Business & Pleasure

Business brought me to Europe; pleasure led to arrive on a Friday rather than a Sunday, in Zurich rather than Stuttgart, and to take a succession of (very punctual!) trains to the village of Lauterbrunnen, in which I arrived around 22:30 to find the valley moonlit and snowbound.

The next morning, I rode a cable car up to Grutschalp; our cable car was met by a tiny two-carriage train, and a gigantic luggage tray was lifted by robotic forklift from beneath the cable car on onto a kind of trailer on the train. After a minute or two, we moved off, gliding almost silently in the direction of the village of Murren; a short run, but one of the most beautiful train journeys that I have ever taken. The track traversed a very steep slope, about 2,000ft above the valley floor; all about us stood a pine forest, with snow thick on the boughs. Between the trees, I caught glimpses of an epic scene to the east - the great trio of the Eiger, Monsch, and Jungfrau, all over 13,000ft in height, the old green ice of the gravity-defying glaciers on their northward faces just visible beneath thick blankets of fresh snow; on their lower slopes, great pine forests grow on improbably steep slopes and at the very lip of tremendous cliffs; here and there, mysteriously treeless ground reveals the violence done by the avalanches from winters past.

Skiers rise past the infamous Eiger Nordwand

I last saw Murren on a misty day in late May; this time, I arrived in bright sunshine to find the narrow streets covered not, as I remembered, with wet tarmac, but with snow. Murren is a car-free village (except for a single 4 wheel drive taxi), and people with things to carry (such as luggage or small children) tow small wooden sleighs behind them (just like the ones in Victorian Christmas cards). Although there appear to have been one or two unfortunate lapses of planning in the ‘60s or ‘70s, much of the village is postcard-pretty. A short stroll took me to a cable car, which whisked me to a height of 2600M or so - which is where the trouble began!

The rest of Saturday, I remember as a blur of majestic, awe-inspiring landscapes, skies of a blue that verged on Indigo - and a regular series of spectacular wipeouts, in which practically every piece of equipment became liberated at one time or another. At one point, in fact, I was under the impression that a particularly violent fall had sundered the bones of one of my favourite legs; on another occasion, after a fumbled turn at the edge of a steep and unguarded drop, I departed the mountain altogether, my descent only arrested by the pliant but sturdy branches of a serendipitously placed bush. After 8 hours or so of such performances, it was a very sorry-looking figure indeed who steered gingerly past a piste-basher beginning its night shift, removed his skies, and trudged slowly, painfully, back to his lodgings.

To be continued...

High Times

Once more, a retrospective post, but this time, something in the nature of a prequel, as will be revealed in the coming weeks...

Some years ago, business took me to a small town in the Schwarzwald - a place with a real fairy-tale feel. I still remember coming over a rise and seeing the extent of the forest of the first time - dark pine to the horizon. Within the forest itself, I saw picture-perfect wooden farmhouses and churches; and late one afternoon, I watched from beside the world's largest cuckoo clock (!) as a doe and her fawn stepped cautiously in to a meadow at the edge of the trees; the fawn was a ringer for Bambia.

Meetings over, I drove south from the forest; I still remember the perfection of that late-spring afternoon, driving a very new BMW past vineyard after vineyard. Then, Lake Constance came in view, and the beauty was too much: time to pull over. In front of me lay the vast blueness that the Germans call the Bodensee; beyond that, the air was clean and clear enough to reveal the great jagged snowy mass of the Alps - 50 kilometres away, in Switzerland.

The fairytale theme was continued at the lake shore, in the ancient island-town of Lindau. I reached the lake, and the old town of Lindau. The town is full of beautiful old German buildings, many of which have beautiful murals on their exterior walls. The most thematically relevant of these was a tower from which a painted Rapunzel had let down her long blonde locks, about 10 metres of them, to assist her waiting rescuer.

