What is ‘planning’?

We continue our chaotic Helvetic ramble.  Yesterday, having no engagements until evening, we had a leisurely breakfast, then I suggested we go to Luzern for lunch.  Nice straightforward ride down there, and we did the obligatory walk across the Kapellbrücke, which this year is resplendent in pink, white and mauve begonias.

It then occurred to me that we could get the boat down to Vitznau and have lunch there, and so we boarded the paddle steamer Gallia.  It was too hot for me out in the sun, so we went into the café for a drink, and finished up spending a couple of hours there over a decent lunch.  Martyn had battered fillets of perch (enough to feed a battalion, with commensurate chip accompaniment).  I went for Nidwaldner Hacktäschtli with a mixed salad.  Both delicious, but I think large salads are off the agenda henceforth.  My new plumbing can’t deal with it without risk (narrowly avoided this time).

We ultimately stayed on the boat as far as Flüelen, and came home via Zürich, changing at Zug.  Two trams, a boat and four trains.  Par for the course.

Pam hosted an apéritif dînatoire for us and old friends Heidi and Chandroo.  I first met Chandroo in Bern fifty years ago, and we’ve been in touch off and on ever since.  At 86, he’s not without health issues, but frequently plays golf with his grandsons, and looks as fit as the proverbial butcher's dog.

Daily step count: 6309.

Today, again unplanned, we decided to go down to Interlaken.  Martyn fancied the Harderbahn funicular, but when we got there, it was clear from the length of the queue that we’d have at least an hour’s wait to get on.  We abandoned that, and had a decent lunch at The Möwi on the main drag, opposite the park where paragliders land.  All good fun.  Since we’re taking Pam out to supper tonight, we headed home after lunch, opting for the regional line to our nearest station, hence avoiding the heat and crush of the main station.  Each change was quick and easy, so I think it was a good decision.

Step count today so far: 6145.

Dinner with Pam at a restaurant where I used to entertain, the Frohegg.  Now under Portuguese ownership, and very welcoming: good portions, but a bit on the pricey side.  It started raining soon after we sat down outside, and continued until we got back to the flat.  Not like the previous night’s storms, so we were wet but not drenched.  The re-routing of our first tram didn’t help: when we realised what had happened, we’d a bit of a walk back through the roadworks to pick up the familiar tram back to our digs.

Final step count for the day: 9376.

Great company, weather a bit too hot.

Pam has been looking after us like royalty, and hosted us and two other old friends to dinner yesterday.  Lovely evening, superb meal.

We’ve been a little less ambitious with our itineraries this time, but are nevertheless beating my daily 3000 steps target every time, even on Friday when we spent a lot of time snoozing and sitting on the terrace.  On Saturday we took the boat from Biel towards Solothurn along the Aare.  Pleasant enough, but when we went out on the top deck in search of fresh air and shade, we got a bit pissed off with being told where we could stand or place chairs.  We therefore paid off at Grenchen, caught a bus into town, and took the train to Solothurn.  Handsome Baroque architecture, which we were a bit too hot and sticky to appreciate fully.  On the way back to the station we were in time to watch a heat of the dragon boat competition on the Aare: all good exuberant fun.  Though Switzerland is often accused of being austere and strait-laced, its zany episodes never cease to delight me.  I forget which year it was: probably around 1997, when the streets of Zürich were populated with brightly painted life-size plastic cows.

Step count: 8053.

Today we did another of our mad itineraries that are possible only thanks to the well-interconnected public transport system.  We took a tram, a train and a bus to the Bern airport at Belp-Moos, having arranged to meet an aviation YouTuber, Matthias Hänni, with whom I’ve conversed at intervals on line.  What a delightful fellow he is!  Friendly, knowledgable and with an interesting health story.  Having suffered from cystic fibrosis, he took part in a ten-year research programme, and is now evidently asymptomatic.  He recently published a piece he’d written for a learned journal on the subject, and when I tabled it for my German conversation group, we all found his story really inspiring.  Having now met him he seems in rude health.  Look up Matt’s Aviation Channel.

After a sandwich lunch, he drove us to Münsingen, where we joined a train over the old Lötschberg line to Brig, whence we’d planned to return via the new Lötschberg base tunnel.  On a whim, I suggested that we return via Lausanne, so we had a real orgy of scenery, along the glaciated Rhône valley and the lake shore.  After Lausanne the climb up through the vineyards is always beautiful.  After that, however, the weather took a turn for the worse, and although we got home dry, we’re having some pretty lively thundery showers this evening.  A relief, really, since we’ve been finding the hot sticky weather pretty tiring.

Step count: 5069.

