Tag Archives: eric hall

Monday 14th July 2014 – HAPPY BASTILLE DAY

And it started as it meant to go on with my being wide awake at 08:00. And on a Bank Holiday too. And even worse, I didn’t go to bed until 02:30 and so I was expecting to have a long relaxing sleep today. No idea why I awoke so early.

What was evn worse was that I was on my travels again during the night, working at a home for Eastern European boys, and I do remember a boy from Romania coming to the home, and he had a centipede embedded just underneath the skin of his stomach. From there, I went off with Caliburn. We were on the A556 – the major road that runs between Chester and Manchester and connects the M6 and the M63. Coming from the Chester end, I came to the big roundabout on the M6 and so initially I started to descend the slip road for the southbound carriageway, suddenly realised that I really wanted to go northbound but there was a police barrage across the slip road and so my doing a U-turn would attract suspicion. Nevertheless I turned round and slipped around the roundabout to the northbound entrance, and there was another police barrage there. I was, of course, flagged down and the policeman stopped me spoke to me in a mysterious Eastern European language which I understood but couldn’t reply to.

And it hadn’t escaped my notice that I’d gone widdershins around the roundabout, not clockwise as I would do in the UK where, of course, they drive on the left-hand side of the road.

After breakfast I watched part Two of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows and this was much more like it. Even with the same director as Part 1, this film spent much more time exploring the dark side of the whole affair and the tension slowly built up consistently all the way to a climax. In my opinion, it was certainly the best film of the series.

Having said that, the film is full of non-sequitors and inconsistencies and a mature audience will notice the considerable holes in the story, as well as the dozens and dozens of situations and scenarios that anyone who has seen The Lord of the Rings Trilogy will immediately recognise.

And I still say that Ginny is totally the wrong partner for Harry Potter. He would have been much-better suited to Luna and I remain totally convinced of that.

So as the sun came out today, I opened the windows here for the first time for three weeks, and that was the hardest work that I did today.

Tomorrow, I’m back at work.

Sunday 13th July 2014 – WHO WAS IT …

… who said that the weather would improve this weekend? We’ve had another desperate day just like the other day when we had a minimal amount of solar energy. 17.5mm of rain fell during the dy and by the looks of things there in plenty more to come.

Mind you it was very nice where I was during the night. I was back in Crewe driving a coach down Middlewich Street for G&B Travel. At the bottom of the hill I turned right into Badger Avenue and on my left by the petrol station … "WHAT petrol station?" – ed … were a few vehicles belonging to a band of travelling gypsies. All the way along Badger Avenue and as far as the Merlin pub were more gyspy vehicles and a few of them were erecting aerials. I went up to one caravan and asked if there was anywhere where I could have internet accent. The woman there told me that there wasn’t anything there, but in her next breath she said to her neighbour – in Romany – that there was excellent internet connection.

So this morning I was up at, would you believe, 08:15 and after breakfast I watched Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1

This is another disappointing Harry Potter film. It didn’t miss out by much, but what it did miss made a great deal of difference. It was much more of a mystical, introverted film rather than an action film like the earlier ones. It was all dark and broody and could have been an excellent psychological thriller if a real director had been in charge of it. With someone like Hitchcock in charge it would have been one of the best films ever but I had the feeling that the director was afraid of the subject and afraid of losing his audience. As a result, he chickened out of the film and … errr … lost the plot completely.

This afternoon I had a mega-tidy-up, and you won’t believe the difference that it’s made here. I’m quite impressed and I did it.

So tomorrow, more of the same. It’s a Bank Holiday so another day off for me.

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Saturday 12th July 2014 – I HAD A QUIET …

… day today. I was on my wanderings during the night although when I woke up, I couldn’t remember where I had been. And then after breakfast, I sat down and started on the next lot of radio programmes for Radio Anglais. However, my heart wasn’t in it and I didn’t stick it for long. I need to be much more resolute.

This afternoon I went to St Eloy to do the shopping and who should I bump into but Lieneke and Guus. They have apparently returned for the summer. We ended up having a good chat for quite a while.

Back here I crashed out for a while, then carried on reading Clay Blair and watched Austin Powers – International Man of Mystery

And that was that. And with Monday being a Bank Holiday, it’ll be like this for another two days as well.

