Follow

32 years ago we caught the train down to Lauterbrunnen and got married at the registry office. It was a day much like this one, with snow and cold temperatures. The Lauterbrunnen registry office has long since been absorbed by the bigger one in Interlaken, so you can’t get married in Lauterbrunnen anymore unless you’re a churchgoer.

We usually mark our anniversary with an exchange of cards, not to mention a few drinks and a nice dinner of course. This year, our taste in cards seems to be very similar.

Ah well, I suppose after all those anniversaries it was bound to happen sometime. All we have to do now is decide where we want to eat tonight.

Follow

Val’s surgeon was happy with her recovery when she saw him yesterday, and she shouldn’t need to see him again. That’s great news, so we celebrated with tapas at the Pickel followed by cocktails in the Tanne bar.

At the end of the ski season there’s an open air concert up at the top of the mountain, and it’s happening this weekend. On many occasions, the organisers have gone to all the trouble of building a stage and the hospitality facilities, only for the weather to be so bad that the event has to be cancelled. This morning it looked highly likely that this would be the case today, with a howling wind and horizontal sleet down here in the village. Luck, however, was on the side of the organisers and the ticket holders, as the weather calmed down and the sun came out just as the concert was due to start.

Follow

It’s another nice day, which is good as Val is off to see her surgeon in Bern again. The celebrated physicist Albert Einstein worked in Bern for a while – he was an assistant at the Swiss patent office. Although he was German by birth, Einstein became a Swiss citizen early in his life, and despite subsequently being granted a U.S. passport, he retained his Swiss nationality until his death in 1955.

The Swiss love to maximise a celebrity connection with the country (Sherlock Holmes and the town of Meiringen is perhaps the best example of this), so Bern is home to no less than 4 benches, where you can sit with Einstein’s likeness. Bern isn’t a very big city, so Val managed to visit them all before it was time for her appointment.

Einstein, by all accounts, was a bit of a lad. He only married twice, but had a string of high profile assignations with prominent women of the time, including an alleged Russian spy. Maybe that’s why the Swiss are so keen on him – it certainly makes more interesting reading than the General Theory of Relativity.

Follow

It’s difficult to overstate the significance of last night’s final evening at the Alpine (formally Sunstar) Hotel. For twenty years, the bar has hosted us through good times and (rarely) bad. This weekend the hotel embarks on a major renovation which will see the bar’s removal. Here are a few photos from many years gone by, featuring some of the people with whom it’s been our privilege to share a space at the bar. Of course in the years since then, there have been many more.

That’s my mum with Val in the picture above, enjoying a cocktail 12 years ago.

So here is the very last photo at the Sunstar bar, of the two of us last night.

We all loved that bar. Here’s hoping the replacement, if there is to be one, will provide us with many more years of enjoyment.

Follow

It’s a beautiful day, and this afternoon we had a wander around the village. The good people of Wengen are out in their gardens, kids are having fun in the playground. It doesn’t feel like winter at all, and yet there are still 5 weeks to go until the end of the ski season.

Val has finished my birthday present. She has cross stitched a Formula One car for me. I love it!

Colin is playing at the Alpine Hotel tonight.

Follow

Mike and Mary-Anne run a charity called Raising Aspirations Through Sport (R.A.T.S.). The aim of this is to take youngsters from backgrounds where skiing would not normally be an option, and turn them into qualified ski instructors. They stay in Wengen all winter and undergo intensive training, before taking their exams. Needless to say, all this is expensive, so Mike and Mary-Anne have organised a fundraising event. Colin and Steve provided the music, and we started with an auction. Del, our auctioneer, was great entertainment.

I ‘won’ a drinks voucher.

The students are known as Rats. Here’s Roxy, last year’s Rat. She’s been working for ski school all this season, living the dream thanks to RATS.

Rocks was absolutely packed. We also had a quiz, and a raffle, and I’m sure a lot of money was raised. If you’d like to know more about RATS, you can visit the website here.

After all that excitement, we had a quiet day today, with a nice walk by the lake in the afternoon sunshine. It’s hard to believe that we walked all the way round Lake Brienz last summer.

Follow

The Alpine hotel is closing for a big refurbishment next weekend, so last night it was Beves and Ibe’s last concert of the season. It’s Ibe’s birthday this week, so naturally we sang.

Today has been a deluge of rain, and we managed to scoot up to Rocks for a special event during a pause. Pictures from this evening to follow tomorrow.