-6 Degrees C

Pete and I began with Journeys from Leeds to Hull and Harrogate, to do half-a-day's work (Pete) and to collect my repaired Audi, testing it in the snow on the way back home! I went into town in hunt of one more insulated layer, looking, as it does, that the temp will be -12C on the tops tomorrow, but instead came out of a Vintage Shop with a retro Skiing onesie! An absolute bargain for only £30 - You'll get to see this tomorrow!

We set off after lunch down for London, with a knuckle-biting charging session at Watford Gap, only arriving with 10 miles of range left! The next charger was 10.1 miles, so that would have been even tighter.

Fuelled, swapping driver, we headed for Surbiton, deciding a Cheeky Nandos was in order for evening nutrition. We unfortunately had to do an impromptu tour of New Malden's 4 chargers, all but one of which was out of power, including the one outside Waitrose - NOT acceptable. We eventually found one 10 minutes from Nando's and were back to full by the time we'd eaten.

We had a nice catch up with Alex and Abi, watched by Otis and Rupert, before a relatively early night for the 5:30am start. The auto-heating function was brilliant in the minus 3 start temperature. We valet parked in Gatwick easily - (we're getting too used to that), and then met Tim and Colin through security for a coffee and breakfast.

The EasyJet cheap-gate involved a small amount of ketling in the downstairs gate, before a cold bus ride to a half-full plane. Friedrichshafen airport only opens for the Ski season, and the 1h:20 plane journey was very convenient, as was picking up the hire car from the empty hire car stand. We crossed the Austrian Border, and drove for another hour or so to the approach to St Anton-am-Arlberg, Austria's biggest ski resort.

The approach road was very James Bond-esque with tight icy turns which would have been better suited to a top-town convertible, but much nicer in the warm Audi A6!

Martin, the owner of our hotel met us in reception and showed us around, including some insider tips on the best routes to start on, where to get the various gondolas, and where my Ski school is for tomorrow.

Our apartment, Number 1 in Haus Martin Tschol has a really AMAZING view from our kitchen table out onto the slopes. It's a Ski-in, Ski-out and the back door, from the Ski-boot room to the slope is around 1 meter!

The ski lifts go from the bottom of the hill, and we've got a great balcony that has a view down the valley, and we are all feeling very happy with our choice!

Next stop was town, to collect food supplies, skiing supplies, ski passes, and explore. We arrived, found some parking, and then came across some sort of Austrian Um-pah band parading through town. We enjoyed this on the way to the Ski hire shop, where we promptly equipped with Skiis, Boots, Poles and Helmets. Next, we ventured to the local Bibi supermarket, where we purchased all the relevant essentials... Beer, Wine, Bread and Crisps (among some veg too...).

Returning, equipped for the next few day, Colin drove us back up to Martin's House (now covered in icicles), and we took our ski equipment down to the Ski room, before a good cup of tea and some bread as some fuel for out trip out to the bar!

The 'bar' was the Austrian equivalent of Follie Douche (The famous Apres-ski bar in France). We skied down from Martin's house down to MooserWirt, a bar where it's more conventional to dance up on the tables than sit on them (very BierKeller in the UK). We had to push our way in past the throngs of Germans, shouting Danke Schon as we got to the bar for some Marzen (Marching Beer). The music was fantastic, a mix of Eurovision Trash and German Pop that got the crowd roaring!

We headed up for Dinner to the top of the hill, where two restaurants promised some Tom-friendly food served to 8pm, however, on arrival, it seems that 8pm is "flexible" and at 6:15 they decided no to serve any more. Luckily we'd bought all the ingredients for Bolognese, so Tim is kindly cooking a slap up meal for our first night in (we've also fortunately got enough bread for garlic bread!).

I'll sign off for this evening, it's time for tea and another beer, before our first day on the slopes tomorrow.