Friday 11th July 2014 – THANKS TO TERRY …

… for helping me erect my scaffolding at the rear of the house this morning.

It was pouring down again at first and I was feeling that we were going to have another day like yesterday when I had the lowest July solar energy figure since I began keeping records in 2007 (just 17 amp-hours for those who are interested).

The field at the back is totally sodden and the scaffolding was sinking in in places but we’ve managed to underpin it. It’s not particularly stable but it’s the best I can do.

The plan is that starting next week I’ll be cementing in under the eaves, something that I have never managed to do since I did the roof in 2009. THat needs to be made good to keep out insects, animals and plants. The ivy needs ripping off the back of the house for a start.

I then need to fit some fascia boards to the end of the chevrons and give everything a really good going over with some wood treatment to keep out the weather. And when that’s done, fit the guttering to take the rain water to the underwater tank that I’ll be fitting and away from the base of the house. I’ll check the roof as well while I’m up there.

Finally, I’ll have to check the mortar to see if the ivy has pulled any out

You can see that I’ll have my work cut out.

I crashed out for an hour or two this afternoon, which was no surprise. I’d been to Mons during the night with the British Army in August 1914 and I do remember that we were being switched around from battlefront to battlefront by wading through filthy, dirty water up to our waists in these canals.

Later in the afternoon I carried on looking for one of these missing black jump leads. This ended up as a full-scale tidying up in the upstairs of the downhill lean-to and I discovered all kinds of exciting things. And also a metre or two of heavy black cable formerly of the starter of a car, and this will do for the 12 volt immersion heater.

I can finish that tomorrow.

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Thursday 10th July 2014 – WHAT THE …?

Yes, I’ve spent ages this afternoon looking for a black jump lead. I save all the old ones as they come in useful as a cheap source of heavy duty cable, and I can find no fewer than 5 red ones, but there’s not a black one anywhere to be seen. I just don’t understand this.

During the night I was in Calveley with my father and a few other people, visiting the farm that belonged to my father’s parents. All of the outbuildings were still there but the farmhouse was a prefabricated type of bungalow. It seems that the farmhouse had burnt down and my grandfather had erected a kind of mobile home to replace it, with no planning permission. The uproar that this had caused led to a variety of court cases against my grandfather, all of which he lost, and the farm had to be sold to pay the legal expenses and grandfather went bankrupt. My father was in tears when whoever it was told this story.

So when I woke up and after breakfast I carried on with the website for the customary couple of hours, and then as the driving rain was preventing any outside work, I started to tidy up the bedroom.

This led to a couple of discoveries, one of which was a halogen table light. After lunch (I had to go into Pionsat to buy some bread) I rewired it and fitted a LED bulb in it, and that’s now illuminating my new comfy chair.

I also found a multiple cigarette-lighter socket with USB socket and so I rewired that and fitted it on the control board downstairs.

While I was there, having been told that the bad weather is to contine, I emptied the 12-volt immersion heater and ripped the wiring out. When I made it, I had forgotten to insulate the terminals and that’s not been helping the circuit, and the cables are scorched as I suspected. This led to a couple of design modifications, and then the search for heavier cables, such as old jump leads.

At about 19:15 that up until tomorrow and knocked off work. Rosemary rang up for a chat for about an hour, and then I had tea.

I’ll continue the search for the cable tomorrow.

-2

Wednesday 9th July 2014 – TODAY, I HAVE DONE …

… absolutely nothing at all.

I’ve been outside just three times, twice for filling the kettle to make coffee and the third time to record the statistics. I didn’t even go outside to pick some lettuce for my butties. And I didn’t even have my lunch until 18:30.

And this is the reason why. This is how things looked here at 07:30 and it didn’t change throughout the day.

The rainstorm woke me up at about 07:00 and interrupted a really interesting journey, the details of which disappeared the moment I woke up despite me saying to myself that I’ll have to remember this one.

So after breakfast I cracked on with the website for the usual couple of hours with the intention of going out to clear away the rest of the weeds at the back of the house. But with the torrential rain still pouring down (we had 13mm up to 22:00 and it’s still raining hard) I abandoned that idea.

