I got a nice present of some roses, a bottle of wine and chocolates from my parents the other day. Note the box of shavings in the picture next to the plant. I can’t say I got much benefit from the chocolates as R ate nearly all of them in short order (I think I […]

I’m not doing well with any produce from my garden this year (apart from herbs of which there are lots). For some reason my cherry tree (which in previous years has provided lots of ripe fruit) is being plundered by something – because the cherries are disappearing just before they get ripe. The black current […]

I lost my first chair when I got up to make coffee, and my second one while I was making lunch. You can definitely see they are brothers – but I have never been entirely sure whether Tora (on the right) is a darker colour naturally, or whether it is just because washing is for […]

I bought a little ice cream maker the other day – it is a bit inconvenient to use as you have to freeze the bowl 8 hours in advance – but it is fine for the quantities I make. For an easy super-delicious strawberry ice cream which is also low calorie, low sugar and low […]

Today was our last full day and actually the weather was significant worse (or at least cooler – not sure R would call that worse) than the rest of the week. In the morning we went to Interlaken – not sure why it is so popular as it is rather 1960s concrete looking and completely […]

Our second last day (sob) and at my parents’ recommendation we went to Zermatt to see the Matterhorn. This was another journey you wouldn’t approach lightly in UK as it was three hours on four different trains. Of course, it being Switzerland, everything went entirely according to plan and we arrived right on time. The […]

Today we went back to Brienz and up the Rothorn on a little steam train. Again some fantastic views on the way up. We had cappucinos and vanilla doughnuts at the top, and R confessed that he didn’t feel up to another long hot walk. So he took the train back down and I navigated […]

We got up at 5am today to try to beat the heat. At the last moment, we decided to walk from Meiringen to Grindlewald rather than vice versa. This would cost us an extra 500m of ascent, but save us an hour in the cool of the day. We ascended the first 1000m or so […]

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 […]