It’s Stechelberg again today. Watch out for the slow cat.
Obligatory check on the tadpoles as we pass the ponds.
I’ve never seen so much water in the Mürrenbach fall. Press play (may take a few seconds to start).
It’s all very chocolate-boxy today.
Ali’s for dinner tonight.
The world’s smallest oil tanker turned up this morning. He spent 15 minutes pumping oil up into our tank, then disappeared.
An hour later he was back with more oil – apparently our tank is much bigger than his tanker.
If you walk north-west from our house, you’ll eventually get to the hamlet of Wengwald. It’s tiny, but very picturesque.
And it has great views.
Wengwald does have its own railway halt, so it’s a good place to find inexpensive accommodation.
We made our way back up to the village, and stopped at the Co-op for ice cream.
If you need firewood here, there are a couple of guys in the village who will deliver logs to your house for a small charge. If you need really big logs however, it’s going to cost a bit more.
This afternoon we hopped on the train to go to Interlaken. It’s true to say that we take the rail service completely for granted, ignoring the notices that warn of any disruption. We just assume that as long as the train turns up, we’ll get to wherever we want to go. Not today. We boarded the Interlaken service at Lauterbrunnen as usual, and didn’t give it a second thought when the train stopped for rather longer than usual at Wilderswil. It turned out that the train terminated there owing to the construction of the new station at the airfield. By the time we realised what was going on, the replacement bus service was long gone. Ah well, back to Wengen it is then.
Emily cooked us a lovely dinner last night, and we had lots of fun with a game of yahtzee afterwards.
This morning it’s a nice day again, and we’re off towards Innerwengen. Dandelions and blossom.
The path into the forest has been blocked by fallen trees since the November storms, but following lots of clearance work we can now just about get through.
Waterfall at the end of the path.
We could continue up the mountain from the waterfall, but there’s still a lot of snow up there, so we retrace our steps. We’ve still not seen the ibex that live around here, but we keep looking.
And there they are. 3 adults emerging from the forest below us.
As soon as we got home it was time for me to put on my running shoes and head out again.
It’s been very dry for the past month or so, and this is becoming a problem for the farmers, as the grass in the meadows isn’t growing quickly enough to sustain livestock. Last night we had a thunderstorm, which should be a big help.
We watched the One World concert on YouTube, along with a sizeable proportion of the world’s population, apparently.
I really enjoyed it.
I was poking around in a cupboard today, and I found a mysterious looking case. Here’s what was inside.
It’s an old German telescope from the 1970s.
Emily is on her way as she’s cooking tonight.
Up above Wengen at about 1500 metres is a spot called Allmend. There’s a restaurant here, and a railway halt.
Of course the restaurant is closed, and the trains aren’t running, so the only way to get here is on foot.
It’s noticeably colder up here, with snow still on the ground in places. The flowers in the meadow are a few weeks behind the ones in the village.
We amble back through the forest. It’s a nice walk of about 8 kilometres.
We’ve now had 5 weeks of social distancing here in Switzerland, and it’s working. New cases of Covid-19 are well down, and the government have announced that some of the lockdown measures can be eased from a week on Monday. This means most of the kids can go back to school, and Val will be able to get her hair done. She’s already booked in.
Today we cleared all the garden furniture out from under the stairs and had a good look at it on the terrace.
There’s lots of nice stuff, so we should be okay this summer. Even warmer today – I had a very sweaty run this afternoon.
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