Instead, I carried on exploring the possibilities of this new upgrade of the 3D computer program that I installed the other week and then spent the rest of the day reading the first volume of submarine warfare in World War II

This and the second volume are two thoroughly absorbing books, but totally spoiled (which is a deep tragedy) by the (American) author’s total Anglophobia. I don’t think that I’ve seen even a German author write with such distaste and disdain about the British war effort in World War II

I’ve not had any tea tonight either as I’m not in the mood for it, even though I have stuff prepared downstairs. I just hope that it will be a better day tomorrow.

-1

Tuesday 8th July 2014 – I’VE BEEN A BUSY BOY TODAY

And I had a restless night too. I can’t remember where I was or what I was doing but it was certainly something quite active and I was quite worn out when I woke up.

So after breakfast I cracked on with the website until about midday, with an interruption from my solicitor in Belgium.

Downstairs I stripped down the water filters as nothing is getting through to the water tank. As I expected, the filters are all blocked up and so I cleaned them all out, fluhed them through and refitted them. Now they are working fine – I can tell you that because we’ve been having further rainstorms today.

I keep saying that I ought to adopt a regular programme of cleaning the filters – every four months or something – and that way they won’t block up. However I keep on forgetting to do it.

Next task was to reorganise the car parking. I’ve moved the Kubota and the Sankey Trailer over so that I can put Caliburn on the concrete. This is why I’ve done the concreting and it certainly does look better.

Talking of the concreting and parking the cars, this is something that I bought on my travels. I’ve been looking for an old-type portable air compressor for ages. In the old days farmers used to have air compressors with detachable air tanks so they can charge up the tanks and take them off down the fields to blow up tractor tyres and the like.

I’ve never found one, but in Belfort I found this. It has just an 8-litre tank and runs off a 270-watt motor which, as you know, is perfect for my low-wattage electrical system. It’s light enough to carry around as well.

I changed over the plug to a British plug (I use British plugs and sockets here as the plugs are fused) and gave it a try. It charged the tank in seconds and inflated the wheelbarrow tyre in an instant. I’m well-impressed with this if it keeps this up.

I also changed the plug on the 500-watt vacuum cleaner that I bought the other week and tried that out. That works fine too.

I’ve been tidying up in the barn too, and then I set to to pull down the ivay and rip out the weeds and brambles and so on from the back of the house so that I can fit the scaffolding and get up there to do the guttering. I’m hoping to have the scaffolding up this week so that I can crack on with that.

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Monday 8th July 2014 – TODAY WAS ONE OF THOSE DAYS …

… where I didn’t feel like going outside at all. Woken up by another pile-driving downpour of rain at about 06:30, I was thinking to myself “what a way to start the day”.

Anyway I finally made it out of bed at the usual time and had the traditional couple of hours on the web site. And just for a change I made myself a second cup of coffee at about 10:45. I was cold.

Just as I was about to pluck up the courage to go outside working, Rob came round. His internet is down and he was desperate to check his e-mails. Not a problem of course and we ended up having a lengthy chat. That put paid to any plans that I had to go outside to work as by now it was raining again and so I did some tidying up on the ground floor.

I missed out on lunch. I became involved in something on the internet and it was gone 17:00 when I stopped for my butties. And here’s a surprise. The lettuce fairy seems to have come by while I was away. I have 10 small lettuce plants in one of my raised beds and I’m convinced that they aren’t anything that I planted.

Later, I had a chat – in German – with Cécile. That almost finished off the day but I was determined to make at least some progress and so I tidied up in here, dismantled the old easy chair that marianne gave me years ago and I’ve had here in various stages of disrepair over the last 7 years, and erected the new chair that I bought in IKEA the other day.

It has arms that hold me up and so its much easier to work on than the sofa. That has no arms and so I sink lower and lower on that until it’s impossible to work.

Yes, for CHF29:00 this chair seems to be a good buy.

-1

Sunday 6th July 2014 – WITH IT BEING SUNDAY …

… I’ve done pretty-much badger all today. However my plans for a long lie-in all came to naught as the most terrific storm woke me up at about 06:30. We’ve had about 11mm of rain today.

