It started snowing not long after we had our tests yesterday afternoon, and it hasn’t stopped since. I popped up to the village while Val did her German class.
The kids’ ski lift is buried.
Streets have been ploughed, but there’s still a lot of snow around.
Ali is cooking tonight.
As the races have been cancelled, the army personnel who look after the race course were sent back to barracks yesterday. This left 500 packed lunches which they would have eaten today going spare. They were therefore distributed amongst us, so we got a free lunch today.
Yesterday’s lurid newspaper headlines mean that the whole village needs to be tested for the virus. We all went after lunch. It was a pretty slick process.
After testing we waited outside for our results.
We were all negative. In fact the doctor in charge told us there hadn’t been a single positive test all day. Later, the civil defence people all turned up for their tests – they get tested every day.
Just look at that perfect social distancing.
The World Cup races that were due to take place next weekend have been cancelled. The official reason is a high number of positive tests at our new test centre in the village, which is ok – there have been a lot of infections. Needless to say the press have had a field day with the story.
Sensational headlines appear on almost every newspaper – ‘Wengen is in lockdown’ (it isn’t, we can go skiing, go shopping, go to the hairdresser etc). The bit about a British tourist being the source of the outbreak may well be true however – we’re pretty sure we know who it is.
It’s a shame. The last thing we need at the moment is a big scare story like this, as it will certainly deter the ever-cautious Swiss from coming here – there are plenty of other places they can ski after all. Hopefully the story will die away over the next few days.
Regular contributor Maggie comments:
The British Tourist was not Roger Scoones, the English Chaplain. He has been in the village since the 8th of December and was not ‘the tourist from Great Britain staying in a single hotel between December 27 and January 10’ to quote the council article. He has been living in the flat provided for the English chaplain as said since the 8th of December.
It’s mighty cold again, but the sun is out so we popped up to Männlichen for a ski. Beautiful views to the west.
And very few people about.
Cruising down to Holenstein.
Absolutely no lift queues today.
The skiing was pretty good considering it hasn’t snowed for a couple of weeks. More would be nice of course.
Just when we thought it couldn’t get any colder, the temperatures plunged again, and it was minus 12 outside our kitchen window this morning. There’s no need to rush out though; in the nearby village of Adelboden there’s a World Cup slalom race and we can watch it on telly. Manchester boy Dave Ryding amazed everyone by finishing on the podium in third place. Here he is on the right.
By now the temperature had risen to a slightly more comfortable minus 5, and we headed out for a walk. It’s nice to get away from the village centre and see some of the quaint old houses.
We’re expecting the usual suspects for dinner later. I’m going to do fish and chips.
Anne-Marie and Paul paid us a visit last night, We had hirsch (deer) stew with mashed potatoes, carrots and broccoli.
This morning Val was up early to go to the hairdresser, and this evening she’s babysitting for Beanie and Sandro. My challenge is to see whether we can somehow watch Austrian TV, and it doesn’t seem to be easy.
It’s a lovely day, but much colder than it looks.
It’s the last day of the school holidays, lots of parents hanging around the bar on the nursery slope awaiting their kids.
The snow garden for tiny tots.
We’ve got guests for dinner tonight, so I’d better get slicing and dicing in the kitchen.
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