On our travels again

As I write, we’re sitting in the shade on the terrace of a rented flat in Bern.  We travelled yesterday, flying from London City to Zürich.  That was the easy bit, well, more or less.  Our friend Richard gamely agreed to take us to Tonbridge station, where we sat in the sun until our off-peak train tickets came to life.  London Bridge to Canning Town on the incredibly noisy Jubilee line, then on to the airport on the Toytown railway.  This train was filthy, threadbare and shabby, but it got us there in bags of time.  As the flight was full, they put out a call for people willing to put their bags in the hold, in exchange for priority boarding, to which we gladly agreed.  Glad we did, since it was a long, long trek to baggage reclaim.  It then took us a full half hour to get through passport control - while the EU, EEA and Switzerland desks were practically empty.  Another Brexit benefit.  But at least we didn’t have to hang around at the baggage carousel.

We flew in one of BA’s excellent Embraers.  They aren’t exactly roomy, but I’d plenty of legroom, even with my little back pack under the seat.  The flight would have been OK had it not been for a couple of screaming sprogs - we get them every time - and a rather garrulous Sikh party who were getting well stuck into the free Heineken.  Travelling in cattle class, we were pleasantly surprised to get a packet of crisps and a glass of wine: our last British Airways trip, to the Algarve in Club Europe, included some catering, which was close to inedible. 

The Swiss end of the journey was pleasant and comfortable: our train ran non-stop from Zürich Hauptbahnhof to Bern, where we shopped for essentials at the station and then got the rather busy tram out to the flat.  The flat is adequate: a bedroom with a big double and an office with a reasonably comfortable sofa bed.  The living room is spacious but spartan: it has a dining table for eight, and an L-shaped sofa which is seriously uncomfortable.

It was lovely to see Pam again: we last saw her two years ago when we had lunch with her, Geoff, Lesley and Carlo: we were staying in Bellinzona at the time, so it was quite a day trip.  Geoff, alas, is no longer with us: though physically as fit as a butcher’s dog that day, he was clearly losing the place.  Very sad.  Just before he was due to go into residential care, his physical health took a turn for the worse, and he spent his last few days in hospital.  

Pam is coping well, and is travelling to Lisbon next week.  She had prepared a delicious supper for us, and I’m just sorry I wasn’t better company.  I was dog tired and very uncomfortable in the 30° heat, and later had trouble getting to sleep.  Our neighbours, perhaps used to our flat standing empty for periods, were making no effort to keep their voices down.  About 11:30 I banged on the wall, whereupon immediate silence.  That’s Berne for you.

Today we went into town to buy stuff for lunch, but came straight back to the flat for lunch and a rest.  As I write, Martyn has retired for a siesta, and I’ll be going back indoors when the sun comes round.  I too am content to treat today as a recovery day.  I have given myself a daily step count target of 3000, and have been achieving that without much difficulty.  Yesterday I did closer to 7000, so I guess I’m entitled to feel every so slightly cream-crackered.

We’ll maybe get a bit more ambitious tomorrow.  Pam recommends a visit to Solothurn, which I know only from passing through on the train on the way to Biel/Bienne.  I read that the river cruise from Biel to Solothurn is very pretty, so we’ll maybe do that.  More helveticana anon.

The diminishing project list

We have finally got round to a job we’ve been meaning to have done for some years.  The door from the dining room to the kitchen matched the double doors between the sitting and dining rooms.  Each had 18 panes of very 1960s Flemish tulip pattern glass, hence were a brute to paint and keep clean.  Well, the double doors came off years ago: we only ever closed them when Martyn was still working, when I turned off the heating in the bigger room during the day.  We ultimately gave them to the builders who converted the study.  The door from the kitchen to the hall was of the fake panel variety that predominate in the house, and kept the hall rather dark.  Both doors have now been replaced with matching doors, each with a single large glazed panel, installed well at very reasonable cost by our local chippy.  The old doors were too big to go in the car, so I put them on Freecycle and someone took them away, saving us the £60-odd had we got the council to take them.

We next move to the decorating agenda.  Our decorating days are in the past, so we sent a list off to an even more local painter.  He has seen to the little remaining outside woodwork, and will next do the kitchen and cloakroom.  He was somewhat frustrated today when the wind got up and scattered dust and silver birch seed all over the newly painted garage door.  He has pushed off to his timeshare in Gran Canaria: I get to tackle the door tomorrow with a cloth and soapy water - and limited optimism.

I’d mentioned that we’ve started on the tomatoes.  Yesterday I harvested blueberries and cultivated/wild strawberries.  Most of the latter were nibbled away in no time: the blueberries are now in muffins, and, like the project list, rapidly dismissing in number.

Here comes the sun

There’s nothing quite like a cancer diagnosis to concentrate the mind on both the short and medium terms.  We have taken a cruise to the Fjords, and it was a delight - something I’ve wanted to do for years.  Who knows how long one has left, after all?  Much as we love our friends and family, and commit to various charities, we’re rather inclined to get the good of our savings for ourselves - and the broader environment - while we’re alive.  Par conséquent, we have turned in both diesel cars for electric ones, and had a big solar array installed on the roof.