I managed to hold on until about 09:30 and then I was obliged to rise, for the “usual reasons” and that was that.

After breakfast I watched a DVD until about 12:30 and then I spent the next couple of hours bringing the blog right up to date.

This afternoon I’ve been working on a computer program. When I bought my new laptop I downloaded an updated version of one that I use. And it turns out that most of the add-ons written by third-party developers don’t work with it. I’ve been meaning to look into this for ages and so this afternoon I set to. It involved using the hard-drive out of the laptop from three years ago (thank heavens for caddies) and a lot of fiddling around.

When you are searching for the files, the options for the old version’s file extensions is not given and, much to my surprise, there’s no “all files” option. But I eventually worked out that if you type *.(the old file extension) into the “open file” dialogue box, then sure enough the required files are displayed.

There are still some that are missing but nevertheless this is serious progress and my Sunday afternoon was not wasted after all.

-1

Saturday 5th July 2014 – WHAT A NIGHT

I had something of a disturbed night last night – tossing and turning and trying to get comfortable for much of it. Probably the torrential rain pounding off Caliburn’s roof had much to do with this because there was plenty of that during the night.

Mind you, I wasn’t here for much of it. I was with the daughter of a woman who was at the University where I studied and I was persuading her to elope with me. We ended up fleeing up to Canada, Montreal in fact and I was persuading this girl that we would be fine there. Estate Agents worked on commission from the owners and once they knew what kind of property we were after and what our budget was, they would move heaven and earth to find us somewhere.

We were with Darren and Rachel and at least three other people and telling this agent what we wanted. I explained that we were not expecting to find somewhere at Astoria (did I mean Anjou, my favourite suburb of Montreal?) or in another suburb the name of which I can’t remember but we didn’t want an inner city place and we needed space to park a few cars.

I took this girl on a tour of the suburbs, some of them quite expensive, and I remember our discussion being punctuated by me saying “ohh look, there’s a Ford Consul” and that kind of thing.

So having dealt with these issues I finally managed to wake up and make myself a coffee. Then I hit the road.

At least, just as far as Nantua, when a most unusual lorry stopped me in my tracks. A Willeme it is, a marque that I have never heard of before.

The company began just after World War I when a young man bought a job lot of spare parts for American wartime lorries, with the aim of selling them to people who had acquired the wartime lorries. From there he went on to reconditioning the vehicles and then to build his own heavy lorries and tractors for articulated units.

However the company didn’t last all that long. Despite the reputation that his vehicles had for reliability and strength (there was even a tractor unit that could pull 1000 tonnes), the company disappeared in the late 1960s.

I had a pleasant drive through the showers and ended up in Macon. That has a significance for me because in 1970 when I was 16 I spent a summer there as a guest in a French family.

While I was having had a good look around in Macon, I noticed a sign for “Chasselas”. Never mind the “Chateau de Chasselas, hey Josiah?” of the for Yorkshiremen in a Monty Python sketch, Chasselas is a real place and there is a real chateau there with a vinyard and it produces high-quality white wines. And if you want to know how I know, the answer to this is that in 1970 when I was at Macon, I spent a lot of time at the village bar at Chasselas, the home of the aunt of the family with whom I stayed.

The road up to Chasselas passes through some interesting, if not famous countryside, especially if you are connoisseur of grands crus, and also if you know your wine very well.

Just down there are two villages, once called Pouilly and the other called Fuissé and some of the best white wine in the world comes from there, produced from the grapes that you see in the foreground. Way over in the background is the valley of the Saone and the town of Macon.

We’d been to Chasselas, Nerina and I, in 1992 when we went to the south of France in the old Ford Fiasco. The old bar was still there then but it had been converted into a kind of shop, and I forgot to take a photo of it. Seeing as how I was within about 15kms of the place today, off I went.

It’s now a private house as you can see, and there seems to be a little money about the place. And here’s a surprising thing. A woman walking down the road looked as if she might know a thing or two about the old bar and to my complete and utter surprise sje turned out to be the daughter of the owner of the bar. She was about 12 when I was there and I remember her having a terrible crush on me (although I can’t think why). I’m astonished as to how small the world is these days.

