Friday night began with a great meal in Black's, shared with the manager, Mike. We tried to get into one club (Garfinkel's) but could't be bothered with the queue, so went back to Black's to collect Mike, who'd offered to get us into another club. When that turned out to be a thrash metal night, we gave up and all headed back to the Palace, where we had a very enjoyable evening, chatting away until about 5am.

Saturday was supposed to begin with Premiership football at 07:30. Strangely, none of us made that, but Bob did get up in time to see Man Utd take second place from Chelsea, which pleased him no end.

By 12:30 Bob and I had finally decided to head for the slopes, but Andy could not be convinced. We made it to the top of Solar Coaster by 13:00, and managed several runs down Wishbone and our first run down the newly opened Springboard, to the bottom of Solar Coaster. After that we came down, as the rain been falling, and the snow was getting heavy.

In the evening we headed into Vancouver, though the Wagon had other ideas. Just before we reached Lion's Bay the clutch expired, and we were left by the side of the road for an hour or so. Thankfully Mark was on hand to save us, and by 22:30 we had met up with Ingrid in a bar in Vancouver.

From there we moved on to the Brickhouse, where Mack was DJ-ing and celebrating his birthday. The party there went on until 02:30 or so, then we headed back to Ingrid's, where we had been offered beds for the night.

It turned out that Ingrid had also invited back about 30 other people (although not to sleep)! Mack's after-party got into full swing, and went on right the way through into Sunday, providing some entertaining moments, as the gallery shows.

We returned to Dom's house on Sunday night, and when Bob had finally been convinced that he was not going back to Whistler that night, we settled down for another night in Vancouver.

Bob and Andy left for Whistler the next morning, and I stayed in Vancouver to collect the car and pick Simon and Kay up from the airport. I spent the day shopping, discovering some massive outdoor shops and some boots suitable for the snow back in Whistler.

It turned out that the car could not be fixed by Monday night, but luckily Mark offered to pick up Si and Kay, and take us all back to his and Dom's flat, which once again provided sleeping space.

We visited Science World on Tuesday morning, before picking up the car and heading up to Whistler with the Wagon now sporting a new clutch.

After moving the new guests into the Palace, we headed out to the base of Blackcomb mountain, where we got a great deal from the Mike's housemate, Kyle, on Si and Kay's skis, then adjourned to Merlin's for the biggest plate of nachos ever, surpassing even those from Dusty's, down the road in Creekside.