Happy New Year

Happy New Year. It was a wonderful start to 2009 here. There had been another Foehn storm on Boxing Day. On the mountain it looked very sad, brown and wind blown with white stripes denoting the pistes. And those were rather hard packed to say the least. Down in the village the snow still lay on the ground but it was quite dirty looking, littered with cones, branches and leaves.

A little flurry of snow was forecast, but the locals weren't expecting much to write home about. At about 23.30 I caught site of snow on my balcony, was that left from before? No, its snowing! So out, up to town we went. Tramping through freshly falling snow nearly up to my knees. Fantastic. Fireworks were bursting all around, the colours reflected perfectly by the white background. Pink, green, red and gold.

The Cow Bell Ringers began at 23.55 through the main street ringing in the new year, warding off any bad spirits. They usually carry on well into the early hours ringing their way through all the hotels and bars. Its quite an impressive sound and rather deafening.

A perfect start to the new year.