So having caught up on old times I went off to the Chateau and disturbed them at lunch in order to buy a crate of Chateau de Chasselas to share amongst my friends. Yes, it’s something of a myth to say that you can never disturb a Frenchman at his lunch – this guy was keen enough to take my money. We also talked about the rain last night. They had had a hailstorm here and much of the harvest was ruined.

Not too far from Chasselas is another place of interest. This is La Roche de Solutre – the Rock of Solutre and incredible though it may seem, I’ve climbed that. Or, at least, I did when I was 16. I don’t know what must have come over me but I do recall being with a bunch of French youths at the time so I didn’t want to let the side down, I suppose.

The story goes that prehistoric man used to herd wild beasts up to the top and push them over the top as a way of killing them to collect the meat. The fact that heaps and heaps of prehistoric animal bones have been found at the foot of the drop is thr reason why this theory has been advanced.

So after that I headed for home via the supermarket at Paray le Monial where I did my week’s shopping.

And here I am. And here I’ll stay – for the next few weeks at least.

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Friday 4th July 2014 – WOW

I have never seen rain quite like this. Diving into Lausanne at about 18:30 this evening the sky went the blackest that I have ever seen it. A high wind sprung up out of nowhere and the next minute we got the lot. You haven’t seen anything like this rain because I know that I haven’t.

It was impossible to see more than about 5 yards in front of your face with the rain teeming down and bouncing off the road and every time I put my foot on the brake about 50 litres of water cascaded off Caliburn’s roof down across the windscreen. At least he enjoyed it – he’s not been as clean as this for quite a long time.

The rain was so bad that it was not possible to see any hotels (if there were any at the side of the road) until I reached Geneva and the first hotel that I tried (CHF120) made me give up and I’m now in a layby at Valleiry, somewhere between Annemasse and Bourg-en-Bresse.

I’ll be sleeping in the van tonight again and this has taken some effort to arrange as across the road from my motel last night is the Zurich IKEA and there was a sale on. You’ll have to wait until I unpack before you see what I bought but I spent CHF179:00 there. That’s not including the breakfast that I had there either. For CHF3:50 I had two bread rolls, some jam, some juice and some coffee.

But a word of warning about IKEA in Zurich. You have to pay for the parking, even if you have just spent a fortune in there. That’s something of a rip-off if you ask me.

So that was my morning gone and then I headed off for the border via Luzern, Bern and Lausanne. And a torrential rainstorm. And wih a bit of luck, God’s help and a Bobby, I might even be home tomorrow night.

-5

Thursday 3rd July 2014 – WHEN I SET OUT FROM BENDERN …

… There was 670 kms to travel in order to reach home. By the time I’d done a day’s driving, there is all of 520 kms left to travel and I’m about 10 kms from Zurich airport.

You might wonder how this could possibly be, but it all went wrong about 15 minutes after leaving the hotel. However before I get too far ahead of myself, just as you would expect seeing as how today is the day that I’m moving on, we are having a gorgeous day of clear blue skies and not a cloud in the sky. What a contrast from yesterday when I was walking around in the rain.

So to resume my story, there was a guy in uniform stopping the traffic and interrogating the drivers. Some he was allowing to continue, and others he was directing elsewhere. When it came to my turn he asked me where I was going. When I replied “France”, we had quite an interesting and lengthy discussion of which I caught about one word in 20, but enough to discover that there had been a landslide in the mountain pass that I needed to take. He recommended a diversion over another mountain pass that involved a detour of about 60kms.

Off I said and eventually found myself on a Swiss autoroute – without a vignette of course because I had no intention of driving on the autoroutes here. Realising my mistake I took the next exit, where there was of course a police barrage. Having dealt with that, and luckily the police didn’t notice the absence of vignette, I took the wrong turning at the roundbout and ended up climbing up the side of a mountain.

This turned out to be a dead end, after a drive of 12kms, but at the far end of the car park is one of the best views that I have ever had – 1700-odd metres up in the Alps. The Walensee is down there at the bottom of the valley and way, way in the distance is Lake Zurich.

It was such a gorgeous view and such a lovely day that I sat there for a couple of hours and read a book, being joined for a while by a group of old ladies out for a walk

That took me up to lunchtime quite nicely and so I descended the mountain and found a bakery where I bought myself a loaf.

