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Colin & Steve played in the street yesterday afternoon. Lovely atmosphere.

Afterwards we headed back to ours for dinner. Paul and Anne-Marie are over from France for a few days.

No chance for a lie-in this morning. The helicopter was dropping off concrete nearby and he parked at the bottom of our garden while he waited for the empty containers.

Colin is renting the flat downstairs for the winter, so this morning we moved all his stuff into the cellar. He went back to the U.K. this afternoon. We headed up the hill to Wengernalp. It’s a glorious day.

The walk back to the village takes a couple of hours. The path is well maintained and there are lots of benches.

Ice cream when we got home will keep us going until dinner time.

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Last night we barbecued the duck breasts that Colin brought from France. They weigh about a pound each so Emily and Ali came round to help us polish them off. Carving.

Emily prepared some lovely vegetables and we roasted some potatoes in the fat from the duck. A nice bottle of red rounded off the meal.

It’s a beautiful day today, and Colin and Steve are going to play a concert in the street this afternoon.

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Colin arrived last night, so we met Emily and went out for a curry. Delicious mixed starters.

Ali joined us for a few drinks in the Crystal after her shift finished, so we had a jolly old night.

Colin smuggled a couple of huge duck breasts over the border from France, so tonight we’ll cook our own feast.

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It’s grey and gloomy today, the cloud base is just above our house.

But a bad day for hiking is a good day for all those other jobs, like cleaning and laundry. Val even found time to tidy the garden. Tonight a bunch of us are off out for a curry.

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It’s a nice day, but the weather’s due to turn, so we pop up to Männlichen for a stroll down the toboggan track.

The cows are gone from the high pastures, leaving only walkers and marmots. Still plenty of colour in the heathers as they compete for attention from the insects.

The cows are down at about 1700 metres where it’s not so cold at night.

The reservoir. In about 3 months time the water will be turned into artificial snow if we need it.

We’re almost at Holenstein, the mountains are beginning to disappear. We catch the gondola back up to Männlichen and descend to Wengen for a late afternoon beer.

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We had a leisurely breakfast this morning, and headed back towards Wengen. Big crowds at Interlaken, everyone trying to get to the Jungfraujoch on a sunny day.

I had some fun this afternoon trying to take photos through the binoculars. It’s really difficult. This shot of Grütschalp was the best of a bad bunch.

I’ll get better at it.

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We hardly ever eat in the hotels where we stay – the best hotel doesn’t mean the best restaurant in town. In this case though, it does.

I wouldn’t normally post a picture of a meal, but the steak and deconstructed lobster that we had was one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten.

This morning we’re off up the mountain. A cable car and a series of gondolas takes us up to the Alpen Tower, high above Meiringen.

We hike up to the highest point. It’s absolutely freezing.

Stunning views down to distant Lake Brienz.

On the way back down we stop at a couple of hamlets alongside the lift. Thankfully it begins to get warmer.

Views back to the valley from our lunch stop at Rueti.

We returned to Meiringen on the cable car and went back to the hotel to jettison most of our extra layers. Opposite the hotel is the Sherlock Holmes museum. Let’s take a look.

The interior of 221B Baker Street, faithfully reproduced after years of research.

It’s a lovely little museum, and you get an audio guide to help you get around. A statue outside.

One of the problems with this is that it’s all covered in such meticulous detail that you forget that it’s fiction. Sherlock Holmes is an honorary citizen of Meiringen, but his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle isn’t. Go figure.