As Duffski is about to begin it's 7th winter season things could not be more exciting. With the addition of another apartment within the same house this gives us 6 Austrian twin en-suite rooms offering comfortable accommodation for up to 15 people.

The new house also has the most delightful dining room. It is an old wood panelled 'stuben' dating back to 1870. To complement the wonderful ambiance of this room I have dug out all my old silverware , Maria has made Tyrolean style cushions for all the seating and we finally have an appropriate place to hang paintings and the old Vienna wall clock. My biggest worry is that with such atmosphere people will never go to bed.

By contrast breakfast will now be served in the breakfast/afternoon tea room. To help put a smile on everyone's face and wake them up we have purchased some ' bright and spotty ' breakfast crockery. My landlord has not just put all the rent money in his Swiss bank account he has actually come up trumps and put in a completely new kitchen and totally re-painted the outside of the house.

In Anton itself exciting new things have also happened. The lift company has built a new lift from the centre of town going up to Rendl and it will now only take 8 minutes. Coupled with the new Galzig lift and the new Jennewein shop the centre of St Anton has really come into the 21st century. In order to get us all to the lifts the council has laid on even more buses which remember go from outside the front door and now go every 15 minutes. With no more long lunch breaks and the last morning bus going at 11.45 for those who really like a long lie in, I could not run a more efficient shuttle service if I did it myself.

I should take this opportunity to mention those small extras that I always forget to put on the web site. Not only do we have wifi internet we have two wifi radios meaning it can be the Today program or for all of you sad 'togs' it can be Chris Evans at breakfast time. We have got Ipod lines to both hi-fis for those of you who don't arrive with the latest Ipod travel docking station.

On a personal note Maria and I got married this summer. A four day party in Hungary that took us from fine dining to Hungarian folk dancing and goulash, a good time was had by all. Maria of course will be waiting on and looking after you all in the evenings while I rattle around in the kitchen but in the day she goes to her much more respectable career as a ski instructor leaving me to keep the house tidy, feed you all breakfast and make sure you don't forget your lift pass!!

Hope all this might tempt you to give us a call and book a holiday with Duffski and I ask you to let your other ski friends know about Duffski.

See you on the slopes

                           Andrew and Maria Duffin