All things considered it's been a remarkable summer. Remarkably hot, yes, but still remarkable.
I haven't really taken a full break, this summer, but I have taken a lot of half days off work: I used our dog as an excuse to spend a lot more time in the mountains that usual, walking in the morning and then working in the afternoons.
Here are some snaps I took in the mountains:
Daisy was of course my excuse to keep out of the heat - when it's been 35 degrees C down by the lake it's often been 26-27 degrees C in the mountains - so here are some snaps of her:
One of the great things about walking with a dog is that the cows all take a huge interest in you.
Part of the reason all this has been so accessible is that while I usually spend more time in the mountains during the winter, this year I took an all-year pass for the mechanical installations - gondolas or cable cars, depending on where you're from. It turned out to be a great investment.
My time up there has definitely been punctuated by time down below, by the lakes of French-speaking Switzerland.
First there was the World Cup… I only went to see one match - Spain vs. Portugal - by the lake.
We also went to hang out in Montreux during the Jazz Festival. Even if you don't see a concert it's always a nice time.
And then, of course, there was this week's lunar eclipse. Rather than climbing up a mountain, we rolled the dice and stayed down by the lake for this.
At 7pm the sun was plenty high enough in the sky.
We hadn't managed to get eclipse glasses, so went completely old school and tried with various approaches, from pinhole cameras to colanders.
Our friends Peter and Marianne came by. They had glasses, so we got to try theirs, at least.
It was really interesting to see the shape of the sun in green when taking a smartphone picture. Neat!
The sun disappeared before the eclipse was finished, but what we'd seen was fantastic.
The summer's not completely over, but the schools are about to restart which is usually a sign that it's gradually coming to an end. From here my focus is shifting towards Autodesk University in Las Vegas, as the countdown continues towards that.
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