It was hot today, for the first time in weeks. In this altitude (though I don't know if 830m above sea level is particularly high) it can go from being bone-chillingly cold to sweltering in a very short time. In any case everyone was glad to swelter today.
I took the neighbours' unfortunate dog Fred for a walk...the poor feller never gets out and is on a lead with his head between his paws pretty much all day every day. We went up toward the Cascades, took a way through some trees that I'd never taken before and I felt these sharp pricks about my sandalled feet, looked down and saw huge, savage, half-red half-black ants biting me. Fred and I dashed back to the road and I was stamping like mad to get the bastards off when we heard a helicoptor and saw that it was coming down toward us. It was strangely thin when viewed from underneath. «très mince, eh?», an old man with a camera said to me. It had two blades and there was something savage about it. It landed a few feet away and the pilot got out and talked to some fellows with hard hats. In the meantime I went running back to the house with Fred to get my camera. The traditional group of boys had gathered round the helicopter until the pilot got back in and proceeded to do his job, which was logging. It had a long cable and loggers below would cut the tree, attach the cable and the chopper would then effortlessly haul the tree to another location. The trees were around the waterfall and therefore in a tricky location. I explained to the old fellers standing around watching that my dad and brother did the same thing with boats, and when I said «Motor 'Veh Huit'» they understood what that meant right away. Not that Erik has a V8; I know my Dad did have one once, though I am often wrong about such things. Chatted with a talkative fellow called Fernande who is eighty five years old, speaks with the local brogue, and can talk the Patois. He wants to go in a helicopter one day.
Towards dusk I went for a bike ride past the poultry barn and into the little roads through the open wheat fields, looking toward Estavennens. But on the dirt road suddenly the back of the bike jarred and rattled and I knew there was a flat. I took it back, examined it closely and could find nothing that was obvious. I tried pumping it up but something was odd with the bit you put the pump into. It moved in and out, and the air seemed to go through it. Some French cyclists stopped and tried to help but said it would require repairs. I have lived here without a bike, but it is incredible how one gets used to the things. The walk to the station is 25 minutes without one, five minutes with one. And it's fun! My plan to go to Estavennens a few times in the coming warm weeks has now shrunk to perhaps walking there once. Still, one thinks differently when walking. In fact, when one walks, one thinks, and on a bicycle, one doesn't think. One reacts. Or at least that's the way it is with me. Bicyling to the station is incredibly fun. It's downhill all the way. On the way back, it isn't arduous, except for around the one sharp corner. The Swiss are so safety conscious that if a car is coming behind you, they go your pace for as long as it takes to get a decent view of what's coming. This makes me work very hard to try not to slow them down too much. But as the bend is at the top of the hill from the station, that is tough. And just there, at bike level, where it's toughest, is a plaque to the Virgin, and the image of her weeping over her crucified son's body. I wonder if somebody was killed at that bend. I doubt it, because the Swiss don't seem to be like that, and there are religious symbols absolutely everywhere here. I haven't counted the crucifixes in Grandvillard, but it's in two figures. Which is a lot for a village this small. And if you have good eyes, you can see that on the summits all around, there are crosses. No, I think the Virgin was put there to encourage exhausted cyclists.
