National Day

Last night we had a long video call with Gavin's brother who lives in Canada, to finalise our plans for when we see him and his family next month. It will be the first time to cousins have seen each other in seven years! We are looking forward to our trip and hope that Covid does not scupper our plans as it has a tendency to do so. 

Today is National Day in Switzerland. In the past it was the highlight of the summer holiday, there were always wonderful food stalls put on by all the local restaurants and hotels, usually a band playing, many market stalls, and then in the evening there was the fireworks display. The banning of the fireworks display is understandable, but in recent years this event has become a bit of a damp squib. Today the market stalls were not worth wandering around, they were full of old junk and I cannot imagine anyone buying anything from there. In extras you can see the Alpine horn players as they leave, not the easiest instrument to carry around!

It was a hot and sunny day so we started the morning with a hike above the village, up and down again and back into the village by lunch time. I saw so many butterflies, Fritillaries, Common Blues, Marble Whites, plenty of Meadow Browns, Ringlets, and Small Whites. We decided to have lunch on the terrace of a hotel where we both had the most delicious salads. We went home to wait for it to get cooler, and then much later at about 5pm we went for a cycle ride up the valley. It was still 26C at 5.45pm. Many farmers were busy harvesting today, and here the grasses have just been cut and were about to be baled up. The glacier in the distance has sadly shrunk so much in the 17 years that we have been coming here, like all the other glaciers in the Alps.