It hasn’t been one of those glorious sunshiney summers here in N.E. Switzerland. We’ve had good days, bad days and downright disgusting days. Our lake is very high, but thankfully we escaped the worst of the flooding other parts of Europe had.
I’ll do a scenic photo post another time, but for today, here’s a selection of daily life pics taken over the past couple of months:
I had a writerly lunch with Danielle Zinn a couple of weeks ago. She was passing through on her way back home to Germany, and we had a good catch-up. Last time we met was in London, and since then we’ve both had a couple more books published – so we exchanged our latest offerings:
Meanwhile, the roadwork/building site situation here is still ongoing, though (thankfully) the noise levels are more bearable now. Most days. The dreaded Saugbagger hasn’t been sighted for a while, and the collections of old pipes and new pipes are now unseen in their rightful places.
Amazon has been keeping me busy with book recommendations, too. I’ve read one of these. Guess which? (Clue: I’ve read it several hundred times and no, it’s not the Highway Code…)
Another writerly lunch, and this time we were luckier with the weather. Louise Mangos, Alison Baillie, Cass Grafton and I met in lovely Wil. It was our first meet-up since January 2020, and while it was wonderful, it was a sad occasion too as Cass returned to England for good just a week later, after seven years in Switzerland.
And of course, there were the obligatory walks in the woods and by the lake. I think the plastic tape on the lake bank is meant as a visual warning about the high water; it certainly wouldn’t have stopped you falling in.
Another thing still ongoing is the International Sand Sculpture Event, held yearly in nearby Rorschach. I’ve taken my ‘before’ and ‘during’ photos, and next week I’ll go back for a few of the final offerings. They’ll have a blog post to themselves in September, always supposing they’ve survived last night’s storm. Here’s the first winner of the event, immortalised in stone back in 1999, which was also the year of a near-total solar eclipse. Remember those eclipse specs?
Next week, we have Cass Grafton, now back in sunny England, and her choice of classic and comfort reads. And I’ll leave you with what has to be the neatest hole on the building site this summer…
linda huber 