19 - 25 December 2011

The Krampus accompany St. Nicholas, meting out severe punishment for the naughty children. Elizabeth, presumably to avoid reprimand, wrote him a love letter which translates thus, 'Dear Krampus, I love you so much dear Krampus, yours, Elizabeth.' As it was she did pretty well this festive period, and we only had to threaten to remove all her presents from under the tree.

12 - 18 December 2011

The week in which Elizabeth has her first training session with the Maria Alm children's ski team. It was snowing and cold so she spent the session in a restaurant drinking hot chocolate. She could learn something about perseverance and determination from Caspar who, after five years of seemingly futile efforts, finally learnt to whistle this week.

5 - 11 December 2011

Simon has been persuaded back to the classroom as a tutor to the Ambition Racing ski team, currently training from their base in Leogang. Happily ensconced with a brief to cover maths and sciences he finds himself,in addition, teaching geography, history, music, Latin, Welsh and papier maché.

28 November - 4 December 2011

No snow can mean financial ruin for businesses that have to turn a profit in a matter of weeks. However, you can do a lot with a few inches and you only need enough to slide on (snow, that is). Fine water vapour sprayed into the air on cold days, and a couple of piles of artificial snow spread thinly on grass slopes sorts out the peak weeks.