Last Christmas we spent the day at home, just the two of us, out of choice. We enjoyed the peace and pleasing ourselves around how we celebrated and when. But afterwards we said 2020 would be a full on White Christmas celebration with Beck’s brother’s family and snow in Switzerland. Of course in the intervening months, Covid-19 happened and our March 2020 trip out to them coincided with lockdowns across Europe, whilst our summer plans to visit en route to Slovenia were totally derailed.

When the UK Government lifted the international travel ban, put in place during the November 2020 UK lockdown, we took the opportunity to head East once more. In the end we fast forwarded our departure, fuelled by rumours of the imminent closure of the ski hill. The decision proved to be a good one as the hill did indeed close on the day we were originally due to arrive. Instead we managed four exhilarating days of boarding before the closure came in to force. Having not done it for nearly two years we took it fairly easy and stuck to the piste on day one. By day four the slopes were fairly well tracked and in need of some refreshment with new snow. Tired from four full-on days of exercise we welcomed the enforced rest when the ski hill closed with good grace, our thirst for snowboarding having been slaked.

The next day, Beck’s parents arrived to join the party. Off we went, up the hill once more, this time to walk, sledge and enjoy lunch at the Sennenstube before all restaurants across Switzerland also closed. During our lovely lunch the news filtered through to us that the Swiss Government were implementing a retrospective 10 day quarantine for anyone entering the country from the UK since the 14th Dec. We had arrived on the 16th and Beck’s folks on the 20th which meant the whole house had to quarantine until the 30th December. Happy New Year!!

Luckily the weather during this time was not up to much and we had our niece Freyja’s birthday on the 23rd, followed by Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day to occupy us. So the time passed with plenty of distractions. We did exercise videos on the balcony, took turns on the turbo trainer in the garage and played endless games of Zug um Zug, alongside eating and drinking marathons. In fact, our first day out of quarantine saw us continue to stay indoors as the weather was still pretty average.

However, the Snow Gods were not quite finished with us! The evening before New Year’s Eve we received news that the ski hill was to reopen … the next day! The poor weather in the valley over Christmas meant a decent top up on white stuff on the hill and so on New Year’s Eve we headed off for a bonus (and very much unexpected) extra day snowboarding. It was glorious. We managed 11 runs, plus a celebratory beer on the hill before returning to Drew & Mel’s for New Year’s Eve fondue, and, what can only be described as ‘relay karaoke’ with friends of theirs who were holding their own socially distant New Year celebrations a few villages over.

From then until we left on the 6th Jan, we spent our time trying ski touring (Ben) and exploring a new langlaufing course at Lenzerheid, a resort about an hour away from Murg. It was a good suggestion and we make a mental note to come back here next season. We also do a couple of beautiful hikes, the first from Walenstadt to Quinten, returning to Murg via the ferry and then from Flumserberg to Seebenalpe and back, the latter on the day of a temperature inversion, ensuring we looked down on the clouds from the mountains above. This walk was our last day and we sat in the sunshine, taking an early takeaway lunch from the mountain hotel, thinking how lucky we are to be enjoying this while folk back home are back in lockdown. Given that the Swiss have now banned people from the UK from entering the country, it might be a while before we can do it again!

You would think with all the exercise that we would get fit during the trip, however, Drew is such a great host that we eat and drink to excess pretty much every night. We need to go home for the good of our waistlines, although we can definitely recommend Chalet Lewis-Howe on TripAdvisor!

As we leave the continent the stark reality and stupidity of Brexit hits home yet again. As third country nationals now we do not know when we will be allowed to enter the continent again. When we do we will have to add the cost and complexity of getting visas before our trip, our rights to freedom of movement forcibly removed. From now our future access to the continent and all its opportunity is in the hands of others, and we are reduced to rule takers rather than being equal partners around the table. It’s saddening and maddening in equal parts. At least we managed to sneak in this trip whilst we still could.