Took Fred for a longer walk today and saw Grandvillard from above. We were the first to walk, and my arms, legs and face kept being tickled by all the strands of spiders' silk that was along the way. Strangely, I have never come across anyone on this walk, which is really a pretty fair road up the nearest hill and through trees. I found many wild strawberries, each with a different flavour, but too tiny and quickly gone for my mouth to discover what, exactly. I was variously reminded of huckleberry, cherry, artificial cherry, violet and rose. I brought a jar of water for Fred and a bottle for me, and we were both very glad of it.
Towards evening, a bicycle ride through the small but beautifully paved roads through the fields (would put many a British high street to shame), watching paragliders drifting above and along the hillsides, and then watching the sun sink behind the mountains and gliding blissfully down a road into the gravelpits and discovering them full of poppies. Up again wasn't so blissful and had to dismount and walk the bike.
Tried phoning conductors but absolutely nobody in, except for the wife of one, who must be starting to think me a real nuisance. He's never in. And when he is and I've been told to call, it's busy constantly.

Well, in the absence of anything more exciting, I'll copy in a sort of retro-blog, a letter written in June and never sent.

Before the Wezranowskis went away, Wojtek played in a brass concert in the church at the top of the hill in Chateau d'Oex. The band was from the tiny village of Rougemont, or was it Rossiniere? Anyway a tiny village nearby. And they were fabulous! World class. Did all kinds of English repertoire, reminding one that England used to rule this field. Well, emphatically, no longer! There was even an arrangement of The Lost Chord for organ and brass band, and looking at the programme I thought this was unwise as a final piece. How could such a silly song be the best piece of the night? And yet it was. It put chills, it started the eyes a-waterin'. Amazing. And then I realised that this song wasn't so bad, and the words came home to me in a way that they never had done before.

Afterward, I went to the reception where band members looked as if they were merely biding their time until the proper destination of pub and flagons of ale could be politely buggered off to. The lanky verger (?) and his lanky daughter poured wine into plastic cups the size of largeish thimbles, and obligingly filled paper plates with pale cheese fingers and crackers and tiny, tiny-tiny-tiny sausages. I told the director, in halting French, how he'd transformed The Lost Chord for me, raising the rafters, swelling the sound, making it so moving and showing me what it was all about, and that until that night it had been one of the few Victorian songs I really couldn't stand. He smiled but looked blank. I thought it was my French but it turned out that he didn't know anything about the song at all, or that there ever was a song!

For those with an interest, here is the programme:

William Byrd – Earl of Oxford March arr. Philippe Sparke (brass only)
Bach/Gounod – Ave Maria arr. Gordon Langford (brass and organ)
Gabriel Piern้ – Prelude op 29 no. 1 (Organ solo)
Giovanni Battista Grillo – Canzona Quarta (brass quartet and organ)
Henry VIII – Pastime with Good Company arr. R. Newsome (ditto)
Felix Alexandre Guilmant – Priere en Fa Majeur op 16 no. 2 (organ solo)
Benedetto Marcello – Sonate en Fa Majeur arr. J-F Michel (brass, with spectacular girl soloist)
Gabriel Faur้ – Pavane arr. Gordon Langford (brass only)
Arthur Sullivan – The Lost Chord (brass and organ)
Charles-Henry Purday – Abide with Me (brass and organ)

They did the Sullivan as the encore. The Henry the Eighth number was an extremely enjoyable and catchy thing.