I have lost my graphics tablet stylus and so cannot draw what I had planned as the return of B&B.

I am grumpy.

That is all.

So I go away for a week and in the meantime it appears Sony have actually announced something to challenge Microsoft’s Xbox Live as the dominant online console space. During his keynote at GDC Phil Harrison unveiled Home, an avatar driven world where you can mingle with friends online and eventually launch into games together.

The core components seem to be an extension of both Microsoft’s Live and Nintendo’s Miis, in terms of online connectivity and character customisation, but with an added twist of Linden Labs’ Second Life, an MMO where users can customise the very world around them.

Users (or “players”, I can’t decide) will be able to walk around a 3D world chatting with others that they meet, wandering into arcades to play pool, taking in movies at the local cinema and comparing trophies earned in an online showcase. When bored with interacting with the others you find in your world, why not retire back to your fully customisable flat which you’ve furnished with objects available at the store and media found on your hard-drive.

This seems an incredible leap for a platform that has been so resoundingly knocked from all angles due to the poorness of its online capabilities, and an exciting leap at that.

The prospect of such a system puts me in mind of the main city areas in World of Warcraft; there was always someone there trying to say hello, people constantly had wares to sell and individuals looking for others to play with. In other words, there was always something to do and fellow users to interact with.

Now while this basic interaction is why I enjoy Live (I still leave my 360 on even whilst playing Wii just to be connected), I can foresee that there would be times when a thriving, population-based, online system could get annoying. If you’re trying to get from A to B to just to start a game with a friend and you have to traverse a fully realised world rather than just select a menu option, my patience could start to wane. Let’s hope there are shortcuts for those times when you just don’t want to socialise.

With the appearance of Home I’m not yet ready to fill in my PS3 pre-order but I will be keeping one eye out at how online things develop.

After arriving back in one piece from France last night, I spoke to my dad. “Where’s my postcard?” he said. “In France”, I replied, because there wasn’t actually much to say apart from “I went snowboarding” and no matter how large you write it’s never going to make it worth the postage stamp.

I’m not being mean, but it’s true. Last time we were in Meribel we had a couple of days off to explore the surroundings but once you’ve seen one large mountain inhabited by French people you tend to get quite a good idea about what the following one is going to look like. It gave me something extra to write about but this time there were no rest days as I was determined to make the most of our time by the slopes.

This was the third time I’d been snowboarding and whilst I’m no beginner I think I can be described as intermediate at best: I know what to do, it’s just doing it consistently and at speed that I need to work on. Throughout the week green runs were used for fun lines and the practise of my fundamentals whilst blues were tackled to try and push my ability to turn at, and handle, high (well it seemed high) speeds. There were also a couple of red runs but they were more down to poor map reading than the wish to hurl myself down yet steeper slopes.

And whilst I enjoyed doing solo runs, slicing my way down the mountain and taking pleasure from the freedom with nothing but my iPod for company, it was the tail end of the week that was the most fore filling for me; Ali had come along too but before she went she was extremely sceptical about the entire endeavour, having skied herself twelve years beforehand she thought that it would be too tricky to pick back up again, but after only a few days there she was swooshing with the best of them allowing us a few runs together by the Friday.

So what do you know? It turns out I did have a few more words in me than just “I went snowboarding”…

…just don’t tell my father.

And so the wheels are turning. The last couple of days have been filled with paperwork, photocopying and rather large numbers that could terrify anyone down to their very core, but it’s all been worth it and Ali and I are now leaving everything house-related in the hands of our solicitors.

Not only are we leaving it with them but we are also leaving the country to give ourselves a well-deserved break; soon we’ll both be jetting off to France in order that I can once again strap on a snowboard and Ali can take her first steps towards becoming a Ski Bunny.

We’re travelling with a small army of friends and workmates and in all we’re taking up about four or so chalets in the ski resort of Meribel. Armed with music to board by and a new helmet, this is now my third time snowboarding. In fact, the last time I moved house I went to the pistes whilst all the legalities were sorted, three years; it seems as though every time I seek out the powder with Robot Minion and Mr Fiddler I seem to have a new set of house keys when I return.

See you after the slopes.