... There were delays.
Arrival at the airport was delayed, because Paul wouldn't get up and Robbie needed to shower, the check in was delayed, because there were problems with the baggage handling and the flight was delayed because... well, we don't know why. But after all that, we arrived in Switzerland for the mountains, the fresh air and... clouds.
After a few trains, we got to Villars, and started up the walk to the chalet. Unfortunately, Sasha and Caz's first view of the house and neighbourhood was obscured by said clouds, but they were suitably impressed by the short tour. We then spent much of the remaining afternoon lounging around the house, playing various games and planning the rest of the week. Dinner was a spaghetti alla carbonara according to Delia Smith, i.e. just eggy pasta, from Robbie and Todd, and then we played Trivial Pursuit until we were close to falling asleep where we sat.
We slept in late this morning, and then wandered down the hill (which seemed a lot shorter on the way down!) to catch a mountain train that's basically a tram, to catch a bus to the baths, which were basically a swimming pool. Having descended below cloud level there were some lovely views, which Caz and Sasha admired especially, as the rest of us had seen them before, although the weather was not very sunny.
After a number of exciting adventures at the baths (including the discovery of a tourist's wallet, credit cards and passport in the changing rooms, a humorous interlude in the queue involving the bizarrely translated tourist blurb and Joe abusing his height advantage to catch snow in the ice-room) we returned to Casa Heminway. The views from the tram were naturally somewhat less exciting the second time round (although they did have the novelty of appearing in reverse order) and the journey passed with no further incident other than recognising the bus driver as the same man who dropped us off.
After our return, little happened until dinner, although Joe somehow did manage to persuade Paul into wearing some normal shirts, leaving Paul feeling a little bereft of meaning in life, and to while away the hour or so before dinner, we were amused by the comic rants of Ross Noble.
Dinner! omg, what good can be said about it!! Some complete muffin had bought sausages the size of Belgium and with these our 4/5 intrepid cooks tried to produce a traditional sausage and mash dish. There were a lot of leftovers. The ratio of sausage to mash was comparible to the mass of a small pony and Jupiter. It was also discovered that the problem of a complete absence of any normal, tasty milk was solved with a much more vegan option. It was actually pretty tasty.
- Bernard.
