The Dents glowing in the evening sunshine

Still exhausted from Covid and lying on the sofa watching Wimbledon, I haul myself off to meet Ross in Champery after his long walk. Heathrow is busy and security has long queues and we are late taking off as there not enough staff to load the plane. This is only the beginning of broken Britain – the worst is yet to come I fear. I go to Switzerland to try and forget about the state we are in….and to admire the Swiss attention to detail as below!

The spring next to our apartment

So it’s a joy to come to a country where things work – I’m on my train within 20 minutes of the plane landing and soon reunited with my fit and bronzed  husband, complete with little sock marks round his ankles. He is exhilarated with the GR5 expedition with his mates – rightly so. You can read about it here.

The weather is fine and not so hot, so we quickly rejuvenate the tubs in the garden and weed the overgrown rockery. I even make some apricot jam while trying to keep this inquisitive cat out of the kitchen!

Champery has become a hub of activity in the summer and every Friday there’s street jazz, which we enjoy with our friends – the Sicily team reunited bar Janet who is in the States.

Much to Ross’s horror, I insist on spending my two clear days blowing out my cobwebs and sweating out the remaining virus by  walking uphill!

Walking towards to Barme

Looking toward the Barme

Ross, Annie and Christine in front of those Dents

Annie, Ross and I do the steep descent

Looking back towards Champery and all the way to the Rhone valley

Local goat dairy with the little girl in the window trying to sell us serrac!

The boys taking it easy…

Walk 1 is my favourite Sous la Dente with Annie and Christine, meeting up with Tim & Diego for lunch; day 2 walk is all the way up to Sur Coux and then down back into Champery. Ross is thrilled as he is convinced that the two large soaring raptors we can see are golden eagles. I’m sure he’s right (?!). Although the Tour de France is coming through from Lausanne to Chatel via Trois Torrents we decide to give it a miss despite the huge excitement locally. Here you can see Ross with a special Tour table mat! My knee is twinging so the down is harder than the up.

R with Tour de France map

View across to the Dentes from Sur Coux

The model village we pass every time we walk that way

The perfect weather gives us some gorgeous sunsets over the Dents and by the time I get back to London I am feeling completely recovered and firing on all my ten cylinders.

Author: vickyunwin

I am a writer and traveller. Our darling daughter Louise died on 2 March 2011, aged 21 (www.louisecattell.com) and I started writing as therapy. We never know how long we have on this earth, so I live for every day...in November 2013 I was diagnosed and operated on for a malignant soft tissue sarcoma in the calf, followed by 6.5 weeks of radiotherapy, so am embarking on a different kind of journey which you can follow here. I also have another site www.healthylivingwithcancer.co with my blueprint for health and well-being.