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Christmas is celebrated on the 24th here, so everyone has time off. Our joint went in the oven at midday, and I prepared vegetables and potatoes for roasting. Emily is making lots of snacks for us to graze on while we wait for the pork to cook.

Here’s what she came up with.

Colin has managed to source a splendid Christmas pudding, and later on he popped in with lots of beer and Armagnac. Ali is at home sorting out Yorkshire puddings, apple sauce and all sorts of other goodies.

With a bit of luck this little lot will all come together later this evening and we’ll have a super dinner.

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Val’s colleague Shiner (he’s actually called Peter) arrived a few days ago. At the moment arrivals from the U.K. are obliged to quarantine for 10 days, which obviously rules out shopping. Shiner lives in his motor home at the campsite down in Lauterbrunnen, so today we put together a big bag of food for him and headed off to hand it over. It’s much colder down in the valley than it is in sunny Wengen, but he seems happy enough.

Back in Wengen we bought the last few things that we need for Christmas dinner. Starting on Friday the shops will all be closed for 3 days, so we need to make sure we’re well stocked up.

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It rained a lot last night, and as you can imagine, rain isn’t the best thing if you’re hoping for nice snow to ski on. Here’s Wengen at dawn this morning.

Not that we were planning to go skiing anyway – Val’s not working today and we want to get the last few bits for our Christmas dinner. Off to Interlaken we went, and as we had an early start we were back in time for lunch. The weather’s very mild, and we could do with a bit more snow. Fingers crossed for a white Christmas.

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We have to wear masks in the dorfstrasse (main street) now, and there are people here to enforce it.

This is the same in all the ski villages.

Up at Scheidegg this morning it was very quiet. Very few people are skiing, but Val still did her lesson.

At 11.02 this morning the sun reached its highest point, though we couldn’t see it through the clouds, and that marks the winter solstice. Starting tomorrow, the days begin to get longer again.

Later on we had a nice lunch at the Eiger whilst we watched the ski racing on the telly. Val swapped her ski pass for the (much cheaper) ski instructor version, which resulted in a handy refund.

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We had our Christmas quiz last night.

We improved a little from the last one – we were second.

This morning Val was up early for work. She was first in the queue for the 8.24 train up to Scheidegg.

The village is always pretty quiet at this time of day.

With all the tourists we saw arriving yesterday, a busy mountain was expected. In fact it was just the opposite, with quiet slopes and no queues. A handful of people on the terrace at the Start bar.

Val’s ski school team is a little smaller than usual, but thankfully they were all fully occupied with classes today.

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It’s the Saturday before Christmas, so the winter season begins today. Wengen is busy, and the shops are doing a brisk trade.

We met Jana and Oskar. Incredibly, Oskar will be 4 years old on Tuesday. I remember the day he was born as if it was yesterday.

We went and had some hot drinks on the terrace of the Victoria Lauberhorn, before making our way home. Quiz tonight.

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It’s another lovely day, so we’re off up the hill. I have another pair of skis to try.

We had a really good ski around the area in great conditions.

Today all our skis are from a Swiss manufacturer – Stöckli.

Needless to say we ended up at the Figeller bar at the end of the run back to the village.

I was really pleased with the skis I tried today, so a brand new pair will be waiting for me in the morning.