Unlike Rapunzel, I was not long delayed by the tower; reluctantly abandoning that beautiful BMW, I took a ferry from Friedrichshafen south across the lake, to Romanshorn in Switzerland (possibly the last country I had expected to reach by boat!). From there, a succession of trains brought me further south, first over gently rolling farmland; then gliding along the shores of the improbable, surreal powder-blue of Lake Thun; and finally, from Interlaken into the truly magical, numinous valley of Lauterbrunnen - better known to Tolkien fans as Rivendell. At this point, our fairy-tale theme is becoming an epic one: the valley sits below the trio of Jungfrau, Monch and the infamous Eiger.


The next day, I rode a cog-train up above Grindelwald. Abandoning rails for boots, a short hike up a ridge to the east of the infamous Eiger nordwand took me - standing in the very heart of Europe - beyond any sight or sign of man. Above me, cloud obscured the highest peaks; below, another layer filled the valley floors, and I stood alone in a world of naked rock and vast snowfields. Above me, glaciers sloped at improbably steep angles from unseen peaks; just beyond the relative safety of my ridge lay the scene pictured here - the debris from a vast avalanche.

Now, several years later and working in a very different role, I am expected at another meeting in the south of Germany - but first, I think I'll make a little detour...

Sailing

Three weeks to the winter solstice; dark outside, gale force winds, lashing rain and a thick overcast cover the closest thousand miles of ocean. Months since I've been afloat, and I'm missing the sea - time for a wander down memory lane.



Two autumns ago, I was standing on the fore-deck of a nicely fitted-out 40ft Beneteau, the great white masses of an unreefed main sail and genoa carrying us steadily west along the coast. To starboard, I caught a glimpse of a fin slicing through the water towards us; then, within seconds, they closed the gap, and we had an escort of dolphin outriders. Just a few feet separated me and the dolphins playing in our bow wave. They have no fear of us, or the great bulk of the yacht; and, in their playfulness, we see something that reminds us of ourselves.

Eventually, the dolphins appeared to decide that a fast yacht under full canvas was a little too slow for their taste, and upped their pace a little; within a few minutes, they were lost to sight, and we, once more, were alone on the ocean.

The Pounce

Last night, our cat was suspiciously happy to be spending time outdoors, for reasons which soon became apparent: he had found a new "playmate", and was having the time of his, that is to say, his victim's life.



The poor mouse had a rough time, I'm afraid: batted into the air, pounced on, bitten, and then released for a few seconds for the fun of re-capturing it. Occasionally, it landed close to cover and tried to run - but cats are fast.

We are living with a little furry psychopath.

Well-met by Moonlight

Returning to the city close to the witching hour on a misty, moonlit night, we crossed the Blackwater at Lismore Castle and stopped to take this picture. Just across the bridge, we just missed getting a really special shot: a fox was waiting by the roadside.




On seeing us, he drew back, then stopped. Parked 15 metres away, we rolled the window down and started shooting; alas, without effect. Our external flash and our longest lense were both in the boot, buried beneath weekend bags and walking gear. We sat in silence for several minutes: we watched the fox, and he watched us. Eventually, he slipped into the shadow of the forest beside the road, and we moved on.

Bloody Jack

...raided the Port of Cork last night, inflicting terrible things on the inhabitants of that unhappy place, the worst of which crimes involved not his sword, but a microphone & attached karaoke machine.

Quality of Mercy

Opened the door to feed the cat this morning, and in he bounded, as usual. Very playful and wide-awake, swatting his favourite toy mouse around the floor. Except that his toy mouse was purply and fluffy and several feet away, and this one was brown, bedraggled, and limping.

Oh dear. Well, we did add him to the payroll for exactly this kind of work - except we'ld hoped for discreet executions, rather than extended torture sessions on the kitchen floor. I donned a pair kitchen gloves and grabbed mousy on his next escape attempt; for reasons I still can't fathom, I took him outside instead of snapping his poor little neck on the spot - and he slipped free from my glove-clumsy hands.

So, I'm minus one condemned prisoner, plus one confused and disgruntled cat. I suspect Mousy's reprieve will be short-lived, though - if he is still in our little garden, his days are probably numbered.