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Today we’re off to Grindelwald, where the World Snow Festival is taking place. Teams from all over the world are given a 3 metre cube of snow, from which they must produce a sculpture. The Germans are making a cow.

And here it is. The sculptures won’t be judged until the weekend, so they’re a work in progress at the moment.

The USA. Turtles.

Turkey.

Latvia.

And the Italians are making a coffee pot.

For the past 2 years the competition has been cancelled owing to a lack of snow, so it’s nice to see the sculptures back again. Grindelwald is also a good village for shopping, so we had a good look around the outdoor shops.

A nice day out. Val has started going to a yoga class on Wednesday afternoons, so we got back to Wengen after a nice lunch.

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It’s another lovely day, and the World Cup ski racers are having their first training runs on the racecourse. Lots of competitors, coaches and officials at the start hut on the Lauberhorn.

Training runs are compulsory, and if you haven’t completed at least one you can’t enter the race at the weekend. The racers aren’t the only ones who learn from these training runs. All the supporting services like marshals, timing technicians, television and rescue services use these runs as a dress rehearsal for the big day on Saturday.

First competitor to go was Stefan Rogentin of Switzerland.

It takes the racers about two and a half minutes to ski the 4.4 kilometres to the finish down at Innerwengen. Once the races are over we are free to ski the course, and even at top speed it would probably take me 20 minutes, assuming I didn’t stop for a beer on the way down of course. It’s the longest World Cup downhill course in the world.

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It was a chilly minus 9 when we got up this morning, but the sun will soon be out so it’s up the hill for us. We cram onto the train with lots of military people who are taking equipment up for the races. Very quiet ski runs.

Occasionally a group of skiers appears, but they’re soon gone, leaving us with the mountain to ourselves.

Val on the Lauberhorn. This is the first place to get the sun in the morning at this time of year, so it’s a popular spot.

Colin is playing in the Anonym bar tonight, so we’ll have a wander up for the music.

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It finally stopped snowing this morning, so after we’d watched the ski racing on TV we went down to the cellar and found our snow shoes. Fresh snow means it’ll be a busy Sunday on the ski runs, but with snow shoes you can get away from the crowds.

These things make climbing steep hills surprisingly easy.

Nearer the village, snow cannons mean we get a bit wet as we pass them.

A rare shot of me.

So hopefully that’s the end of the bad weather for a while. It’s very cold, but the right clothing will deal with that.

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It’s been a truly awful week of weather. We’ve had high winds which closed the ski lifts, and for the past couple of days we’ve had fog, snow or both. Yesterday evening we trudged up to the village and enjoyed a curry with Lesley, Dave and Colin. The weather is so unpleasant that we actually started making plans for another holiday to Corfu in the spring.

Today there’s been a lot of ski racing to watch on TV, and later this afternoon Val made a start on her latest jigsaw puzzle, which is a nice view of Heidelberg.

Guess I’d better make a start on dinner.

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Lovely tapas at the Pickel bar last night.

At this time of year we expect to get a few days when it’s too stormy to run the ski lifts. This week though, we’ve had three in a row. Yet again there was very little skiing on offer in the region. Val had her German class this morning and I went shopping. We’re expecting snow tonight, but Colin is playing at the Victoria Lauberhorn, so I guess we’ll be heading up to the village later.

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Today we’ve had rain and high winds, with most ski lifts out of action. Plenty of action in the village however, as building is in full swing. A mini-village will be created for the World Cup races next weekend, with bars, entertainment and catering.

These civil defence guys are here to help out. They’ve been for a ski in their lunch hour.

Later on there’s ski racing on TV which we can watch in Rocks, followed by tapas at the Pickel bar.