Nadia came up for a few days to take in some of the Menuhin Festival and I suggested that, as she was coming on the Thursday, we meet in Bulle and see the market together. She pointed out that markets start shutting down at around midday, but I assured her that I had seen signs stating that this one went on until four. Accordingly she appeared, and they were indeed putting their things busily into vans, etc. and we had to make a mad dash round to get a few things for the dinner table that night. We collapsed into the only two seats to be had in a restaurant and she ordered an 'Exotic Salad' and I had the Macaroni Montagnard, a supposedly local thing. Her salad was a horrid affair of dreadful iceburg lettuce, strips of wretched chicken doused in a grim sort of sauce, and with a dusty bit of tinned pineapple on top with a marachino cherry that looked as if it had come out of a museum. I don't know how it tasted because she refused to talk about it, being a positive kind of a person. My Macaroni Montagnard was repulsive, with endless chunks of ham that had actual bone, huge circular pieces of gristle in EACH CHUNK, and inedible. I said as much to the dim woman who brought them, and she said «Non, ce n'est pas d'os. C'est du lard.» I said it jolly well was not lard, it was stinking great pieces of gristly bone. «C'est du lard.» she continued to insist. Then she shooed us off the table. So: if anyone reading this ever intends to go to Bulle, give the Hotel de Ville a wide berth. At least neither of us was ill. But that's all I can say in its favour.

The next day was so glorious that Nadia and I just wandered about looking at the interesting houses in and around Grandvillard, ate local things including some very excellent fresh Tarte au Vin Cuit, and then went on a walk in the Montbovon direction. It was hot and the various flowers were blooming and waving about in the heat, and the slurry mixture on some of the fields was incredibly ripe-smelling. Overwhelming, in fact. We passed a sort of marsh, which was interesting, and went over a little river. This was the old road, the one that corresponded with the other old road from Rossinière that Michel took me on. Soon the road began to climb, and Nadia had to see what was the other side of the hill. At the top we saw the most unexpected 18th century chapel. It was completely round and with a pointy roof and a sundial. Extraordinary. It overlooked the territory for miles around, and there was a quaint house next to it that predated it by a few centuries. The present owners' taste seemed to run to gnomes, who peered out from every window. The chapel was locked. There was a water fountain nearby which we were grateful for. Then on our way back Nadia noticed a sign saying fresh eggs and we went up another hill, a sideways hill, and found the people with the eggs, bought some, and continued up that hill because Nadia remembered that there is a trail along there, through woods and fields, parallel with the old road. So we went back that way to Grandvillard and managed to get to the house just as the thunderstorm opened up above us. I saw huge forks of lightening near the Cascades.

The next morning was the first concert, a rehearsal of the Menuhin School Orchestra for which a happy public paid 10 or 20 francs to watch. The concert itself, that night, would cost up to 150 francs. It is an excellent band. Golly those youngsters are talented. The interesting piece was a new work, a concerto for string orchestra and two solo violins, one classical and one Klezmer. Though to be honest, I didn't notice much difference between the two. Perhaps that's because the Klezmer violin solo was played by a girl from the Dominican Republic and the classical violin solo was played by a passionate ball of charisma from Azerbaijan. I am tempted to say that the Azarbaijani girl is in for a brilliant career, only in this day and age it is reckless to make such predictions.
I overheard an organiser having a frantic phonecall outside, uttering the wonderful phrase: «Well could you ask Ashkenazy WHY he refuses to do the Elgar, or is it just whim?»

We wandered up the hillside behind the Saanen church, quite steep and sat in the woods on a very old bench covered in tiny tiny little bugs that looked like bits of soot. Smaller than fleas. I'd made sandwiches. Then we took the Yeheudi Menuhin Philosophenweg to Gstaad. This is a walk punctuated by signs every so often that have favourite philosophical thoughts of the great man. Either BY him or ones he likes, I don't know. Though several are most certainly not original, and date at least to Marcus Aurelius. But no sources are credited. The thoughts themselves are in English, German and French. A few sound awkward in English and better in German. Most sound best in German. My favourite was the one that said, more or less, that everyone should create something, even if it's rubbish. Creativity should be in everyone's life, somehow. It was a pleasant walk, and at one point there was a sort of caravan park by a river. Several of the homes looked reasonably permanent. One even had a dog that woofed at passers-by, though it was a truly civilised, Swiss woof. A sign said «Attention au Chiens» «Warnung vor die Hunde» and finally, a rather mystifying «Warning for the Dogs»