We got the little Fiat in April, and love its lively character.  It has five doors, but is pretty tight in the back.  We’ve therefore turned in the Ateca, an excellent car, and a super second-hand buy for someone.  But once you’ve driven an electric car, it seems pretty pedestrian.  So it’s back to Renault after 27 years.  The Scenic is fractionally bigger than the Ateca, so will only just fit in the garage.  The Fiat, registered GK, is a proper little go-kart.  The Scenic is also lively and agile, if clearly bigger and a tad heavier, but nicely finished, and with lots of nice bells and whistles, like a glass roof that can be dimmed without a cloth blind.  I’m slowly coming to grips with all the fancy tricks, and am glad to confirm that both meet my grandfather’s criterion for a car: it has four wheels and it goes.

We have had a sociable week so far: Sandra was here on Sunday for lunch: bruschette with the first crop of our tomatoes, a chicken Caesar salad and a fruit salad.  I hosted the German conversation group on Tuesday morning, and I think it went well.  Later in the day we had friends round for tea and Martyn’s delicious scones.  

The garden is doing well.  The spuds are all out now, and we’ve planted out all the tomato seedlings.  We’ve started saving seeds from annuals with a view to flogging them at a pound a pinch when we host a Macmillan coffee morning next month.

All go hereabouts

For a few days at least.  We decided a while back to sign up for the bulk buying scheme for solar panels.  So Tuesday of last week we had scaffolders on the premises, getting the place ready for installation two days later.  I got much practice in making coffee for the workmen.

As one can imagine, the process was pretty noisy: impact wrenches for the dozens of scaffolding brackets,  hammer drills for making the necessary holes in the house and angle grinders for cutting the mounting rails to size.  By the end of the installation day (panels fitted by one roofer, to my astonishment, while the sparky saw to the inverter etc), the fifteen panels were pumping out more than 6kW.  The inverter, battery etc fit very neatly in the garage, and are slim enough that we don’t need to part with the ‘spare’ freezer.  The inverter has a display that tells you what’s happening - it’s better than the telly!

The end result is pretty inoffensive: we have fifteen panels rather than the planned sixteen - but at least that took a fraction off the final bill.

Oddly enough, the same company installed solar panels a few days earlier on our neighbour’s house, and she’s as pleased as we are. For some reason, though the houses are very similar, her installation comprises five fewer panels.  Curious.

The scaffolding came down on Tuesday of this week, so it was more crashing and banging, a positive rain of scaffolding brackets landing with surprising accuracy in big plastic buckets on the terrace.  No damage to plant life, though there are a couple of patches on the grass where they’d laid planks to anchor the scaffolding braces.  Mind you, as I took the chaps their coffee, I issued the threat ‘damage my tomatoes and I kill you!’.  Glad to report that both the tomatoes and the scaffolders survived.  Cheerful souls: they were chatting and guffawing all the time they were here.  In fact, all six workmen were friendly and polite, and appreciative of coffees and cold drinks.

The tomatoes, indeed, are starting to ripen, and since many of the plants are from cuttings, we ought to have a decent succession of cropping.  We have also started harvesting potatoes from the raised bed at the kitchen door - the alexandras I grew from a supermarket bag of spuds were rather sparse croppers, but the good old charlottes are producing like mad - and as delicious as ever.  It’s the first time we’ve grown them in the raised bed rather than in canvas bags, and the results are good.  We’ve also started harvesting apples, and appear to have a good crop there too.

Elsewhere in the garden it’s the usual mix of dead-heading, grass cutting and weeding, and the garden waste bin is usually chocka each fortnight.  Today I’ve trimmed a rather vigorous golden lonicera, and stopped the little rosemary plants to encourage them to bush.  We’re hoping they will replace our devastated box hedge.  Considering how terrible the soil is, I’m impressed by how well they’re doing.  But then, rosemary grows pretty well in the dry, arid garrigue.

Next job is to establish how much we earn for the juice we export.  Enquiry made of EDF: I don’t expect to get rich, given that their main shareholder has the Olympics to pay for.

Some reassurance

The UK electorate, despite voting around the same number for Labour as in the 2019 collapse, has returned a Labour government, largely because of its appetite to thrash the tories for their dreadful record.  Tactical voting dislodged a lot of tories: ours baled out ahead of the election, and the Lib Dems took the seat (with our modest tactical help).  Much has to do with the vote for the so-called reform UK party, which a former Tory PM characterised as closet fascists, fruitcakes and loonies.  Said party garnered over four million votes, which suggests that the UK is tending somewhat towards the populist trend in the neighbouring Continent.  Still, it looks like the sophisticated French electorate, having put a first round across the bows of Le Pen’s lot, has prevailed in the second round.  Remains to be seen how the new Parliament can be made to work.  Both in France and at home.  Though somewhat reassured, I remain glad I’m old.