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A rather nice day in Verbier if a little nippy. But as long as the sun keeps shining then Gareth can keep dreaming of the first spring barbeque… But while we wait for Verbier’s most enthusiastic outdoor chef to break out snags and stubbie-holders here are few pictures of the views you get when Toby ropes you into walking his dog:

An absolutely freezing return to winter today – if we’ve said anything about spring here recently please accept we’re fools and haven’t got a clue. As low as minus twenty up top then you have to add on the wind chill – which goes even higher the faster you ski…

Anyway, despite that it looked very pretty:

Had a rather cloudy trip up to the Pub to help Gareth celebrate his first day on skis since he broke his back on the very first day of the season…

So by the time the pub got in sight, well, it wasn’t really in sight and the snow started falling pretty hard.

Suffice to say it started dumping pretty heavily when we were in there (and whilst G was losing at darts…) so we’ll tweet from the hill and let you know what’s happened up high – not sure what to expect but should be a good few inches of fresh if the wind hasn’t been spoiling things.

Meanwhile all the fresh snow and the change in temperature has lead to some avalanches across the Alps (click here to read Planet Ski’s coverage of the situation), some sadly fatal – so if you’re heading off piste ask an expert.

Kent had a look at the weather yesterday and decided that he might just tale advantage of our proximity to Italy to nip over the boarder for some skiing, some sunshine and some very pleasant Italian cuisine. So he got to the sunny weather before it got to us here in Verbier and judging by the photos they had a rather nice lunch while they were there…

Yup, we skied around in the snow and cloud for a few hours this morning wondering what exactly John Kettley and the boys at the MET office were on about, then at about midday the sun broke through and it’s all nice and sunny again. As predicted. So that means we can stop feeling quite so jealous about Kenta sitting down to a rather nice lunch in Italy in the sunshine…

Isn’t it funny how you can plan a big day on the hill and then when you get a day off instead of going on a massive trip you simply end up taking it easy?

Well Toby and I had a day off so planned a day skiing with some friends. We even started using all the usual names of ski areas to persuade ourselves we were serious – Col des Mouche, Catwalk, Stairway, Barry’s Bowl, etc.

The light was a bit dodgy so we decided on “a quick break” to see if it improved and nipped into the new bar  at Col des Gentianes with some of the Swiss guys, but we just ended up having a chat with the slightly crazy French barman (using our very best French much to his the amusement of the Swissies) and then kidded our selves we were just waiting for the girls to join us an that we weren’t just wussing out…

Yup, after a rather spring-like feel to the last few weeks we’ve suddenly been plunged into winter. OK it’s not been super cold but it’s been chucking it down. There was a foot or so of fresh (if windblown) snow on the piste and it was dumping most of the day. When the clouds broke it revealed a rather good looking Verbier…

So every year we have a bowling competition against Powder Extreme. It’s fast becoming a tradition between the two schools, and last season the series finished one all – we won the first match and the narrowly lost the second at the end of the season (a result which has left the Performance team feeling like we let ourselves, our fans and the sport itself down).

As such we went to Martigny last night with high hopes and a team of psychologically prepared athletes. The first set (as usual) went to Powder Extreme, but the second set was won at a canter by Performance. Six months of hurt was about to be ended.

But as we went into the third set and there was a little confusion over the scoring system – do we take the total for the top eight scores for each team (we had nine and PE just had eight) or take the average individual score ?

Well, amid the confusion, jugs of beer and slices of pizza we seem to have plumped for the latter – a decision which is still difficult to explain even when you talk to Felix – and this morning the trophy is a long way from Performance HQ…

That’s because despite winning on the top eight system (which would allow for the fact Karolina has only ever seen bowling on television…), we were beaten on the player average system by the tiniest of fractions.

As well as sending shock waves through Martigny’s bowling community it also means that Powder Extreme have the bragging rights and we’ll now never hear the end of it. So we’re already preparing for the next round and to get our trophy back – as well as getting everyone to sign up to a formal and leglly binding scoring system before we start…

Yes, the sun came out and everything started seeming a wee bit slushy in town. Not a bad thing at all – and as we all know, it’s bound to get cold again very soon indeed…

You can’t really complain when you wake up to this. Amazing. And the forecasts say clear all morning and VERY cold again…