Next stop was at a layby by the side of the Walensee with a mainline railway line just below me. Here I stopped and made myself a butty and read another book, watching the trains go by. After all, it was far too hot to drive anywhere by now. The temperature was registering 34°C

Heading off towards Zurich I hit the start of the rush-hour traffic and it was stop-start for about 15kms and that got me fed up in the heat.

Looking around for a diversion, I noticed a ferry going across the Lake. As you know by now, I can’t resist a ferry at any time, and in this heat there was no question of anything else.

It was gorgeous on the water with a cool breeze blowing, and it was a shame that the crossing came to an end. Mind you, the traffic had calmed down a little and negotiating the streets of Zurich wasn’t quite as difficult as it might have been.

On the western edge of the city I came across a motel and here I am. A whole day and just 150 kms closer to home. It’ll take me a week to get home at this rate.

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Wednesday 2nd July 2014 – THERE MUST HAVE BEEN QUITE EXCITING TIMES …

… at football matches in Liechtenstein in the past if the sign here at the National Stadium is anything to go by.

Who in their right mind would have gone to a football match in the past with a knife, a pair of knuckle dusters, a rocket launcher and a firearm? Not even a Millwall fan I suspect (“and of course, this is three years before Bala Town were drawn to play here in a Europa League match” he added in 2017).

Still, they wouldn’t have put this notice up if they hadn’t had any issues with these in the past. That’s why I reckon that it must have been quite exciting to have watched a match here.

Never mind the football – come here to watch the spectators.

And you have a nice stadium to do it in too. It’s quite modern and comfortable, currently undergoing refurbishment too, and which has a capacity (following the renovations) of 7838.

“Not a lot” you might be thinking. But then again, the population of the town is all of 5429 at the last count, so the inhabitants can have about 1.4 seats each.

So in the pouring rain I crossed the road from Ze Gasthof zum Deutschen Rhein to the bus stop and here’s the bendy bus that brought me into the city of Vaduz. I’m becoming quite adept now at public transport in strange lands.

However, in contrast to everywhere else I’ve been (except the UK of course), I’ll be passing an adverse comment about the bus fare. Despite the minimal sales tax of 8% here in Liechtenstein, it was still CHF4:80 each way.

And it wasn’t just the bus fare either. A pot of coffee cost CHF7:80 and two tomatoes cost CHF1:00. Liechtenstein is definitely not the place to be if you are on a limited budget like Yours Truly.

Mind you, this is one of the richest countries in the world with the second-highest standard of living and the lowest amount of income tax so I suppose that the people can afford it.

So I ambled around the town in the pouring rain and, believe me, it doesn’t take long because there isn’t very much of the town to see. My memories of the place from October 1988 were that it was just two roads – into the centre on one road, do a loop around at the far end, and back out on the other.

It’s very different today because one of the roads has been pedestrianised. So there’s just one road through the town today. And there’s a fair bit of traffic trying to negotiate it.

And Nerina wouldn’t recognise the place either from those days as many of the old buildings that I remember have been ruthlessly carved down and modern monstrosities built in their place.

The royal palace is still perched up there on its cliff, and that is a surprise seeing all of the other changes around here. I would have expected that to have gone too.

Mind you, I wonder what Prince Hans-Adam II, the ruler of the Principality of Liechtenstein, has to say about the changes to his view of the city from the terraces up there.

When they built the Government offices at the beginning of the 20th Century they made a good effort to try to keep something of the Medieval traditions. Today however, there is not even a pretence.

Having “done” the city I went for a walk out of town to the River Rhine. It’s not very far, even in the pouring rain. Formerly the river ran in a meandering course much closer to the city but a disastrous flood in 1860 caused the inhabitants to divert the river away from the city and reinforce the banks.

Canada might well have a preponderance of covered bridges as we all know, but Europe has its share too. I saw one at Lech the other day, and here’s one crossing the Rhine.

By the way – on the other side of the river is Switzerland. So the border is clearly defined. In other places it isn’t, and the Swiss Army has “invaded” Liechtenstein 3 times “by mistake” in recent times.

