Colin played his first gig of the season last night. We had a packed house in the lounge at the Alpine hotel.
Val’s kids, who were beginners last weekend, can now ski well enough to get out on the mountains. Honegg this morning – busy!
And Lauberhorn. The snow here has survived the high temperatures surprisingly well.
Back in Wengen, things are getting a little threadbare, but it doesn’t seem to bother the kids.
Curry tonight. Yum.
Wengen is full, as are the neighbouring villages of Mürren, Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald. Owning to the warm weather, we only have about half the usual amount of skiing on offer. All this adds up to some very busy ski slopes. It’s up to the instructors to find some reasonable skiing for the kids. These children are racing.
Skiing next to the race track wasn’t very nice for Val’s kids, so they got the train back up to Scheidegg and headed off down Arven. Much better.
Back in Wengen, there’s a big queue for the Männlichen cable car.
The nursery slope is suffering from the mild temperatures and heavy traffic. I took this picture this morning – heaven knows what sort of state it’ll be in by this afternoon.
The weather forecast is for more mild weather. The local kids go back to school early next week so hopefully it’ll be a little less busy. Colin is playing at the Alpine Hotel tonight.
Every morning, Val catches the 8.46 train up to Scheidegg. We had rain in Wengen last night, but as the train reached about 1700 metres, the rain had turned to snow. This is just below Wengernalp.
Up at Scheidegg, the new coffee hut is just opening. It’s proving very popular with the ski schools and their young customers, as it doesn’t matter if you make a mess.
It’s pretty gloomy early on, with lots of fog clinging to the mountain. Later on however, it did brighten up. Here is the restaurant at Allmend. It’s just above Wengen. Very busy.
From Allmend it’s just a few minutes back to Wengen. The warm weather has unfortunately taken its toll on the ski run. It’s looking pretty thin.
Without the snow cannons there wouldn’t be any snow at all here. We just need the temperature to fall a few degrees and the cannons will be able to top up the ski run.
We had a good dinner, with roast beef and all the trimmings. Colin carves.
After dinner it’s time for secret Santa. Emily got a t-shirt.
Ali got gin and chocs.
Colin, as usual, got a big selection box.
Val got a very nice beanie hat, and I got a super whisky tumbler, and some scotch to go with it. A very nice Christmas dinner.
Val started work today, which means our dining chairs are covered with blue and white advertisements.
There’s not much sun at Scheidegg at this time of year. The nursery slope.
Wengen has sunshine though, and it was warm enough to enjoy a coffee on the terrace at the Crystal.
I’m doing dinner for our usual crowd tonight, so I spent all afternoon in the kitchen. Here’s Chalet Iltis in the sunshine.
Merry Christmas!
Last night we wrapped up in our waterproof gear and headed up to Rocks. We got pretty wet but it was nice to get out. The rain finally stopped this morning, so we headed up to the village. The Männlichen cable car is running again.
Each train brings more visitors for their Christmas holidays. We have one last chance to get round the Co-op before the queues become untenable. Here comes another train load of people.
I think we finally have everything we need for Christmas dinner tomorrow. Fingers crossed.
It rained all day. It was so bad that Männlichen didn’t even open for skiing.
And it’s still raining.
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