Charlie and I are just back from a wonderful week in the mountains. 
Staying at our absolutely favourite hotel… Built in the later 19th century, and (with a few modifications) hardly changed since. 
The only way up is on a tiny funicular railway. No cars, and after the slopes have closed in the afternoon, only total silence. 
It’s a heavenly place to get away for a moment. 
This is a snatched glimpse of one of the hotel kitchens. You can see immediately that this is a very good place. 
The light on the mountains changes by the minute. 
Lunch at a neighbouring hotel in Wengenalp. 
Another glimpsed view of their kitchen. Perfection also. 
(the waiters thought I was pretty crazy asking to take this photo, but I know you understand). 
On our last day, it really, really snowed. We left in a blizzard after the happiest week. To start we’d been with a group of good friends, then as they left one by one (sorry, that makes it sound like a murder mystery) it was just Charlie and me for a couple of nights. We took the little train down the side of the mountain, all the way to Basel, and made our way home.
We got down to Dorset late last night. It’s been a drenched afternoon here, wave after wave of grey rain lashing the valley, but we had a lovely walk this morning with the dogs, the best of the day. Spring is everywhere, just waiting for a warm day. 
Something tells me it’s going to be a very good year for primroses. This is the area of primroses in the patch of the churchyard that we are now leaving alone for wildflowers without any mowing (except one cut, in the autumn). Incredible to see how they are spreading. 
Charlie’s cutting patch is beginning to burst with life, although its interesting to see how much later things are this year than last. 
This time a year ago, in March 2022, Charlie was a week away from entering this beautiful bunch of daffodils into the Upwey Show. 
You can read all about that wonderful event here. But something tells me with this cold, late spring that we are having just now, things may not be in quite the same place next weekend.
One of the beauties of the blog for me, now, is I think to see how the rhythms of life are so similar yet so different each year. It is the smallest things that count. Here is the same weekend in 2021: the hills under hard, hard frost. Everything was late again.
And a year before that, of course, was early March 2020. I’ve just looked back. We’d had rain in Dorset for weeks. Ponds had appeared the valley that no-one had ever seen before. Charlie was away in New Zealand, and I was looking after the dogs for a month based down here. We were just beginning to read about the pandemic taking hold in Northern Italy. Who could see what was around the corner then?
What a strange, strange time it has been these last three years. It’s good to reflect quietly, though, that despite so much change – the really important things stay the same.
11 comments
Your lovely post is always a soothing balm for me here in North Carolina where spring is arriving apace. Hundreds of daffodills and some viburnums starting up. My horse is enjoying the chickweed and new grass. The peace of the countryside where I live belies the nuttiness and fearfulness that is rife here. Not just here, I know. Blessings on equinox to two very nice gents.
18March 2018 we were under thick snow in Dorset and East Devon – the seasons are definitely less predictable
I was thinking looking at all the photos that Des Alpes looks like a great place for a blizzard and murder ! a la Agatha (Poirot or Miss Marple!)
i love seeing the kitchens too… and your spring is like ours. we had three snowstorms in the last two weeks … after none since December.
Happy Vernal Equinox
(although our temps are 50/30s for the next few weeks)
We are both octogenarians and had an apartment in Bridport arranged for a vacation in 2020.
Three years later we’ve aged out of easy traveling. Your amazing photos over many many years have become our trip to southern England. Bless you.
Beautiful pictures of the hotel and mountains, magnificent. What a wonderful holiday and then to come back to those wonderful daffodils and Charlie’s plantings. We are still in snow and rain tomorrow, everything all at once. Hopefully, we too will see green. Can’t wait to see Charlie’s plantings and his flower arrangements.
Thank you Ben, for sharing your holiday with us, and for the year-by-year tour of Dorset. Under any weather, it is a beautiful place to nestle. Happy Spring!
Ben, I think you are getting older. love from Dallas
thank you for the happy post . i wish that you had included a shot of the two of you in your ski outfits .
SOMEHOW, inadvertently your auto-notifications re: when you have a new post has been zapped (?) Certainly not ANYTHING I EVER would wish for or request. PLEASE include my email back to your list. Thank you.
Thank you Ben. Your blogs are always a reassurance that life goes on despite the craziness and sadness in other parts of the world. You inspire in so many ways!
Phew, what a wonderful life! It should be made into a film. I guess we’re supposed to be awestruck and envious – but anyway the photography is first rate….