Today we took the train to Grindlewald and then two mountain railways up to the Jungfraujoch which at over 3500m is the highest station in Europe.  I have to say that I was somewhat expecting this to be an expensive tourist trap, but actually although it was expensive (about £150 each) and touristy, it was […]

Today we set off to do the tourist ‘must sees’ in the immediate area.  First we went to the Aareschlucht, which is an incredible gorge cut through the mountains.  It was remarkably cold down there compared to outside, where even at 8:30am it was pushing towards 25C.  R actually got quite badly sunburnt yesterday so […]

Well here R and I are in Meiringen, in the Berenese Oberland of Switzerland, with J kindly looking after the cats at home. Unfortunately, the only direct flight we could get from Scotland to Switzerland was from Edinburgh to Geneva, which meant not only a long drive at our end, but an epic train journey […]

I was sitting in my office about 9:30pm yesterday – when I saw our little roe deer doe down by the candlestick primulas (she is very fond of these, in the eating sense rather than the aesthetic one).  Suddenly she was followed by a tiny fawn.  It may well just have been born that day […]

Schrodi is a very prolific catcher of small furry creatures, but never (to my knowledge) eats his prey.  I feel that their deaths should at least benefit something – so I put the pathetic little bodies out in the creature feeding area.  They always disappear – and a couple of times I’ve seen the badger […]

The water lilies are out now and looking very pretty.  Unfortunately, the weather is so chill, damp and midgie that there isn’t much pleasure in outdoor activities at the moment.  Even our usual walks have to be squashed into the intervals between rain time and midgie time.  Still, we are off to Switzerland on Friday […]

I am getting a bit better at baking with non-wheat flour, although I still think that even at their best, the results are never going to be as good as the traditional methods. I made these cheese and onion soda bread style rolls for R and stole a bit myself as they smelt so delicious.  […]

The first thing I saw looking out of my office window around 6:30 this morning was a little roe deer eating my primulas. One of the things about wildlife (certainly in UK) is that although it is very prolific in some areas (like here), you rarely see it except if you have a special area […]

Click on the photo for a video of one of our badgers in colour.  This was at 5:45am – unfortunately by the time I was in the kitchen about 20 minutes later it had departed.  

I seem destined not to get to Iona on the Waverley.  Last year the trip was cancelled before we set off due to bad weather.  This time we actually got to Oban and were on the boat before the Captain announced that because of high winds the tender operator (tender as in ship, not a […]