Day 196, 16 January 2013, Bansko, Bulgaria - Rest Day! And well needed it was too since James was up at 2 am worshipping the porcelain gods in a weird tandem effort to rid his body of all its contents at once. Which kept him amused for a good couple of hours - Me - I woke up half way through the performance. I may not be much of a Florence Nightingale, but I'm good company. So that meant sleeping late and breakfasting late. Well I breakfasted and he watched....

Day 195, 15 January 2013. Bansko. The Dark Side. OK. Well that might be a tiny bit melodramatic. Since I had such a great day yesterday doing zip/nada/not a lot, I was super fit and ready to go. James, not so much. But you get that. We had a great day tearing up the blue and black runs of Bansko resort. Our guide Vasl has finally figured out that steep slopes do not scare me... out of control lunatics screeching down green runs and using other skiers as stop...

Day 194, 14 January 2013, Bansko, Bulgaria. Setting some sort of record, I decided to have a rest day after one day's skiing - James powered on however and had a huge day out with Vasil conquering the Red and Black slopes of Bansko resort. Pictured is a sunset viewed from the main street when we went out for dinner. Rest day on the home front was very peaceful - nothing an entire morning in bed reading and napping can't cure. Had a walk around town on our sea...

Day 193, 13 January 2013, Bansko, Bulgaria. First day on the slopes and had a great time - have invested in the world's cheapest private lessons - about €85 for a 4 hour day. Our instructor is called Vasil. Like Basil with a V he said. Alternatively "Vasil"ene I suppose. Probably going to avoid skiing on weekends going forward because half the Eastern bloc was on the slopes today and only 10% can ski. Certainly keeps the adrenaline up when you're avoiding ...

Day 192, 12 January 2013, Bansko, Bulgaria www.banskoski.com As you can imagine, we've slept in a whole lot of places over the last six months. From the sublime to the ridiculous. Brand new, to hundreds of years old. Great beds, horrible beds and hovels with nothing we'd even call a bed. Last night officially receives the honour of second worst bed on the trip so far. Only the absence of body odour saved it from being the worst. It seems Bulgarians stereotyp...