Coming into Gstaad we were completely drenched by rain. Nadia wore waterproof everything, rather vexing in the sultry morning, but I wore a lovely summer dress and moccasins that squelched. We took refuge in a tea-room in Gstaad, a place absolutely full of the absurdly rich. Designer childrens' wear, discarded Armani boxes littering the streets, and a huge tent for the tennis tournament. We read the International Herald Tribune, very interestingly anti-British, referring to the EU as a form of «Colonialism»

Wandering about a bit we had a long time to wait before the next concert, a vocal recital in a tiny church that started at 10:30 pm. I would adore to do that sort of recital. The atmosphere of late evening mine for the taking! Wonderful. We went to what was probably the best restaurant there, an old family-run establishment, with hunting trophies everywhere inside, and a fascinating menu. Nadia's ham had some cinnamon mustard to go with it, and I had rösti potatoes with finely sliced ham over them, and topped with grated smoked cheese, and served with a cherry compote. It seemed like cuisine from a hundred years ago. Then we proceeded to the small church to see the singer, who was a soprano, and who had a rather ambitious programme. She was palpably young, and the programme defeated her. She had no low notes left at all for Vorrei Spiegarvi, o Dio at the end (!!) and consistently ran out of breath at the end of most long phrases, but made up for it by her youthful enthusiasm and charm. She wore what was undoubtedly a wedding dress, with boning, sequins and boudoir-ish lacing at the back. If this all sounds very singerish and a bit 'miaw', I do apologise. A very funny Scotsman sat next to me. He is an engineer and lives in Berne and said that as everyone speaks English so well here, in order to finally be given a chance to learn the language, he'd reply in Gaelic whenever anybody spoke English to him. We dropped him at his hotel in Saanen on our way back to Grandvillard...in a taxi, as by the time the recital ended, trains had stopped running. Incredibly, the concert had been packed out, as all of them are here.

Sunday morning came very soon indeed, and luckily due to my having said to the Curé last week that waiting two hours in front of the locked church was «Ennuyant,» he appeared an hour before starting time rather than his customary twenty or fifteen minutes. I had only wanted to say that it was a bit boring, but I think that ennuyeux means 'annoyed' as well as bored. So due to my unwittingly strong language, he came in earlier for me! And it made ALL the difference in the world. I played far, far better. I had things organised, books open, items practised. Only my sortie was out of sorts, because I used the old peripheral vision to see the keys (as one does) and those darned keys on that darned organ! Black ones are light brown, white ones are black. Honestly.

Afterwards, Michel comes up and presses me to meet with him on Friday. Yes, yes, I say. Okay. Next to the church in Grandvillard. I shall have Barbara then, I hope, for protection! I rushed off to Gstaad and the Grand Chalet, where I was to meet Nadia for a final concert. It was a pianist who comes from a positively unbelieveably rich family, and who has a story that is for all to see in countless videos, interviews, films, all being set out, along with a huge number of Cds, when I got there. She sat under her mother's piano as a girl, and although her mother was terribly cruel and sadistic, at least gave her daughter the enjoyment of her playing. Daughter had a flash of wisdom: music should never be paid for. Not sure how that works out for the rest of us but she has merrily given concerts at places like Carnegie Hall for free. Or perhaps even paid for the privilege. I wouldn't know. She runs a school that teaches serious students for free, so she is a philanthropist, and three cheers for her.