And why didn’t the Liechtenstein Army fight back? The answer is that it doesn’t have an army (that’s why taxes are so low). Well, it does. It consists of two men – one to fire the rifle and the other one to ask for the bullet back.

By the way, Liechtenstein is one of the smallest countries in Europe. The Papal Enclave is certainly smaller (we were there in 2000 if you remember) and it’s quite possible that San Marino is too.

Another thing that is quite surprising for a capital city is that it was not until the last 20-25 years that Vaduz became a city in the traditional sense of the term when the parish church was consecrated as a Cathedral. And it’s certainly one of the smallest cathedrals that I’ve ever been in.

Another claim to fame that the city possesses – or maybe doesn’t possess – is that it is probably the only capital city in the developed world that possesses neither a railway station nor an airport. You have to fly in to Switzerland or Austria and catch a bus.

Anyway, that was my trip to Vaduz and, soaking wet, I caught the bus back to the hotel.

And the verdict on Vaduz? Frankly, Nantwich has much more to offer. Not that that’s any surprise either. Nantwich has a population of about 12,000 if I remember correctly. Vaduz has less than half of that and is probably the smallest capital city in the world.

It’s a fact that there are more Limited Companies registered in Vaduz than there are inhabitants.

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Tuesday 1st July 2014 – THERE’S ONE THING ABOUT MOUNTAIN AIR …

… and that I was out like a light at 22:00. Didn’t feel a thing at all. And I slept until about 06:30. And I was busy too during the night. I can’t remember where I was (it might have been Electricity Street in Crewe) but I was working for some organisation that was doing something with the public and while our office still stayed in the same place, our job of interacting with the public meant that we had to go to the local shopping precinct that was 25 minutes away on a tram.

We needed a girl to come with us and we asked one of them but she was proving to be difficult. She said that she couldn’t possibly be ready for a 09:00 start as she didn’t arrive at the office until 08:30. I explained about the 25 minute tram ride and how not only were your travelling expenses reimbursed but so was your travelling time, but she was still being difficult about it.

So wide awake, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed I went down to breakfast. And on leaving I was presented with the bill for my evening meal, room and breakfast.

For my three-star hotel etc, it came to a total of €60 and so I’ll be stopping here again, that’s for sure. I don’t think that I’ve ever before slept in such comfort at such a price, and made so welcome too.

Leaving the hotel, I set out to assail the Stelvio Pass, all 2700-odd metres of it. I’ve never been up it before and so I didn’t know what to expect, and I wasn’t disappointed.

From Trafoi the road zig-zagged up to the summit via a series of hairpin bends. I don’t know how many there were, but I lost count at about 47 and there were still plenty to go.

The road itself dates from just after the Napoleonic War when Austria had possession of some territory south of the Pass and needed a road to connect with it. Although there have been many improvements to the road since those days, the actual trace of the road is still the same and that’s something that is quite astonishing.

Mind you, it’s not easy to see how else they could do it.

No vehicle longer than 10 metres is permitted on the road and I can’t say that I’m surprised.

This bus here was having quite a struggle upthe hill, not just against the hairpin bends but also against the traffic coming down the hill that, for the most part, refused to give the driver the room to manoeuvre.

There was plenty of snow at the top of the pass and again, I’m not surprised by that either. We’re at 2700-odd metres of altitude here as I said before, and you may remember that it was snowing in the Tyrol the day before yesterday at half of this altitude.

As an aside, this was once the border between Italy and the Austrian Empire after the reunification of Italy in the 1860s and in World War I there was actually fighting up here at the pass.

Still, Caliburn enjoyed a good wander around in the snow.It’s been a good few weeks since he’s been in it. But who would have expected to have seen him up to his axles in snow on the 1st of July?

Down the hill from the Stelvio Pass there’s a fork in the road and turning right, I’m in Switzerland. Much to my surprise, there’s no border controls here (Switzerland isn’t, of course, in the EU). I suppose they think that if you’ve made the climb all the way up the Stelvio then you deserve the right of entry.

It’s all downhill from here until you need to climb up and over the Fluela Pass to Davos and Klosters. And so what am I doing in a train then? It looks like the Channel Tunnel train but I’m a long way from there.

