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Val has an appointment in Bern this afternoon. She can just about get there on time if she leaves directly after her lesson up at Scheidegg. I took her up a change of clothes and a sandwich for lunch. Kids having fun on the way back to Wengen.

Michael brought a couple of flagons of my favourite Heidelberg beer when he visited recently. The bottles are big and very heavy, and they won’t fit into the fridge unless I turf out most of our food. Usually, at this time of year, the solution is simply to leave the bottles on the balcony and let the cold mountain air chill the beer. Unfortunately, at the moment, the weather simply isn’t cold enough during the day to allow me to enjoy a nicely chilled beer in the evening. It does get cold enough overnight, but that would mean drinking beer for breakfast, which is probably the start of a very slippery slope. This is all a bit frustrating, as I’d really love to drink this splendid beer. It does need to be cold though, so I’ll just have to wait.

Colin will be playing at the Alpine Hotel later.

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It was noticeably colder last night, and sure enough there was a sprinkling of snow in the village this morning.

Up at Scheidegg the fresh snow was deeper, and Val had a good ski down to Brandegg with the little boy she’s teaching. Towards lunchtime the sun began to break up the clouds. Great views up the valley towards the Breithorn.

I spotted the postman dropping an envelope into our box this morning. This is normally bad news – it’s usually a bill of some sort. Today it was good news for a change, a nice letter from the Canton informing me that my Swiss pension is about to start. It’s not much by Swiss standards, but it will buy a lot of beer. Hurrah!

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Val was off early to work this morning, and I didn’t envy her one bit. It was cold, wet and generally miserable. The forecast was for an improvement, but the rain continued and eventually I had to face the trudge up to the village for supplies. Wengen is super busy with families, the European school holidays are in full swing, and most of them seemed to be in the Co-op keeping out of the rain. I whizzed round the shelves in record time, content in the knowledge that a coffee awaited at the Crystal bar. Alas, even that was not to be, as the bar was full of bored kids who had turned it into something resembling a huge crèche. Unwilling to put up with the noise, I headed for home.

The rain continued until after lunch, but late this afternoon the clouds parted and we were treated to a sensational view of the Jungfrau clad in fresh snow.

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Ben is the manager of the ski school that Val works for, and yesterday was his birthday. Naturally we went out for a few drinks, and his venue of choice was the Grand Hotel Mattenhof down in the valley. We thought this was a bit of a strange choice, but actually it’s an amazing old place. Vaulted ceilings everywhere.

A disco ball above the ballroom.

And, of course, a really nice bar.

It turned into a really good night out.

Amanda came over from Grindelwald today, so we had lunch at the Crystal bar while we watched the ski racing on TV. The weather’s still very pleasant, so we walked off the food with a lap of the village. Uptown Lights later at the Alpine Hotel.

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According to the thermometer outside our kitchen window, it’s very warm today.

Despite this, and somewhat miraculously, you can still ski all the way back to the main street and the cable car in the village.

Laurie and Michael came round for dinner last night.

Laurie is the selfie queen. Here we are on the balcony.

After dinner we wandered up to the Alpine Hotel for the live music. A nice evening.

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It’s been a beautiful day. Val got this lovely shot from the train on her way back from work this afternoon.

After a late lunch, we had a walk out to Innerwengen. The animals at the farm are enjoying the sunshine.

Puppies under the bench.

The ski runs that arrive here are getting a bit threadbare. It’s been about 7 weeks since we had a meaningful snowfall. Without artificial snow, there would be nothing here at all.

A good walk on a super afternoon.

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Val was off to work early again this morning, it’s not a bad day up at the top.

The ‘Hütte’ at Scheidegg where she takes the kids for hot chocolate has started offering food. The smoked brisket schnitzelbrot (basically a hot beef sandwich) sounds delicious. I might pop up for lunch sometime.

Michael and Laurie are visiting from Heidelberg. We had a few beers in the Crystal bar. Val wore her Heidelberg top.

The weather’s still dry and mild, it’s more like April than February.