The ducks and the unfrozen pond

I am always surprised at how quickly the weather changes in the mountains - a bit of sunshine yesterday, but heavy snow all day today. As the visibility was so poor we decided not to ski and took Thomas and his friends to the wonderful indoor pool complex in Davos. We collected the friends from their various accommodation venues and set off the 8 mile journey. It was a very scary journey, as the road was so icy and with such heavy snow many cars and trucks had got stuck. Luckily our rented car with snow tyres and front wheel drive was fine and we made it safely there. All the buses and trains still run in this weather, unlike London when there are a few snow flakes!

We dropped the boys off and they had such fun swimming in the indoor pool with big slides and also in the outdoor pool that is accessed through a kind of cat flap from the indoor pools. There were kids getting out the warm outdoor pool and rolling in the snow and then jumping back into the warm pool - the outside temperature being -2C.

Gavin and I enjoyed a delicious bowl of soup for lunch at our favourite coffee shop in Davos - in fact I must mention it to David Cameron for when he is at the next World Economic Forum meeting as this coffee shop is the best I have ever been to! (I am joking, but not about the coffee shop)

It was impossible to take photos in the constant stream of snow and everything was white with no definition, and all rather flat looking. I was surprised to find this unfrozen duck pond with the ducks swimming around at -2C.

I say we did not ski today - except for Adam and Luke who as members of a local (but British) ski club entered into the annual ski marathon competition. One has to ski the most kilometres in a given time without repeating the same run. They had 5,5 hours to ski a possible 101 kilometres, with the record standing at 76 km. Last night they planned their route, strategizing which runs to do when so as to avoid busy times on lifts and when to eat. The poor visibility meant that hardly anyone was on the mountain today except for these mad contestants, so they had the most brilliant day, skiing constantly and having no queues at lifts. I knew I should have been concerned when Adam went to the ski rental shop last night to swap his skis for 'the longest you have got!' and when the shop assistant said but you won't be able to turn with such long skis, Adam replied 'I don't intend to, I plan to just go straight down the slopes'. After the race I heard how they were skiing so fast they were actually slip streaming each other, and despite three hard crashes (thank goodness I was not there to see) they came 2nd overall with 63.8 km in 5 hours 10 minutes and 1st place for being first back. They loved the day and even let me take a quick snap shot of them after prize giving.