The simple answer to this is that the Fluela is a pretty desperate road. It takes about 60 or so kilometres and no end of climbing and descending through a series of hairpin bends. However, there’s a 19-kilometre rail tunnel where, for a not-insignificant price, you can make the journey for about a tenth of the time.

It’s a straight road from there to Liechstenstein and the drive there was much easier than finding a hotel. The first hotel that I tried wanted CHF199 for a night and they can forget that. Then there was a whole series of hotels that were closed. Then we had one that was full (no surprise, that) and he referred me to another two – both of which were closed.

I gave up on the idea of staying for a night in Leichtenstein and headed for the Swiss border. And there, just on the Liechtenstein side of the border I found a hotel. Quite basic but B&B is only CHF70 per night.

And so I’m staying here maybe two nights and tomorrow I’ll go for a bus ride into Vaduz. There’s a bus depot right across the road from here.

Monday 30th June 2014 – THIS IS THE VIEW …

… from my bedroom window.

Not my bedroom window from last night, but my bedroom window from this evening. For I am in another hotel. This is actually in Trafoi which is a tiny village in the Alto Adige, the Southern Tyrol, in Italy. It’s halfway up the Stelvio Pass on the way to St Moritz and Switzerland. This was a Shearings destination from the 1980s and didn’t last long, not the least of the reasons being that to road up here from the Reschen Pass is pretty dreadful.

Anyway, it was another item on my list of places to visit – and here I am.

Even more surprisingly, this is actually the first hotel in which I have ever stayed in Italy. All my previous visits have been either with friends, with Nerina’s family or in a nunnery, and I bet you think that I am joking too. "You’re forgetting your skiing trip with Anna in 1996 " – ed.

The Alto Adige is a weird place to be. It was formerly part of the Austrian Empire until 1919 when it passed to Italy in the peace treaty between the two countries after World War I.

After World War II it remained with Italy, presumably due to the fact that Italy had ended the war on the winning side, but you would have a hard job convincing the inhabitants. Here’s a German flag flying outside the house of one of the inhabitants.

Not only that, most of the signs here are in German even though we are in Italy, and the official roadsigns show the town names in both German (which is displayed first) and Italian.

I’ve also seen grafitti to suggest that at least some of the people here are interested in independance.

The border between Austria and the former Italian city-states has always been fluid. This is Festung Nauders, the Nauders fortress dating from the end of the 1830s and there’s another building of a completely different style just across the road and dating from 1840.

It’s not too difficult to imagine that the reason for these two buildings being here in the Reschen Pass is that this was at one time a border crossing following one of the frontier adjustments.

Today the building is a military museum and outside is a display of tanks. The Reschen Pass was heavily fortified and many of the German defences still remain today despite the best attempts of everyone to blow them up and remove them.

The Pass was to be defended every inch during the last few weeks of April 1945 as it is the soft underbelly of the German Reich on a direct route to Munich. However, events at Berlin forestalled everything.

This morning in a torrential downpour I went for a walk around Lech to see what was what. As I said yesterday, I was here in 1988 but I didn’t recognise the place. It’s changed out of all recognition since those days.

I didn’t stay long either because the weather really was quite dreadful too and it was no fun walking around in all of this.

Next stop was Pfunds and this was another place that Nerina and I had visited – and on more than one occasion too. We spent a night here on our honeymoon while we were on our way to Italy and if she were to pass by this place today she wouldn’t recognise it, apart from the name painted on the wall.

Still, 25 years is a long time in tourism and time won’t stand still for anyone.

Not too far away is a little enclave of Switzerland called Samnaun. It was formerly isolated from the main part of Switzerland and so was a duty-free haven. However there is now a road from Switzerland that connects with the area but the duty-free status remains.

Not that is does any good because the place is full of Porsches and the like buying up the perfumes – the entire place smells like a tart’s boudoir – and there is nothing of anything at all that might be of interest to me.

I come here for the views, which are certainly spectacular as you can see for yourself. There isn’t much like anywhere in the Alps quite like this.

Another thing that brings me here is the diesel. 114 cents per litre in Euros (it’s Swiss currency here of course) and that’s the second-cheapest that I have found so far in Europe after Andorra in March.

From here I headed back down to the Reschen Pass and you know the story from here on in.

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality