SNOW DOGS

My small, four-legged friend has just come in all stiff-legged after his morning 'sniff' - the fur on his legs and tum have been transformed into a gigantic snowball. 50cm of snow overnight, and still snowing - winter is here at last! My garden is now out of commission until the middle/end of May and apart from the earth under the fir trees, no more green will be seen on the ground until then.

And I love it! A good thing really, living in a ski resort up in the mountains! I love it because it is 'real' snow and it comes down in large amounts and therefore stays white - the town centre of course becomes a bit slushy and brown, but as the roads are continuously cleared we don't have lumps of dirty snow everywhere.

The snowplough was out hard at work at 530 this morning, followed by the lorry salting the road and the private contractors are already at work clearing the drives of the chalets. I am hoping that with the amount of snow that has fallen the snowblower will go past the end of my drive and clear the enormous mountain of snow the snowplough so kindly left as it went through! The 'car postale' which is the amazingly efficient bus system here in Switzerland, has only once in the last ten years been unable to get down the hill from Verbier ... my son catches it every morning to go down the hill to the station, and lives in hope that there will be enough snow overnight to stop it getting through! But he forgets we are in super efficient Switzerland where they are used to snow for five/six months of the year and that a ski resort you can't access, means a loss of squillions of francs!

The centre of town is going to be at sixs and sevens this weekend - the first event of the season kicks off with the 'Jib night contest this afternoon. The road going from the town centre up to the main ski lift is transformed into a boarding and skiing competition over obstacles; the organisers were looking very grim yesterday as there was no snow for them to use to prepare the jumps on the course; normally snow is stock-piled for the event but there has been nothing to stock-pile. Not so now! But they are going to have their work cut out to get the course ready. The event lasts through the day and there are stands selling food and drink, ski companies selling gear, an open-air cinema showing various skiing and boarding films, a mountain rescue helicopter on display, and after the prize-giving at 10pm, everyone is off to the clubs for the first winter parties!

Angus and I will try and totter down to the village this afternoon to see the event - we will have to go the 'long way round' down to the village, as the shortcut we normally use won't be cleared and the snow will be over the top of my boots and poor old Gus will just disappear! He has a luminous collar with flashing lights for night walking - what I need now is a little flashing light to attach to the tip of his tail!

Hopefully I will manage to get a few photos, if I can publish them is another matter as having scrapped Firefox I don't think I can put them on the blog - but will shall see tomorrow!