Baggage-minding seemed unknown, unless you were booked into a hotel. So I staggered up to the front of the village, where the gondolas are, and took up a station in the meeting place, The Longhorn pub. It was crowded, noisy, hot, steamy, smoky....it was like being in Dante's Inferno with severe jet lag. The hours stretched ahead. I couldn't even go for a walk, as I'd stowed my gear in the pub's airlock, and it needed guarding.

(left): My ski pass! 2 rest days was far too few: 10 days out of 14 would have been better.

So I sipped my way through a nondescript beer, watched people careering down to the gondola base, listened to skiier-pub-talk, more beer, some lunch...finally, the appointed hour drew nigh, and passed....no-one matching anyone's description appeared. One of the perils of arranging this kind of thing on the 'net, no one knows what the others look like! Taff had said he'd be in red ski trousers. That narrowed it down to roughly every third man who clumped into the pub. Rich Hatton was known to be tall. Denis was a young snowboarder. That described every other male who came into the pub.

I was giving up and paying my bill when a huge man approached, and asked if I was me. This was Rich. So, we went and stood outside for half an hour, scanning the crowds for an English-looking fellow in red trousers, and a young-looking Aussie-looking snowboarder-looking Denis. Then, I had a stroke of genius, and went into the airlock to raid my luggage...for clip-on sheep. Rich seemed horrified at the idea of clipping on a sheep, so I put one on my front, and the other on my head. Immediately (this is verbatim from my diary), "two messy looking boys approached" and demanded to know if we were us.
In Taff's words: "Oh sorry, you've been waiting here how long? Whoops, Denis and I were sitting on the other side of the terrace sipping beer. We've been there a few hours. Frightfully sorry".

So, on to the local bus, and up to Blueberry, where our condo was. Blueberry was across the highway and up, just a bit too far to walk. It faced Blackcomb. Here is the view:

This shot is a composite panorama by Denis. I've blurred the connecting lines a bit. This was the view from our
balcony, you can see the front runs of Blackcomb: Whistler is to the right, facing Blackcomb (you can't really see it).

So, we sorted out our rubbish, made exciting discoveries like sink disposal units, washing machines, weird taps, smoke alarms and multiple TV stations, and welcomed Tigger when he finally made it through the door. I decorated the mantlepiece with the four kilogram-sized jars of Vegemite I'd brought (under orders) for a Yank, an ex-patriate Aussie and a Pom living in Gibralter who was pining for Marmite. Also an assortment of Aussie biscuits and chocolate bars (by order).

The condo-complex security arrangements threw us completely. There was a secret code to get into the building, and an intercom to call for help. Rich tried to get these to work, while Taff stood inside to let him in when he failed.
Taff proved to be necessary.
Eventually, a visitor got it all to work.

Taff also discovered that in civilised countries, smokers go outside.
Luckily Tigger was there to instruct him. The balcony became the Smoking and Waxing Room.