I forgot to post the photo below yesterday. I’ve been having problems with the blog software lately. Is it to do with the recent outage? I’ve no idea.

Philip specially took the photo. It’s me going up in the cable car yesterday morning with Yolanda who’s the group leader and Ritchie, the Oak Hall bus driver. Hanging underneath the cable car is the toboggan to be used coming back down the mountain on the toboggan track.

Today after breakfast I went with a group by gondola – a different gondola going in a different direction – to a higher mountain peak.

You can see the shadow of the gondola on the ground underneath

We went to Maschgenkamm which is 2020 metres high.

At the top of the mountain – me, being the tourist! That’s snow on the mountains behind.

Everybody else decided to go back down the mountain by gondola, but I wanted to walk it. So I did. On my own. I’d only paid for a one-way ticket, so my choice was easily made.

There’s different tracks and paths all over the mountains, and they’re (mostly) well signposted. Walkers and mountain bikers all strenuously pushing themselves, so there are people around – just no one I knew.

Every day I think to myself that I’ve taken more than enough photos – I don’t need any more!

And then I see the most spectacular scenes and promptly break my resolutions.

The alpine wildflowers are incredibly beautiful and diverse. Often, carpets of them. No wonder alpine meadow flowers are talked of in books like Heidi and Treasures of the Snow.

At this higher mountain height, the flowers were different.

Very vivid, colourful and bright. Carpets of them everywhere.

Daisies, forget-me-knots, anemones, bluebells and many others I don’t know.

Is there such a thing as too many flower photos?

I was usually tramping along to the sound of cowbells.

The bells are very resonant, ringing round the hills. Maybe that’s why the song says “The hills are alive with the sound of music”…

Sometimes I had to watch where I was placing my feet. Not because of dangerous heights, but because of cowpats!

And yet with all the cows in the fields, and the cowpats on the road… hardly any flies! Amazing. Not once did I need to flap them away. I was barely aware of them. When I was close to the cows, I could see them on the cows. But there’s not clouds of them. The flies seem happy to stay around the cows.

You can tell this is just a big surprise for me, as I keep harping on about flies!!

At times when I was walking along, all I could hear were cowbells, birdsong and the rushing, running waters of a nearby narrow stream. And me softly singing to myself.

A deep peace.

It took me three hours to get back to the chalet.

As for the “curds and whey”? This morning, Philip went with a group to watch – and hopefully participate in cheesemaking at the farm that’s very nearby – where they have the restaurant. They went to the farm, but they weren’t making cheese today. Just butter. All by hand. All the group could do was watch, not participate. Not even any tastings!

New mown hay in the cowshed.

We had a restful afternoon today. Mainly reading and talking to some of the group. Clouds started gathering and building up. The tops of the mountains disappeared behind them, till the clouds descended and filled up the valley between us and the mountains, and the mountains completely disappeared behind a thick grey mist. Rain with thunder and lightning, and different layers and varying gradients of grey clouds. The mountains seem like they’ve disappeared. Not even a vague outline or shadow. Disappeared completely. Hard to believe they were ever there. But they are! It’s a bit like that with God sometimes. And like the mountains, He’s still there too.