Waiting in Waldshut

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Well, the promised rain has arrived and it is a pretty filthy day here in Waldshut. We've decided not to brave the rain like some other souls, and stick it out here for the day. I'm reminded of a very wet day in Scotland when I was a child, where we went out for a walk in a place called Seal - an rather unremarkable island whose only claim to fame (at the time) was that it was connected by a bridge to the mainland. You could therefore say that when you walked over the bridge, you were walking over the Atlantic ocean. However, on that very wet day and I cannot remember the circumstances, we met a local family, who had a treasure chest of dressing up clothes. My brother and sister spent the entire afternoon with the other children dressing up and it remains a treasured memory.

And therefore in a similar vein we amused ourselves in the wet. I made a lanyard for my now treasured Swiss army knife ( actually bought in Switzerland) . We walked into Waldshut with water dripping from our hats and lingered a little longer than we should have in nice warm dry shops. I bought a new shiny thing in a shiny thing shop (see later). And we sat in the tent reading books, thinking as you always do that the amplified sound of the rain was getting lighter, and perhaps it was also getting brighter. We looked at the grey clouds, and thought " was that a bit of blue sky", or was it just an odd shade of grey?

The rain did eventually stop, and whilst overnight it did intermittently start again, by the morning it was dry enough to make an exit without packing up in the rain. It might have stopped raining, but it was flipping cold. That made the warm little cafe that we stopped in about 20km into the ride all the more welcome, complete with a warm cholesterol ridden melange of cheese and ham. The rest of the ride was a bit of a drudge all the way to Basel, but the longest that Sian had ever ridden of 77km.

This is the standard of public barbecues that you get in Switzerland in lots of places all along the Rhine. Much as we tried it was too firmly rooted in the soil to make it disappear. ( That was a joke BTW)

And yes, it's warmer in the water than outside. Despite much encouragement Sian refused to test out whether this was true or not.

We eventually discovered the source of all the rain. This is a Swiss cloud and rain generator that is switched on automatically when the soil gets too dry or if tourists are enjoying themselves too much in the sun.

A less than gracious shot of me in a wet tent with a new shiny thing - my gas burning stove. Instructions immediately abandoned, I went for experience rather than education.

Said shiny thing being fired up at haemorrhoid inducing concrete picnic benches. Much staring at by passing natives for some reason. Perhaps they are in fact modern sculptures and we have just belittled them.