Today clouds moved in and obscured both Alps and Jura. Keith Dale left the house for a London flight at 6.30am. At 9.30am we took Claudine into work over in Montbrillant, near where we used to live, ready equipped for an evening flight, straight after work, also to London. Now we're in charge of the house and their two Bouvier de Flandres hounds. They have been notably quiet and well behaved for us all day.
Perhaps that's because the temperature dropped ten degrees centigrade, making it bearably humid. After lunch we ventured out to Versoix, to permit Clare to swim with the tame ducks off the pebbly beach in the parc de Port Choiseul, next to which we also lived for five years. I sat on the beach and photographed the birds and the boats. Our memories of this quiet corner are of simple pleasure in the beauty of the lakeside, rarely coarsened by its hosts of summer weekend visitors. No glitz or glamour, just decent food at the two buvettes (snack bars), and lots of children coming and going, learning to sail little dinghies out of the école nautique in the port.
Versoix was developed in the nineteenth century before roads really got going as a trading port to permit French neighbours to get their goods directly across to towns on the other side, or upstream to other lake side towns. Lake pleasure boats plying between Geneva and Lausanne via Evian still include Versoix Bourg in the older part of town on their landing timetable.
After the beach, we paid a visit to Monnot's bakery in Versoix Bourg for a drink. We used to buy our fresh pain chocolats and croissants here. Owain and his mates would buy a whole tray of fresh bakes at six in the morning on their ways home from all night raves somewhere in the Canton or beyond, back in the last century.
As we left for home rain began to fall, refreshing the air and reviving our spirits with the same simple delight and blessings as we experienced yesteryear.
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