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We had a splendid lasagne round at Ali’s last night, followed by a fiendishly difficult card game called Phase 10. This morning the weather’s a bit grey, and it’s cooler than we’ve been used to. It’s a big day for the village, and for the whole country. Kids have gone back to school, and all the shops can open.

We popped in and bought the coffee mugs we’ve been eying up in the shop window for the past few weeks. Better than this though, bars and restaurants can open.

We’ll be back here later for a few beers.

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We had a huge thunderstorm yesterday evening, with heavy rain and hail, but this morning it’s warm and sunny again. Here in Switzerland it’s mother’s day, we saw lots of kids with flowers on the way down to Lauterbrunnen earlier.

The hill just before the campsite seems to get steeper every time I climb it.

New mini garden centre by the Horner pub. Very popular as it saves going to Interlaken for plants for your window boxes.

Ali’s for dinner tonight.

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It’s time for a day out, so we’re off to Grindelwald. With the limited train timetable at the moment it takes ages to get there, but it’s a lovely day, so who cares? It’s a pretty village once you get away from the commercial centre.

Just as Wengen is dominated by the Jungfrau, Grindelwald lives in the shadow of the Eiger.

Grindelwald is known as the glacier village. It has 2 glaciers that used to come almost to the village. Nowadays they’ve receded back up the mountains. This is the lower glacier.

This one used to come so close to the village that people dug holes in it to store their milk. A nice day out.

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We’re off to see how the tadpoles are doing at Stechelberg. They haven’t changed much since last week, but the wild flowers in the nature reserve are beautiful.

It’s a lovely day – perhaps a little too warm for my run back to Lauterbrunnen. Note – Team GB top for VE day.

Seen along the path.

A good run, but I was glad to get to the Horner pub at the end of the path.

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Emily cooked last night, a delicious meal of chicken breasts wrapped in bacon and stuffed with mozzarella, garlic potato wedges and roast asparagus.

Yum!

We awoke this morning to a glorious day, so we had an early lunch and headed down to Wilderswil. From here we can walk across the fields towards Bönigen.

The lake is stunning as always, but utterly deserted.

From Bönigen it’s an easy walk back to Interlaken for the train home.

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It’s cloudy and chilly, but it’s Wednesday, so I don my hi-viz gear and we head down to Lauterbrunnen. Here we go.

Animals aplenty down here now.

The Horner, along with every other pub in Switzerland, has been closed since March. Now the weather’s warming up a bit the enterprising folk who run the place have started selling takeaway beer, snacks and ice creams. Very tempting at the end of my run.

I somehow managed to resist. Emily is cooking tonight, so there’ll be no shortage of beer later.

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The Swiss love cash. Did you know that 70% of all transactions here are made in cash? We do see people using plastic from time to time, and of course there’s plenty of online shopping that requires people to use electronic payments, but, by and large, people prefer cash. The biggest banknote available is 1000 francs (£850, US$1000), and there are 50 million of these in circulation in Switzerland (population just 8 million) today.

Indeed, many businesses do not even accept credit cards. Try to use one in Rocks or the Tanne or the Crystal bar, and you’ll be sent scurrying off to the cashpoint. The popular Jungfrau hotel at Wengernalp costs hundreds of francs a night, and they don’t accept cards. You can’t even use them in the post office – it has to be cash. And that’s before we get to popular payment apps like Apple and Google Pay, which are almost unheard of here. I used Google Pay in Central Sport once, just to see whether it would work. It did, but I bet it’s the only such transaction they’ve ever had.

So why my fascination with cash today? Thumbing through my bank statement earlier this afternoon, I was amazed to find that I haven’t been to a cash machine since the 13th of March. With no bars, cafes or restaurants open, there’s simply no need for it any more. Every so often we buy eggs that come from the farm at Innerwengen with cash, but that’s about it. How times change.

In case you haven’t already guessed, it’s been raining all day, so we’re stuck indoors.