Flowers and more on a Bernese farm

Hello again

I promised a post about my friend's 80th birthday -- well, some photos that highlight the lovely setting and beautiful flowers at Staehli's Rustica in 3144 Gasel, Switzerland. For details, see http://www.rundumbern.ch/gaumen/gaumen.htm. It's an absolutely lovely setting well away from the noise and bustle of the city. Most importantly, the Staehlis are extremely friendly people and great cooks/hosts.
They keep bees, a very friendly, very lazy dog, Rico, ... ... chickens, goats, and provide for children out of doors (indoors, there's a playroom, as well, which doubles up as a bar and/or store-room for instruments when guests bring their own band -- I even saw a drum kit!).
Some wild sage not usable in the kitchen, but great for bumblebees and butterflies.
Here's chef preparing the fire: I didn't count the logs he tossed into his big self-built fireplace, but if you want to feed fifty people, your fire and griddle have to be generous.
Not a great photo, but it shows the ingenious counterweight to the heavy steel plate of the griddle -- a big, round rock Mr. Staehli found in the hillside above his farm.
Here he is prepping the griddle, a simple, rimmed steel plate about 1.20 x 1.20 m, a few minutes before he started to grill sausages made by a neighbouring farmer and steaks from neighbouring farm animals. They tasted fantastic. He had a good blaze going at that time.
We were very lucky with the weather. The gathering storm held off until we were well into our meal and safely indoors.
A very warm welcome arranged by the lady of the house, Mrs Staehli. She had her eyes and hands everywhere.
About an hour before we were ready to leave, the skies did open and it poured:A fair amount of water came rushing down at the far edge of the terrace. We were keeping fingers crossed the rain wouldn't bring another wheelbarrow-load of muck, like it did the night before.
Luckily, the indoor space is lovely and spacious and well-lit.Yes, the piano was in tune, and we had some exquisite music during the party.
My friend's very own florist brought a dozen of these lovely flower and fruit arrangements all the way from Basel. They looked gorgeous.
We were happy enough, especially as chef served up an amazing ice-torte he had made himself the previous night:He had at least five different types of ice-cream in there, and the outside was decorated with meringues, frozen raspberries, Kambly Bretzeli and other delicacies. He was generous in the pouring out of brandies and liqueurs, too, to help digest what was not exactly a light dessert. Yummy, though!

Summer moan

Hiya

Need to have a quick moan about the heat. It's been tropical these days. Anyone in their right mind would go flop on the lawns by the river (aka Marzili) and enjoy the occasional dip in 18°C waters (or the 24°C pool, but I heartily dislike swimming pools). I dropped everything yesterday evening and joined a mate from one of my favourite NGOs for a chinwag and a good, long swim. Very refreshing, invigorating. So much so that I was wide awake after just two hours sleep. Woke in time to watch and listen to a massive thunderstorm. Huge bolts of lightning came out of the black sky, crashing thunder following almost immediately. Quite scary, actually, but also exciting. And the rain that followed had that sweet, sweet deep summer smell -- of hot asphalt, grass, leaves being tossed about. Mind you, there was very little wind, which is odd for a storm like that.

Woke much too late, to a hot sun in a relentlessly blue sky. Not so relentless: it's quite overcast now, but still very hot and extremely humid. As I said: anyone in their right mind...

But I'm not, and I'm busy, so I better crack back to jobs in hand. Ciao!

PS: Would give an arm and a leg (metaphorically speaking, of course, to be sailing, swimming, walking up and down the Scottish West Coast right now!). Next summer, hopefully. Anyone else interested?

Postscript to last Thursday's rainstorm

My favourite newspaper, "Der Bund" (http://www.espace.ch/artikel_387753.html) had an article on Saturday (in German) concerning the effects of the massive rainstorm that darkened the sky so impressively last Thursday morning (see my blog entry of that day).

A cool website allows you to look at past weather events:
http://www.landi.ch/fra/0804_niederschlagsradar.asp (French)
http://www.landi.ch/deu/0804_niederschlagsradar.asp (German)
Just insert the date and times you wish to observe and see the clouds race (or not) across Switzerland.

It would appear that last Thursday's raincloud was a "super cloud" containing an estimated 100 million metric tons of water. Its density was so great that it had the same darkening effect as a total solar eclipse -- and that's exactly what it felt like. Scary. Dark. The birds fell silent. But not all that unusual, especially in summers with unsettled weather. We're certainly set for some more of this.

My heart goes out to all those who suffered the loss of loved ones -- three people in Huttwil, Switzerland on June 8; 3 people in England yesterday; victims elsewhere in Europe -- and damage to their homes. The rainstorm of last Thursday alone caused damages in excess of CHF 45 million. The images are impressive.

