With a lot of the guys joining forces in traveling etc we all headed to the Dome. The vibe even before we got there was amazing, I, Simon was on the train down from Edinburgh for 5 hours. The apprehension and excitement I felt was amazing, I knew the night was gonna be fun.

Daniella and Tony arrived first and after I dragged my sorry ass from the train with all my kit for the hike down to the Snowdome they sat around and chatted with the boys in TSA. Upon arrival Daniella was chatty and nice whilst Tony continued to try and win a TSA employee competition and was cheating with the bloke behind the counter.Ten minutes later he decides to say hello! :-)

We all squeezed into Tony's car (if you can call it that!) and trundled off to find the Travel Lodge, or was it a Travel Inn? - After going round the roundabout numerous times and scoping out the nearest MacDonalds we arrived. Kat who has unfortunately had to pull out at the last minute was supposed to have paid for the room etc but it seems as though something had gone wrong so after numerous phone calls and a lot of confusion I (me!, Simon!!) had to pay for it. All was not lost however as we wandered into the room to find a double bed and a sofa bed.

As people began to surface from far-away places such as, well places, the room began to fill up, with Tony and Daniella getting more and more distressed about getting caught with 8 to a room!

When we all finally arrived and had said our hellos we all headed off to the pub for some beers and, well I suppose a meet and greet kinda thing eh!

Oh what a joyful place, and what good prices too really. We all gladly bought ourselves our own pints - no sign of anyone getting in a round now was there guys! This was dutifully followed by a session of mini pool on the mini pool table.

It seemed as though Ollie was a pool man, well a free pool man, he managed to get himself a game for pretty much the whole time we were there. I did the unusual by taking lots of photos with my new digital toy instead of leaving it on the side. Admittedly I felt like a right prat, photos just ain't my thing!

After getting down to the nitty gritty we concluded that no wanking whatsoever would be going down in the showers, Ben just doesn't like that 'sticky' feelin. Daniella at this point was loving it!

As the time wore on I got more and more 'Lets go to the Snowdome guys' and so after me fidgeting for hours on end we headed back to the Travel Inn/Lodge! in preparation for the night of white stuff.

Sitting around all probably thinking to ourselves, 'right, ok snow, I know what it is, I won't fall over as soon as I step onto it' and so on....Tintin, a bloke who had been at the Chalet papy in france last year came over and said hello after recognising me from the photo on the forum...

Daniella had bottled out of the boarding and unfortunately Tony has got scaffy ankles which meant he couldn't board either. So they spent most of the evening out on the balcony overlooking the slope and then later in the bar...

Everyone's riding was around competent with some having a bit more confidence. Joe was attempting and failing to get his 3's sorted, Ollie was going for it over the larger kicker at the bottom of the slope, all was good. I decided to have a go at my 1's but it all ended far too early after I fell on my coccyx after landing it fine!! (ouch!). It buggered up the rest of my evenings boarding so landing was a bit of a problem, even so I had a real good nights boarding.

After a full afternoon and evening getting to know each other it was time to head off home. Most of us went straight there with me and Joe staying at the Travel Lodge until the next day.

Most people were home at about 4am but me....I got home at 5pm the next day!...5 hours on the bloody train!