweets” are in the sidebar at the right side of this page.

Last weekend we were in Tampere, Finland for a friends wedding. We initially booked to fly to Dublin then direct to Tampere with Ryanair, but Ryanair dumped Tampere for the whole season, so we ended up with Easyjet from Gatwick to Helsinki. Because we had an Aer Arann flight booked to Dublin, we changed this to a one way flight from London City allowing us to spend a day in London too.

Finland is a beautiful country, and we had great weather for the few days we were there. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see Helsinki, but we spent some time in Hameenlinna before going on to Tampere.

London on the other hand is not so nice. It’s been a few years since we were last there, but last time Oxford street didn’t look like a 99p tat bazaar… The skyline is littered with cranes and the whole place has a work-in-progress feel to it. Perhaps in another couple of years it will be better. Still, every time I go there I remind myself how nice it is not to live in a city.

We had a bumpy trip back on the ATR 72, but really good service with Aer Arann which makes all the difference.