Here's hoping the summer may change and become a little more clement. Not sure it will -- the sycamore trees outside my office window are being torn about by massive gusts of wind as I type these words.

The summer holiday season is almost with us. Travel safely wherever you may go!

Weather report

Hiya again

This morning I got to work even later than usual because of a massive rain and thunderstorm. From my kitchen window I can see the north-eastern sky, which was lit up just above the horizon, with even a hint of blue in the distance. But it was so dark I had to turn the light on to see what I was doing as I was preparing my coffee -- at about 8:15 AM on this year's longest day!

It was a very muggy night, with a couple of downpours and thunder and lightning waking me at about 2 AM. The air was warm and heavy with impending rain.

For a clearer view of what might be developing, I went to my sitting-room window, which is almost at a right angle from the kitchen, and looked out towards south-south west. A low-hanging, light grey blanket of cloud was approaching very fast. I could see none of the hills and houses beyond the huge hospital complex (Inselspital) -- the sky was a uniform, dark grey. Gusts of wind were beginning to whip the crowns of the sycamore trees in my little street. A moth was being tossed about just below my window sill. It seemed to struggle desperately for shelter in the lee of the balcony next door. Somewhere from off to the north-east came a crashing noise, as of a window shutter being slammed shut. People were running for shelter, the kids in the playground opposite were screaming as the first huge raindrops hit them. For a minute it looked as though this was going to develop into a hail storm. But the massive drops caused nearly as much damage, bringing twigs and branches and seeds down everywhere.
It grew darker still. Now the wall of cloud and rain had even obscured the hospital -- it's about half a mile off as the crow flies. I could barely make out the huge green lettering on top of the fifteen-storey patient ward tower.
The deluge was impressive: massive gusts of wind whipped lashings of rain up my little street, spraying my windows -- they almost never get a drop of rain because I live on the top floor and the eaves protect them. I rushed to close my balcony door and the kitchen window.
What I saw there stopped me in my tracks: lashings of rain rushed down the roofs opposite. The amount of water was too great for the gutters to swallow so that a small stream came splashing down into the gardens below. In one of the houses opposite, one of the big flower pots outside a balcony railing on the second floor had gone crashing down, just missing the steps of the ground-floor flat leading into the garden. The people were at home -- at least they had their lights on -- but luckily none of them had ventured out just then.

Half an hour later I walked to my office, picking my way across debris, branches, twigs, seedpods that had amassed on the pavements and streets.

One of my office colleagues, who lives in one of the small villages beyond the suburbs, told me she had driven past several trees that came down across her road; and another colleague, who lives on a hilltop to the south of Berne, had to turn his car around because a fallen tree blocked his usual route.

I'm so glad to have the choice of when to start work (well, most times). So many people got soaked this morning!

As I type, at 2:45 PM, everything looks clear and lovely, with great white clouds hanging calmly in the sky, a slight breeze caressing the leafy trees, the sun lighting up the view, and temperatures down to a very pleasant temperature.

No pix today -- I was too busy watching and absorbing the sights. :)

Engelberg, Switzerland -- ForumAlpinum 07, Part Two

Welcome to Part Two of my series of posts about ForumAlpinum07.

On Saturday, April 21st, some of us went on an excursion along the valley/canyon of the Engelberger Aa.

In August 2005, after days and days of heavy rain, the rain, water from snowmelt and thusly softened hillsides combined to cause massive flooding and landslides. When the road and railbridge (see below) collapsed, Engelberg was in "lock-down" for ten days while the locals scrambled to build an emergency access road.
The viaduct is still only half-rebuilt. Our first stop on the bus tour down the valley was at the construction site. Impressive, don't you think?The stream (the Engelberger Aa, Aa = water) looking quite fierce on this very sunny day and after a dry period of about two weeks, with snow melt low due to the scarcity of snow higher up:
Huge boulders weighing several tons each have been sunk into the banks to the right and left. The engineers hope this will keep the riverbed stable enough during future flood events so that the structures above may be safe.
Two years ago, the Aa flooded vast tracts of farmland, causing millions of Swiss francs of damage. Further downstream, near Grafenort, the driftwood has still not been cleared -- people have been busy rebuilding the most necessary parts, like this barn that narrowly escaped destruction. Its further left-hand-side corner was torn away by a gentle tributary to the Aa that swelled into a torrent and found a new bed very close by. The goats on the meadow nearby are completely oblivious of the mayhem that was.If the goats are oblivious, the people here are resilient. Someone planted a tree. May it flourish!
Next post: the Manor House (part of Engelberg monastery) at Grafenort.