Last month we announced that Neill Hadden was the lucky winner of our Ultimate Ski Holiday to Whistler, BC. After being somewhat overwhelmed, he has kindly put together this blog post. Warning it has the tendency to make your rather jealous... I took up snowboarding quite late at age 26, young enough to be enthusuastic, brave and possibly a little reckless but old enough to find the first week a brutal and bruising experience! Since then I have been at every opportunity including trips to Switzerland, Canada and NZ. This year I had been travelling in August including a couple of days boarding in Cardrona, New Zealand and so on my return got cracking with organising the Hadden ski trip for Feb 11. Was looking at various North American options but was beginning to feel the pressure of making all the arrangements for a party of 6 so asked one of the others to help with some research. In the course of this he stumbled on the Ski Independence prize draw and sent me (and probably half his address book!) the link to enter. [caption id="attachment_1558" align="aligncenter" width="300"] You never actually think anyone wins these competitions...[/caption] Sounds like a cliche but I never enter these things - firstly, everybody knows that no-one really wins them and secondly, if you actually read the terms and conditions there are usually loads of exclusions, blackout dates etc which make it virtually impossible to claim the prize. Cynical? Yeah of course, definitely skeptical of internet prize draws. However, it seemed to imply that if I entered, then Rick would get an extra entry (not that it did him any good - haha - cheers Rick!) so I took all of a minute to put in my details and clicked send. Almost immediately forgot about it although I did end up booking the ski trip with ski independence for the first time - so maybe as a marketing strategy it worked on me! Next thing I know, I get a phone call on a Friday night apparently 'live from the Ski and Snowboard Show' saying that I had won! No idea what she was going on about at first and then convinced that it was a wind up until I checked the facebook page and saw my name. So, people do actually win these things and we're off on the most remarkable ski holiday to Whistler in April - hopefully catch the best of the spring snow and see Vancouver in the sun. Just to add a bit of Scottish cynicism - although it does look like the most amazing holiday, I'm a bit worried that any future skiing is going to be disappointing in comparison - hey ho, I suppose that's a risk that I will just have to take!
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