Well, the crowd at this was such that I felt so unsuitably dressed I actually clutched my hem for the whole thing, acutely aware that the cotton was flimsy and creased from having sat out front of the Catholic Church in the drizzle for an hour, then sweated on the bench and then high-tailed it to the Grand Chalet in time. And also that it was a jaunty little summer dress of polka-dots, optimistic and cheerful and rather sweet. Whereas everyone here had been professionally pressed and polished and also was wearing the most expensive smart-casual that Continental Europe has to offer. Lots of beige, lots of crochet, lots of embroidery, lots of nice straight seams. The only thing wrong was the faces, which were overtanned and lined with the strain of so much dieting. A girl half my age was dressed twice my age, in pointy black stiletto slingbacks and a very structured yellow thing that was halfway between a coat and a dress and had shiny large buttons, very sixties. And a lady with a miniscule dog and a very slightly bouffant short spiky hairdo, skinny jeans over even skinnier legs, vertiginous heels and a little son and heir with a moon face that spoke of suffering, and blonder hair than his mother by her side. All the ladies working at the hotel wore hilarious folky costumes with long full skirts. Hideous mock-old oil paintings were on the walls of the place. And a big huge black Steinway sat waiting. It was sold out. Concert was fifty-five francs, and lunch was seventy-five. Everyone but us was having lunch too. The pianist was announced in two different languages by the director of the hotel, who was very honoured, etc. and he told us to refrain from applause throughout. We clapped him off and anticipated her entrance. She kept us waiting almost ten minutes, I suppose to put us into a sort of trance state. I closed my eyes because I was very tired, and listened to what happened, which was that people started to talk quietly. I heard the word «manger» amongst it. The volume rose gradually. Then in she wafted. And she really did waft. She wore a very old dress in white that looked as if either a fairy or an angel were what the designer had had in mind. several layers of diaphenous skirt. She came straight to the piano and knelt down to fix the bench. Two men leapt forward to assist her until it was just right. Then she composed herself and played Rameau's 'Gavotte variée', very romantically. I enjoyed that very much. Then 'Beethoven: 32 variations.' I'd not looked forward to that, but it was quite wonderful. I loved it. Then Chopin's Ballade number 1, a favourite of mine and it takes a lot to beat Simon Barere's live from Carnegie Hall in the late forties. Or Rubinstein, or...well. It was okay. It was good actually. Though I like the opening theme to be a bit more gypsy-like somehow, with a bit of lilt. Modern pianists refuse to do this. It ended well. You could tell that everyone was dying to burst out applauding but no! They'd been forbidden to do so! Then it was Schumann's Carnaval op. 9. I find this a tedious work, a kind of in-joke with Schumann's friends and so forth, and structurally it annoys me. Anyway, she was so hesitant about the recurring 'Schumann' theme, perhaps doing some very profound character-painting. Nonetheless it was irritating to me. And several members of the audience were, in truth, lost at this point. Eyelids drooped. And the lady with the dog and the expensive skinny trousers lost her little flaxen-haired cherub son. He ran out, had had enough. The piano was against a window, and the pianist was more or less framed carefully by this window. We saw her profound profile and her artistic fingers against it. At the bottom of the window was the obligatory box of red geraniums. Well, soon the miserable saggy moon-face of the blond child was poised absurdly above the geraniums. His chin thrust down over them, he rolled his agonised eyes from outside and we all saw his mouth open and silently say «Maman! Maman!...Maman!»
She shooed him away from the window, but he kept looking at her, just his head visible, inches from the glass, nearly misting it. He was perfectly placed, exactly between the hands and head of the pianist, who was starting to be distracted. She made a few little mistakes and turned to look at him as she played, no doubt a rather withering look. He was immune though. But a few more gestures from his mother seemed to do it, and I for one was sad to see him go.

Nadia and I went to the hunting restaurant again, and the outside of it was one big trading post, or appeared to be. It had skins of all kinds hanging on hooks, all along two sides of the building. You name it: foxes, bears, marten...and a sort of stall with small examples of the taxidermist's art. From our table we couldn't see the skins any longer, but we could see the reactions of passersby to the skins, which were just below us. It was the same expression for almost everybody. A sort of incredulous disbelief, a fascination, and an overriding conviction that there would be no place in the house for such a thing. But some people must have bought them.

We had another hike in Saanen, and then one in Gstaad when we got on the wrong train, and then finally through the beautiful scenery as the shadows were lengthening in the warm sun. It was a really lovely train, all wooden and with little wooden tables with shaded imitation candles on them. The light in the carriages was gorgeous when the train went through tunnels. Like real candlelight.

I am really very grateful to Nadia for this look-in at the Menuhin Festival. Next time I hope to be one of the performers!!