Sam's holiday - summer 2007

Sat 28 July 2007

Arrived from Milano at Brig promptly in time for the bus to Saas Balen (this is Switzerland, dear reader, remember!) and found the house party gearing itself up for dinner at 7pm.

The church clock chimed faithfully every 15 minutes, but not through the night - although the double glazing was extremely efficient - good job because it was jolly cold at night!

Fellow house-mates when I arrived included Birgit's father and delightful step-mum, Trudi; Robert, Liz, Hannah and little George; Gavin's sister Gillian, her husband Mark, and their daughters Lauren and Holly; Leanne (who is a cousin), her husband Greg and their toddler Grace; Uncle Bill and Auntie Pauline; Jürgen and Petra, and their daughter (a pretty girl whose name I keep forgetting because I only ever saw her at meals), and her boyfried Christian of the long hair - and the dogs: Paddington, Gizmo and a Yorkie.

Arrivals during the time I was there included Paul Found (an OU friend) and his wife Jacqui, and their two boys Luke and Alex; Fritz, Monika and their daughters Sabrina and Celine; and Holgerr, Nadia and their children Kim and Justin.

Bruno, Birgit's father did most of the cooking but at times others stepped in - such as Jürgen and Petra who made tiny pasta; and Nadia who cooked Russian!

Bread was baked every night - two, and sometimes three loaves so hungry the mountain air made us ;-)

Birgit was the expert, but Gavin's was also extremely good! (Sorry Gav!)

The evening stroll with the dogs was a great way to walk off dinner and to really tire us out before bed.

The waterfall comes down off a glacier and the bad news is that all the glaciers are melting rapidly, which means the villages could end up with no water and will die.

The storehouses are built on concrete 'mushrooms' so that mice cannot get inside!

This is the old chapel - the round one. The graves are only kept for 25 years, unless purchased, and then they are re-used. The white ones are babies.

The inside of the chapel is incredibily ornate.

Sun 29 July 2007

My first mountain cable car! Being claustrophobic and suffering from vertigo I should be the last person to go up a mountain in a cable car - but I LOVED it! Nadia, on the other hand, suffers from motion sickness and was not a happy bunny. Sean (Birgit and Gavin's son) on the other hand, is an adrenalin junkie and loves coming down the mountain on extremely dodgy looking scooters! Nadia's little son Justin takes everything in his stride.

Holgerr, Birgit, Kim and I on our way up (Birgit and I had trouble popping our ears!)

Holgerr, Amanda (Birgit and Gavin's daughter), Greg and I went up to the second station, where it was verrrrrry cold!

All the brave (or lunatic) people came down on the crazy scooters, while Leanne, Nadia and I brought the children down in the cable cars, but not before enjoying hot chocolate and chips at the mountain cafe.

Mon 30 July 2007

Took the laundry into Saas Grund and got a few groceries and hung out at the house waiting for the Found family to arrive. Paul is a fellow OU student who I met on a day tutorial on Medea in Tunbridge Wells, and whose OU career has followed Birgit's (or was it the other way around?) Everyone else went into Visp, a town between Brig and Saas Balen, or back up the mountain to come back down on the scooters.

Tue 31 July 2007

Went to Saas Fee to find and feed the marmots. Once we had taken the cable car up, Nadia and I (not being the mountain climbing types), sat at the foot of the hill patiently waiting for the others and were the only ones rewarded with a sighting - apart from Gavin who saw three that others had encouraged out of their burrows. Very cute!

We missed the bus back to Saas Balen so got one to Saas Grund, bought some beer and jumped on the next bus back.

Wed 1 August 2007

OU results are out - both Paul and Birgit passed their exams and consequently their course - huge congratulations to both of them! You can see them here trying to get a signal so that they can log into the OU's website.

Felt pretty rough so stayed home while the others went to the celebrations for Switzerland's 716th birthday in Saas Grund, but when everyone was back we settled down for a bit of sunbathing (on my last day) and drinks were served by Holly.

Paddington and Gav entertained!

A couple of the madder moments!

After dinner I headed up to the village square and was corned by our neighbouring landlady who plied me (and her tenants) with drink!

As well as free wine, there was singing from the church choir, some yodelling and a penny whistle band - at least that's what I think it was. And then when it got really dark there was a huge bonfire and fireworks, dancing and more drinking.

Thu 2 August 2007

Time to leave. Birgit woke with a cold but still volunteered to take me to Brig station as Holgerr was a bit worse the wear (apparently!) and we made it by the skin of our teeth!

Almost had a disaster at the left-luggage in Milan when I had to unpack my big case (3 kg over the allowed 20 kg) and pack it into my yellow back-pack, not realising that in my yb-p were my sun glasses and my umbrella/parasol ;-(

I had an excellent pizza lunch at the Pizzeria Spontini in Milan, and then to my horror - when I went to collect my luggage I found that I had lost my padlock keys. Grrr! Happily, someone had handed them in - along with my house-key which I hadn't even noticed was missing!

Got my flight and was home by 20.33 having had the most wonderful holiday ever - thanks to everyone at the Hotel Carlton Villa Moritz; the Bartolinis; Gavin and Birgit, Sean and Amanda, and their wonderful houseguests!