This place is just so absolutely stunning that I have to keep looking at the view every half hour or so - that's when I am not sitting staring at it for hours on end or admiring it from the car as we drive up and down the mountains! Until yesterday it didn't realise it was actually summer and this is the sort of view we got daily as the moisture from the valley, 1 kilometre below, rose each day until we were enveloped in a thick mist. This pic is a bit of a cheat as it was on the OAP's computer from a previous summer visit. Presumably once the mist is up at our level it is then clear down in the Rhone valley. When it's a white-out like this we just sit indoors and watch Wimbledon and soccer on TV! But its now officially summer and today was roasting hot with all the locals wandering around in sleeveless shirts and shorts with nasty pallid legs and arms showing! Even so, there is still a lot of snow on the peaks just a couple of hundred metres above us , making it necessary to keep a jersey close by for when the wind blows. Normally I live in South Africa in the bush where I have mesh on the windows to keep out the monkeys and baboons, but here I have put fine mosquito netting to keep out the flies and midges! Also at night I like the bedroom window open but it's at ground level and I wonder what is wandering, slithering or creeping through the window! The mossy netting keeps most of that out too!

I got my little Acer loaded with the drivers I needed to make the internet link but on arriving home I couldn't make it work so will now have to spend a further half hour or so on the phone to the Swisscom helpline in order to fix the problem. I wouldn't mind but I am always worried that I will get the same guy each time! They all sound alike, are scrupulously polite and very nice but I am sure they think I am an utter ass!! I even had to ask what a browser was when one of them told me to open mine! Why didn't he just say Internet Explorer? For that matter, why do all experts make technical stuff sound so difficult? Most of it is not hard if you know what the bits and bobs are called.

Wimbledon is great this year. I don't normally bother with the first week as I find them a bit boring but this year Nadal was lucky to hang in to win his first match and then the match that lasted 11 hours and ended in a tie break of something like 70 - 68!! You can't ask for better nail biters than those!