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…

Well, it’s getting a bit chilly in town and frankly it was a bit grotty yesterday. But, for reason’s best known only to themselves Martin and Emma decided to hop in the car at 5am and drive the two hours to Saas fee. Where they have a glacier. Which is nice. and at 3600m up, it’s a bit chillier than Verbier at 1500m.

Anyway, they were rewarded with sunshine first thing but it turned a wee bit wintery and ended up dumping it down with snow. And if that has whet your collective whistle for all things snowy, well, we’ve got more. Because it’s going to be baltic on Monday and snow at, oh, about 2000 meters. Maybe a bit lower…

 

 

Heading down the valley and it’s still boiling here. Hard to believe we might have the lifts to lac des vaux open in six weeks…

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…

…the more they stay the same. Theoretically the lifts open in seven weeks but it seems absolute madness on a day like today as it’s sunny and hot and frankly amazing.

Meanwhile the Swiss Franc is still dropping against the Pound. Which means that by the time the snow starts to fall and Verbier rumbles into action (new lifts and all) the exchange rate should be decidedly more pleasant. In fact, closer to last year’s rates. So good news all round.

I tend to get the same question when I tell people I live in Switzerland.

“It’s expensive there, isn’t it?”.

Well, actually they ask lots of things, like “Aren’t you lucky?” and “Stop it – are you just gloating again?”. But a lot of them say something like that. Roughly speaking. It’s expensive.

And Switzerland has never been incredibly cheap – nobody has come back from this little place telling you that a pint of beer is about 10p and you can live like a king on the contents of the change you’ve found down the back of the sofa.

But generally it’s pretty normal. Prices are a bit less than London, a bit more than my home town in the Midlands.

The problem since the economic downturn has been that while the Pound and Euro fell, the Swiss Franc sky-rocketed. And it made everything here look a bit pricy.

But there is good news. Very good news in fact. News so good I’ve decided to put it in bigger text.
 

Very Good News…

 

The Swiss National Bank have been trying to bring down th Franc to help exports and tourism. And yesterday they did something that made the markets jump and added 8% to the value of Sterling in the space of about five minutes. And the result is this: