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There’s a terrace outside our Co-op, which they use to display stocks of seasonal wares. In summer it’s usually gardening stuff like sacks of compost and garden tools, and in winter it’ll be lots of boxes of firewood. At this time of year the Co-op expects to sell lots of bedding plants. The Swiss are keen gardeners, so stocks are large and business brisk. The staff expect to have to bring the plants inside at night, as frosts at this altitude are still common. At the moment however, the weather is so cold that the delicate plants can’t even be left out during the day, so the sandwich counter is obstructed by lots of trays of pots. Our Co-op isn’t very big, so this is a bit of a problem. Fortunately there aren’t too many customers at the moment, so the staff can just about manage with the loss of space.

The wintry weather continues. No sooner have the paths been cleared, this happens.

The cold weather seems set to stay with us for a few more days yet.

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Every Christmas we have a big, festive dinner here at Chalet Iltis. A couple of years ago some friends brought us a Christmas pudding from the UK, but try as we might we never had sufficient appetite to eat it after the huge main course. Last night we were determined to polish it off, so we opted not to have any starters, and I made rather fewer roast potatoes than usual. We had a lovely dinner.

Sure enough, we still had enough room for the pudding. Colin soaked it with a good slug of homemade (here in Wengen) Plum brandy. It burned beautifully.

Afterwards we had our traditional game of Yahtzee – Ali was victorious.

It made a nice change to find that it wasn’t snowing when we woke up this morning. We hauled all the empty bottles up to the recycling centre and treated ourselves to lunch at Cafe Waldschluecht. Breaking news: it’s snowing again.

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The cold weather continues, with more snow overnight and showers all day.

If only we’d had this weather a month ago. We’re hosting dinner tonight; Emily is coming up from Interlaken, and the rest of us will make a team effort on the food. Colin has a huge joint of beef, Ali will make Yorkies, and I have spent the afternoon preparing roast potatoes and veg while Val made the house presentable. All that remains is to make gravy and it should be delicious.

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After sweltering over the weekend, we now have some cold weather to cope with. The snow started yesterday evening, and continued all night and all day today.

I guess I’d better clear our steps and the path.

We need supplies from the Co-op, so we’ll have to venture out later.

A bit later, up in the village the council have diligently ploughed the road. There’s nobody here to appreciate their efforts. After our trip to the shop we popped into the Crystal for a couple of beers.

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Wengen is very quiet now, so we’ve been planning to have a night out in Interlaken. The weather forecast is pretty awful for the rest of the week, so yesterday afternoon we thought we’d better go out while it’s still dry. It’s windy though, Val got this shot of the waterfall being blown around on the way down the hill.

We were early enough to get a nice table at the Hüsi. It’s a very popular pub & restaurant in the middle of town. We both had the signature dish – ribs. The food was great and the beer’s pretty good too. Spring is well underway in Interlaken, a splendid display of flowers at the bus stop as we were waiting to get our bus home.

We got back to Wengen and popped into the Crystal bar for a nightcap. This morning the weather forecast turned out to be accurate – cold, with snow. Winter is back.

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We had planned to have a walk to the lake at Interlaken today, but it looks like the weather will be far too warm down there. We settled for a stroll down the valley from Lauterbrunnen to Zweilütschinen. The river is full of meltwater from the snow in the mountains.

The path has been renovated recently, which makes our walk easier than it used to be. An unwanted side effect of the smooth surface is that the cyclists can now achieve supersonic speeds on their way down the hill. Most of them are tourists who don’t know the rules of the road, so we have to be careful.

This structure is a furnace for smelting iron ore, which is abundant in the valley. It was built in 1638. Upwards of 50 people worked here at the peak of production, until its closure in 1715.

As we approach Zweilütschinen we have to pause as a train crosses our path.

Zweilütschinen railway station doesn’t have a Kiosk, and there are no shops here. We had to wait until we got home for our ice cream.

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It’s very warm again, so I was out early for my run this morning. This afternoon we’d like a walk, but once again we have a dilemma. There’s still too much snow to walk above the village where the temperature will be cooler, and down in the valley it’s far too hot. We decided on a walk out to a viewpoint called Staubbachbänkli. The route takes us through the farming hamlet of Innerwengen.

Eventually we reached the viewpoint, where the council have thoughtfully provided some benches.

We bought strawberry ice cream from the farm. Great views back to Wengen.

I got some nice fish from Lidl the other day, so I’ll chop up some potatoes and we can have proper fish & chips for dinner.