After spending last week getting her first taste of Grand Slam action in Canada, World Junior Champion Fay Henderson returns to her own team for another crack at some of the world's best at the International Bernese Ladies Cup in Switzerland.
The 22-year-old from Dumfries stepped in as emergency cover for Team Morrison at The Co-op Canadian Open in Alberta and while they failed to register a win in the course of the weekend, she believes the experience has stood her in good stead as she prepares for another campaign that sees her team line up in the same pool as the host nation's world number one ranked and four-time World Champions Team Tirinzoni. 
"The Bernese Ladies is a great event that we enjoy going to, playing in Europe with a great standard of field," said Henderson.
"Going to the Slam last week and getting a little bit of experience with Team Morrison, where we played against and got the chance to watch some of the teams that are going to Berne this week, was useful."
Back working with her regular teammates, Olympic gold medallist Hailey Duff, Amy MacDonald and Katie McMillan, she will look to take what she learned in Canada into their camp ahead of this week's event and next month's Scottish Championships on her home ice in Dumfries, where world number 12 ranked Team Morrison will go in as favourites.
"Working dynamically within another team was a really good experience for me, playing with them against other great teams in the world," said Henderson.
"Now it's about getting back to my team and all of our processes and maybe bringing some new ideas that we can talk about, whether that's tactically, communication-wise, or shot-making, so we can maybe push forward on a few things and put that into practice, while sticking to our own original processes.
"This is our last event before the Scottish, so hopefully we can have a really consistent weekend in terms of performance, to keep building into that. 
"This is obviously a big part of the season that we always build towards and a lot of effort has been put in on and off the ice through the gym work and our other support services.
"We've got a week once we're back from Berne and then it's about hopefully pushing on to a good finish to the season with the Scottish Mixed Doubles Championship in Perth the week after that as well which will hopefully go well and show what that facility has to offer."
The International Bernese Ladies Cup takes place from Jan 25- 28 and a high class field also features the leading two Korean teams on the circuit, world number three ranked Team Eun ji Gim and world number six ranked Team Eunjung Kim as well as Italy's world number seven ranked Team Constantini, Sweden's world number eight ranked Team Wrana and Switzerland's world number 14 ranked Team Schwaller.
Link to the draw and results on Curling Zone.
