Bank holiday blues

Fabulous weather this weekend. The temperature is just perfect and the sky crystal blue. We are still in training for the tour of the Monte Rosa and have just got our new shoes - the eRide by Scott. They are light as feathers and give a terrific spring to your step.

We thought we'd put them to the test with a hike up to the Cabane du Grande Mountet. Its a long old way and 1330m of ascent, but you get wonderful views of the glaciers tumbling down from a cirque of mountains, including the 4000m Imperial Crown: Bishorn, Weisshorn, Zinalrothorn, Obergabelhorn and Dent Blanche

Berry berry lovely

It's a bumper year for redcurrants this year. All around the chalet bushes are strewn with strings of ruby's which glow in the sunlight. Although free and abundant, there's still a cost to picking them as the best bushes seem to be buried in fields of nettles. The other day we came back with 7.5 kgs of fruit. Having filled the freezer we started making jelly - can't wait for the next leg of lamb...

Better late than never...

Col des Arpettes
Just getting a bit of training in for an early September tour of the Monte Rosa - normally an 8 day hike - which we're doing at a run with mad Tom, hoping to condense it into four 30-odd km stages. But it's the ascent and descent which will cause the trouble: the worst day is 2906m up and 3400m down. Here's a google earth track to the stunning Col des Arpettes above our house which we nipped up as a test-run which my phone miraculously recorded and which also tells me I can now eat an extra 6.7 Twixes. So it's not all bad.