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It’s Val’s day off. This morning we had a meeting with the owners of the chalet that we went to see a couple of weeks ago. The contract looks good and we’ve agreed all the financial stuff, so it looks like we’ll have a new home after Easter.

It’s a beautiful spring day, so after lunch we had a wander out to the Staubachbankli. The first flowers are beginning to appear.

Mary’s Cafe doing good business in the warm sunshine.

And here’s the Magical Kiosk. The important thing here is not the kiosk itself, but the garden behind, which is a sort of mini nature park. The kiosk was recently renovated after an appeal for funds.

A nice afternoon out, rounded off with ice cream on the balcony.

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This morning began with thick fog, but it soon cleared and the sun came out. Val did her last lesson of the week and said goodbye to all the kids. An afternoon off for the ski teachers.

Stunning at Scheidegg.

Cruising home.

Music in Rocks later.

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Yesterday’s snow petered out at dinner time, and we all went up to the Caprice to see Bevez and Ibe. A good night out.

This morning I’m off up to Männlichen. It’s a beautiful day.

Pistes are crowded.

The Jungfraubahn are building 2 new lifts. The first of these is already open – you can see it in the picture above. The second will open next December, and will take passengers from Grund to Eigerglescher.

In addition to the lifts a new terminal is being built, along with a new railway station. Let’s have a look around.

The terminal is still very much a work in progress.

It’s huge, with lots of space for shops and restaurants. It feels like an unfinished airport terminal.

Outside, work is progressing on the lift to Eigerglescher, known as the Eiger Express.

This will get passengers up to the top in an astonishing 15 minutes.

All these passengers need to get to the terminal somehow, so a multi story carpark is being built. A new railway station is already complete.

It’s a huge undertaking, costing 470 million francs.

Meanwhile, up at Scheidegg it’s team photo time for Altitude Ski School.

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There was a piste machine smoothing the snow on the football pitch the other day, which was hard to understand as it’s completely flat – you can’t possibly ski on it. It turns out that the pitch is being used as an overflow meeting place for the kids. The Swiss Ski School have around 500 children in lessons this week.

It was snowing lightly in the village at breakfast time, and it’s much colder. Up at Scheidegg it’s very different to yesterday.

It’s windy and the snow is heavier. Far fewer skiers today.

Uptown Lights at the Caprice later.

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Duo Centrale become a trio last night – they were joined by Neville and his violin.

Up at Scheidegg today it’s absolute bedlam, with kids scooting around everywhere.

If you look very closely at this picture you can just see Val with the little girl that she’s teaching. They’re sat in front of the blue box at the top of the rope tow.

Wixi mid-afternoon. As the skiers make their turns the snow gets more and more churned up. It’s like a ploughed field.

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It’s gloomy today and it looked like rain when Val headed off to work this morning. I’m off to Interlaken where I can buy Val’s favourite wine at the big Co-op.

When I arrived the station was eerily quiet. Interlaken Ost is normally really busy, but not today.

It’s the same in the Co-op. Tills are closed, aisles are deserted.

The reason of course, is the Chinese travel ban. They normally do their European tours in big groups, so they overwhelm the more popular attractions. Not any more.

Wengen is thankfully unaffected by this. It’s full to bursting with kids from all over Europe.

Val has a group of Dutch kids this week, and the Swiss and British are here in substantial numbers too.

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Val was up early for work this morning. Amazing sky first thing.

A little later I did a lap of the village before going to the Co-op. The queue for Männlichen was incredible.

A view to Fallboden – packed with skiers.

It’s been very mild – it got up to 14 degrees in the village at lunchtime. Quiz later.