Well, confession time. Olly emailed me a load of photos of snow in New Zealand in July and somehow I failed to bring you and his artistic efforts together.

So sorry Olly.

But not too sorry for failing to share photos of you and your new passion – crown green bowls. Not exactly Rock and Roll.

The good news in Verbier is that the weather looks set to turn and we should be getting snow on (depending on who you listen to) Thursday night, Friday or Saturday.

Needless to say we’ll keep you posted… You can follow us here on the blog, on twitter, or click ‘like’ on our facebook page and follow it all there….

Yes, after a bit of a cold and soggy weekend, we’ve woken this morning to snow capped mountains and the kind of scenes you expect in a ski resort. And it’s a welcome return to the odd wintery view, if you ask me.

So, I’ve had a quick wander round so you can see for yourself. It’s quite nice although I do really think I should get a  slightly better camera…

We thought you might like to see the first snow in town. Well, the first snow since August or something…

Anyway, it looks like this although the snow in resort has changed back to rain. Very, very heavy rain.

It’s that time of year. The time of year when people start the first rumours and generally turn their thoughts towards winter.

Now, there are a few of us – the slightly more cantankerous sort – who deliberately start rumours. Then there are the old wizened ski bums and guides who quote all sorts of natural phenomenon to indicate the coming winter.

Then still there are the (actually, more sensible) scientific minded ones who point out that the weather system is a chaotic system, a system not accurately predictable more than three or four days in advance. They sometimes talk about the butterfly effect, but by then I’ve usually zoned out.

Finally there are people who talk about sun spots. The less said the better.

But this season it seems the volume of berries on the trees and the size and quantity of spiders in your sink are to be the key indexes of the snow levels next winter.

Yes, I was surprised too.

You see, Verbier is inundated with spiders this autumn (the giant house spider I think you’ll find – Tegenaria duellica) and I might be guilty of exacerbating the situation with hysterical mutterings on facebook and twitter. But the fact remains there are some hefty arachnids floating about.

And the combination of eight-legged monsters and berries on the trees means everyone’s predicting a bumper season for snow. I don’t know about the science of the prediction, but it’s a prediction I like and I’d like to give it momentum by showing you the kind of beasties we’re dealing with…

Best photo?

It’s one of those competitions I already know who will win, but at the moment I think I know who’s got the best photo in terms of artistic merit, and also who’s got the best one in terms of making their spider look like something out of a special effects cupboard. But please let us know your thoughts by commenting. I might be wrong.

And if you want to know why I’m typing this at 6.30 am, it’s because at about 5.30 I woke up convinced there was a spider crawling over me and now can’t get back to sleep. Oh, the irony – still, if you live by the spider…

Er, yes. It’s been snowing again just above Ruinettes. So I went up and had a wander around – it’s rather nice, if chilly. And the higher you go the more snow there is, until you get to Col des Gentianes where there are a good few inches.

But whilst it’s a bit of a weird concept to get snow in the summer, it’s not that odd here. Although not exactly welcome.

Oh, and they’re clearly busy blowing things up on the track from Cabane Mont Fort to LA Chaux, as there are lots of warning signs as well as diagrams of what explosions look like (for walkers with poor imaginations I suppose…).

Looks like it’s been snowing up top and it’s chilly as you like in town…