Musings

Hello again

At the end of a pretty intense day, just a few notes.

One, I've long meant to mention that I recently read Frank McCourt's "memoir", Angela's Ashes, about growing up in Ireland in the 1930s/1940s. Impressive read. At university I read James Joyce's "memoir", A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which McCourt's book seems to almost seamlessly pick up from. The similiarities in their catholic upbringing are striking. McCourt's poverty is even more extreme. I admire anyone who pulled through that kind of abject destitution.
I won't go into whether Angela's Ashes is a factual enough book -- let me just say that, if one really focuses on certains points in one's past and stops worrying about what might turn up, it's amazing what details will surface, right down to tones of voice, facial expressions, colours, physical sensations, smells, noises, etc. So I have no problem believing McCourt.

What else. Oh yes, bitching about the weather: Yesterday I received an announcement about European River Swimming Day on Sunday, July 15. Lovely idea: people everywhere will jump into their favourite rivers to demonstrate their love of a healthy environment. More at http://www.rivernet.org/bigjump/ However, as I thought when I read the announcement, our river here is much too dangerous these days, so the event has had to be cancelled. Maybe further downriver things will be better. I'm hoping to perhaps jump into a river in the Jura -- definitely taking my swimwear as hot weather has been forecast.

A year ago, this is where I was, at this very hour, 5:30-ish PM:
Absolutely no-one else will ever be allowed to use this photo [© R.A.E., by the way] because it's a far from attractive view of me from behind. It will serve very nicely, thank you, as a memory of how great it was to be walking towards that lovely, cool water of the top end of Lake Thun after a hot descent from the Jungfraujoch the same day.
Mind, I won't forget that excursion in a hurry, because of the great time we all had up on the ice and in the snow after getting up at the crack of dawn to catch the first train up. Worth it just for the gorgeous early morning drive up the Aare valley all the way to Interlaken Ost (I'll remember that for the rest of my life, too, but that's another story). And also because, a few minutes after the above photo was taken, I had to muster all my ancient rescuing skills when dealing with a drowning person: the friend I had spent the day with, an outdoors person if I've ever seen one, suddenly felt very faint out by a raft which, however, had not steps to climb up, was too far above the water and out of reach. He almost had to be dragged back to safety. The combination of massive differences in elevation, lack of sleep, lack of food and the great heat, followed by sudden cool water took a toll on a body that once was fighting fit but that day (dare I say it) rather overweight and under-fit at the time. Gave us rather a nasty fright. Not sure I've been forgiven for coaxing the man into the water in the first place. Ah well, such is life, I suppose. Need I say that I'm glad nothing more serious happened?

To finish this off for today, here's another sky picture -- just as a reminder of how lovely summer can be, even in Berne, even in July (by the way, I'm currently wearing scarf, long-sleeved shirt, vest, long trousers, socks, warm slippers, and still not feeling really warm. Temperature this morning, at about 9AM: about 10°C! Unheard-of for this time of the year. I woke several times last night, feeling like the tip of my nose was about to fall off with the cold. Honestly!

Nuff said, here comes the blue sky!