Duo Centrale become a trio last night – they were joined by Neville and his violin.
Up at Scheidegg today it’s absolute bedlam, with kids scooting around everywhere.
If you look very closely at this picture you can just see Val with the little girl that she’s teaching. They’re sat in front of the blue box at the top of the rope tow.
Wixi mid-afternoon. As the skiers make their turns the snow gets more and more churned up. It’s like a ploughed field.
It’s gloomy today and it looked like rain when Val headed off to work this morning. I’m off to Interlaken where I can buy Val’s favourite wine at the big Co-op.
When I arrived the station was eerily quiet. Interlaken Ost is normally really busy, but not today.
It’s the same in the Co-op. Tills are closed, aisles are deserted.
The reason of course, is the Chinese travel ban. They normally do their European tours in big groups, so they overwhelm the more popular attractions. Not any more.
Wengen is thankfully unaffected by this. It’s full to bursting with kids from all over Europe.
Val has a group of Dutch kids this week, and the Swiss and British are here in substantial numbers too.
Val was up early for work this morning. Amazing sky first thing.
A little later I did a lap of the village before going to the Co-op. The queue for Männlichen was incredible.
A view to Fallboden – packed with skiers.
It’s been very mild – it got up to 14 degrees in the village at lunchtime. Quiz later.
A lovely dinner of tapas at the Pickel last night.
Saturdays are always busy with arrivals and departures, and today might be the busiest of the winter.
We head down to the lake to find some peace and quiet. It’s mild and bright.
The kayak school that some of Val’s colleagues work for in summer is so popular it now runs all year round.
Every time I take a photo, someone at Google grabs a copy and stores it ‘in the cloud’. Every so often they send a photo back with some ‘improvements’. Today the computer spotted 2 photos that it could stitch together into a panorama.
Very clever I’m sure, but the machine failed to spot that this would include 2 pictures of Val skiing down the hill.
It’s been a nice day today, perfect for a walk in the valley.
Valentine’s chocs.
We’re eating out tonight, then it’ll be the Valentine’s party at the Caprice with Uptown Lights.
A good night out at the Caprice yesterday. Another rubbish selfie, but you get the drift.
Emily can carry Ibe, so she did.
The mild and windy weather has melted most of the snow in the village, so it’s time to hose the streets.
Val has had a cold and her ears are a bit blocked. They need to pop. A change of altitude will usually fix this. There’s a storm on the Lauberhorn so we daren’t go up, so we jump on the train down to Lauterbrunnen. No luck. The cable car to Grütschalp is really fast, maybe that’ll fix it.
Still no improvement. Ah well, it was worth a try. Music in Rocks later.
Every February we have a big curling competition called the Dolly cup. It takes place over four weeks, with games every Tuesday night. Emily, Mandi, Gavin and Tim have entered a team.
The standard of play is high – for auslander teams it is an achievement just to avoid losing every game.
It’s another poor day for going up the mountain, but at least some of the ski lifts are operating today. We decide to leave the slopes to the holidaymakers and go for a walk. These lovely old chalets are in the area that used to be the village centre before the railway came.
If you want to build a new house here you have 2 choices. You can buy a plot of land and try to get permission to build on it – almost impossible, or you can buy an existing building and knock it down before building your new house in its place. That’s what has happened here.
A little further along we pass Chalet Iltis that we viewed the other day. It looks a bit sad all shuttered-up, and we hope to change that soon. We’re waiting for the owners to send us a contract.
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