Category: Life

Walking the Swiss bisses

We were constantly surprised by the next unexpected vista

Every summer we go away somewhere different for a week – Donna and me along with two daughters, their husbands, and our four grandchildren. This year we stayed in a ski chalet in Haute-Nendaz in western Switzerland, just over the border from France.

Although prices are high in Switzerland, there are many wonderful compensations in terms of mountain scenery, clean streets and clean air, friendly people, and the walks. I had expected walks with big and tiring changes in elevation – and we certainly did our share of walks of that sort. But the bisses: what a wonderful experience!

Looking at a bisse
Looking at a bisse

I must admit, I had no idea what a bisse was when we drove from Geneva Airport, around Lake Geneva, and then south-west to Nendaz. I hadn’t even come across the word ‘bisse’. But we soon found a leaflet of local walks and discovered that several of them followed the local bisses. A bisse is an irrigation stream running gently downhill, almost following the contours of the mountains and hills. As a result the bisse paths are gentle and easy walking for the most part, and they wind around the slopes through woodland and meadow. The views of the mountains and valleys are spectacular; following the path through woodland and then coming out into the open again we were constantly surprised by the next unexpected vista.

The view from a bisse
The view from a bisse

All the way, the path is accompanied by the sparkling water hurrying  down its channel, sometimes shallow, sometimes deep, and sometimes disappearing into a large pipe and reappearing beside the path again a little further on. Some of these paths follow one bisse gently uphill and then pick up a different one for the return, making a lovely, circular tour through the countryside.

Further reading

A bowl of cacti

She gave me a beautifully arranged little bowl with a variety of colourful, healthy-looking cacti in it.

CactiLast time I saw my sister, Ruth, she surprised me with an early birthday present. She gave me a beautifully arranged little bowl with a variety of colourful, healthy-looking cacti in it. Lovely!

So – did she grow them painstakingly from seed? Or did she buy them fully grown and re-pot them in this beautiful arrangement? Or perhaps she bought the little earthenware pot already planted up.

To see what she did, scroll down for a larger picture…

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Down some more…

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Here is the answer…
Cacti
She crocheted them, pot and all! How clever! How unexpected! And what fun. Thank you, Ruth!

The Fly Line

A private railway built to transport coal from the local pits…

Visiting my daughter and her family in York recently, we walked near Aberford just outside Leeds. This was my son-in-law’s suggestion, he does a lot of walking and is interested in wildlife, footpaths, history, good walks and a whole lot more. Parking in Aberford, we followed a bridleway west along the bed of an old railway line.

Railway

The Fly Line was a private railway built to transport coal from the local pits to the nearby Leeds and Selby Railway Apart from the removal of the tracks, the old line is remarkably well preserved. We walked under the bridge shown in the photo above, and through a rather muddy tunnel. The Ordnance Survey One Inch map for 1885-1900 shows the line (marked as a mineral line) and the Six Inch map for 1842 to 1952 shows it in more detail, as well as the the coal pits along the line. But it fell out of use in 1924 and is not seen on later maps. The line passes through delightful woodland and I’d recommend it as an easy and enjoyable walk for anyone.

The railway was built by the Gascoigne family who also owned the coal mines and lived in the nearby Parlington Hall. (There’s more detail about Parlington Hall and its railway on a dedicated website.) Most of the old house has been demolished, and although we didn’t visit the remaining wing, we did get a distant view of the triumphal arch, built to commemorate the American victory in the War of Independence.

TreeAlong the way we came across a great example of two (or possibly three) trees, cross grafted as saplings. Someone had clearly tied them together tightly, possibly after removing a slice from each and lining up the cambial zones carefully so that they would heal and grow as one. That must have been decades ago and the result today is most striking.

On the whole, a fine day out and a great way to break our journey back to Cirencester from York.

The old florist’s shop

The shop had a wonderful cellar, always full of mysterious packages of garden chemicals and other shop stock…

Part 1 of a series – John Jefferies & Son

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The centre of Cirencester has buildings of a variety of ages, from the Roman City Wall (a small part of which is visible in the Abbey Park) to Victorian and more recent constructions. Walking in the town with my camera today, I took some shots of a 19th century development.

CastleStreet01-mod01

These are the upper floors of a three-storey terrace, a planned development that replaced older properties. The section at the right hand end was used as a florist’s shop for many decades (now Vodafone). I remember it as a child because my father was one of four brothers who owned and ran the shop as part of a larger business with several plant nurseries in the country areas around the town.

The shop had a wonderful cellar, always full of mysterious packages of garden chemicals and other shop stock, and before Christmas there were sometimes hyacinth bulbs being forced for early flowering. There was a marvellous fusty, moist, florist’s aroma in the cellar, but the most exciting thing was the knowledge that the cellar was bigger than the shop floor above. Castle Street was widened when the new development was built, but the cellars of the old buildings were retained. There are stone pillars in the cellar that support the heavy masonry above.

Here’s another view of the same shop from a different angle, the photo was taken by my father in the 1960s. I love the fact that this image includes the shop window displays as these always fascinated me as a young child. I also remember that my grandfather’s office window was above the main door on the corner, and the landscape design office was on the top floor with the small bay window.

JefferiesShop

And finally, for comparison, here’s another view of the same shop today.

VodafoneShop

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Update on the house

Until those doors are in place neither the kitchen/diner extension nor the bedroom extension can receive their floor screeds…

Our builders have done much of the work that remains, but we’re waiting for our bi-fold and sliding doors to be fitted by the supplier. Until those doors are in place neither the kitchen/diner extension nor the bedroom extension can receive their floor screeds, and those will need a long time to dry out before floor tiles and wood flooring can be laid. For the same reason our new kitchen can’t be fitted – it’s stacked in boxes in the lounge.

We feel badly let down – not by our builder, Jack, and his team – they have done a grand job, but by the door suppliers. Those doors were ordered before Christmas! And the knock-on effects don’t stop there; because the lounge is full of kitchen units, we can’t unload the bulk of our furniture from the steel container parked on our drive. And the boxes containing summer clothes, paperwork, crockery, cutlery etc are blocked in by the furniture we can’t yet unload. Argghhh!

Ah well, it’s summer time. Now, where did I put those summer clothes? Oh… Wait a mo…

Meanwhile, here’s a view of the kitchen/dining extension. You’re looking in through bi-folds that are not yet there, and the opening on the right is also filled with bi-folds that are not yet there. Ho-hum.

BuildingKitchenDiner