In the crowd

The weather at Lago Maggiore is still dry and warm for the time of year. Eight degrees in Cannobio today, with a strange, pearly mist across the lake. 

A little face in the crowd.

Brissago, January 2012

Sundowner

The sun falls below the skyline.

Brissago in winter.

Three colours

Seventeen degrees at 8am, although the raging wind leaves us feeling more like seven. After a weekend of stormy weather, there is snow on the highest of 'our' Swiss Alps...

Red, yellow and blue.

Brissago marina, September 2011.

Quote of the week No. 49

"Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."

                                                                                                   -- Nathaniel Hawthorn


Pic: Val d'Err, Grigioni

Quote of the week No. 47

Beside the footpath, Savognin.

"I think it annoys God if you walk by the color purple in a field and don't notice." 

- Alice Walker, The Colour Purple.

Window

Parc Ela, Grigioni.

What I did on my holidays No.7

Watched the mountainside melt away in a sudden storm, leaving only a rippling, jagged edge of Norway spruce visible amid the roiling fog. 

What I did on my holidays No.6

Marvelled once more at the brilliance of the person who saw that Savognin's enormous car park was crammed to bursting in the ski season but became a deserted wasteland in the summer, and suggested filling it with meltwater from the River Surses, adding a couple of kid-sized rafts, three pedaloes, some non-endangered wildlife, four barbecues, a kiosk, a playground and a pile of sand.

Must have been a mother.

What I did on my holidays No.5

Discovered exactly how wonderful it is to spend a few days alone with my daughter, including allowing her to instruct me in her favourite occupation of collecting wildflowers and arranging them. 

Happy birthday, B-B. What a fascinating little person you've become in only 5 years.

What I did on my holidays No.4

Renewed my acquaintance with Grigioni's heart-expanding sky, breathed its clean air and relished the fresh produce of its wide, steep landscape.

What I did on my holidays No.3

Introduced my daughter to things cold, wet and slimy...

... in the form of a juvenile Alpine salamander an Alpine newt (see comments).

No room for squeamish girlies in Carmine Superiore.

What I did on my holidays No.2

Raided the cellar for a bottle of crémant de Bourgogne, and settled myself on the terrace to enjoy the evening light show over Piz Toissa (2657m).

What I did on my holidays No.1

Six hours hiking at between 1200m and 2000m in and around Val d'Err, Grigioni, with local pharmacist and herbalist Astrid Thurner, learning about hundreds of species of Alpine plants: the culinary, the medicinal, the terribly rare and the breathtakingly beautiful. 

Thanks to Ruth for really making my day by translating into English from the Swiss-German when my Latin binomials deserted me, and for joining me in spontaneous, delighted laughter at the sheer exuberance of Nature at her creative best.

Sasso Carmine

Carmine Superiore from the south,
with Lago Maggiore and the Swiss Alps.

Winter, 2011.

No. 88

Another bright and clear day, but the breeze is a biter. A day to stay warm improving the henhouse and generally cleaning up outdoors.

No. 88 Via Leoncavallo, Brissago

Malign imp

Minus two at 8am and snowing prettily but fairly solidly. Wondering whether, at going home time, Mama will be there to get them either going or home... 

 

The guardian of the door, Madonna del Ponte, Brissago.

This cherub is so remarkably hefty, so remarkably adult, I can't help feeling the mason had someone in mind.

Al teatro dell'Oratorio - La Luna e il Topolino

Bright sunshine. Mean wind. White horses.

Yesterday, Mama and the Sprogs made good use of their Immaculate Conception holiday, not to go Christmas shopping like many, but to pay a visit to the Teatro dell'Oratorio attached to the church of San Giovanni Bosco in Minusio, Locarno. Here, we were treated to La Luna e il Topolino (The Mouse and the Moon), presented by the compagnia i Tiriteri, all the way from Florence, part of the 'Mini Spettacoli' series. 

A hit from the outset. First of all there was the theatre. With tippy-up seats. (If any one of my friends from the acting profession can tell me if they have a specific name, I'd be grateful.) Yes. Tippy-up seats. With tippy-up seats you can bounce - boing, boing, boing. You can crash - eeeek, thud, eeeek, thud, eeeek, thud. And you can squirm underneath to visit your friends in the row in front, possibly as a hungry crocodile - squiggle, scomp, squiggle, scomp. 

Then, of course, there was the darkness as the lights went down, and my strapping 6-year-old not-scared-of-anything boy can pretend terror and jump into his Mama's arms for a good, long, warm, Jo Malone-scented cuddle. 

Then came the story - a tale of a mouse's quest for a taste of the cheesy moon. Perfectly pitched for 3-7-year-olds. Bright colours, lots of funny faces, pretend stupidity, repetition, suspense and fun music that we could all clap and sing along to (listen on YouTube by clicking here).

"That man's mad," commented AJ between screams of laughter. "I want that mouse," added B (4) when she could catch her breath from bouncing with glee and shouting "formaggio!". They were riveted. Their cheeks shone with pleasure. They learned the chorus of the song in the click of a finger (would that homework were so easy), and they followed every word of the Italian.

And guess what? So did Mama! 

Madonna in need of TLC

I'm without my thermometer, but given that the chickens' water is frozen for the first time this winter, I'd hazard a guess that today is the coldest yet. Morning overcast, late afternoon snowing.

Madonna and Child, Strada Cantonale, Brissago

I wonder what she's pointing at - not dropped sweet wrappers, I'll be bound!

The weather in my wallet

Today has started bright and sunny, in contrast to the last few days of torrential rain. 

Rainy weather does have its compensations, however. Yesterday, as the family convoy chugged northwards to Graubunden for Mama's half-term one-day brocki tour, the temperature at 8am was not four degrees but fourteen. Mind you, beyond San Bernardino 'twas all freezing rain, piles of old snow and mean little winds, and in the end I didn't have the heart to shell out CHF4,600 for the restored 18th-century bookcase I really wanted...You need sunshine for dream purchases of that order.

Swiss sunrise

Morning view from Valmara Dogana, the gateway to Ticino and the Alps beyond.