Parting and recuperating

It was a pack, tidy up and wash sheets type morning before Clare and Rhiannon departed for Geneva and their return flight to Birmingham. I went to the Quai Sante medical centre early, to collect my bill, pick up a GP referral letter for Clare to take home with her, and have a final inspection from Mr Cotton, before he discharged me. All I have to do is keep the wound clean and let it breathe. Nature will do the rest. Certainly the bill is affordable, since I received extra for the wedding blessings. It was a great relief. I should be able to recuperate two thirds of the expense after paying a premium reducing excess. 

I did some food shopping and returned to Church House within the hour, in good time a accompany Clare and Rhiannon to Montreux gare by bus for their 11.47 train. This time around, I took the cash and paid the bill. A satisfying sensation. Now I have to download an insurance claims form and hope for the best that I fill it in correctly. But that's for another day.

Clare said they had to wait 45 minutes to drop off their bags at the airport, and were glad to have got an earlier train and have enough time reach the boarding gate as the flight was being called. Later in the evening she messaged me to say she was on her way to Birmingham New Street, having met up with Kath and Anto at the airport to hand over Rhiannon. She got back home by ten, eleven hours after we parted company in Montreux. The rest of my day was spent 'in rest and quietness' reading not venturing out again, even though it was sunny all day. It's what it needed to do most. 

Going East to see old friends

There were two dozen at St John's for the Sunday Eucharist. When all but the Church Wardens had departed, Church Warden Neil, took the Church House router and attached it to a socket in the wall of the meeting room next door, to check this was an operational fibre-optic connection, which it is. He's very pleased with this, as it'll be possible to have a wireless router there and use the signal in the church social area to stream UK video broadcasts to a TV or projector on special occasions of interest, as well as hold film nights using Netflix. Properly promoted, this could attract members of the wider community to visit and socialise in Church, and kindle interest in worship.

After Neil and Jane took their leave, it was time to lock the church and take the stopping train to Lausanne, from the station across the road, then the Inter-Regio to Zurich, another train to Sargans and finally the local train to Buchs, where our old friend Heinz met us at the station and walked  us back to the rooftop apartment where he and Maria-Luisa have made their home in retirement. It's just a year since we last made this journey to seen them, and it was marvellous to relax and catch up over an evening meal.

After a leisurely breakfast on Monday morning we went by train to Bad Ragaz, further south in the Rhine Valley towards Chur. The mountains to the east of the Rhine at this point are the setting for Johanna Spry's children's novel Heidi, so the region is well visited by foreign tourists for this reason alone. Bad Ragaz however, is an elite Swiss spa and golf hotel town, whose development dates from the Grand Tour era. Its 18 hole golf course hosts the annual Swiss Seniors Open Championship, but also a triennial open air Festival of Sculpture.

The area around the town and within contains permanent exhibits, but at festival time it claims to be Europe's largest sculpture park, occupying key sites on the golf course, as well as the town's streets and hotel precincts. The number of exhibits is said to rise to 400, attracting an international range of contributors. The walk around the course and into the village took an hour and a half, with frequent photographic stops. The majority of exhibits in the public domain are abstract, with just a few with human form. The placement of many of the sculptures has been chosen carefully, with colour and form in mind. I found that observing and photographing them was a stimulating mental exercise, as consideration of the meaning or theme of the piece was of minor importance to appreciating their form and setting. One of the values and purposes of art is to challenge viewers to look at everything from a different perspective. This, I felt was true for me. My photos are here.

We enjoyed a regional dish from nearby the Grisons region, eating lunch in the Central Restaurant in the main street, opposite a municipal building that started life as a spa. There's still a fountain in the porch opening on to the street, where warm spa water can be drunk, apparently good for one's health. Outside was an ice cream stall, with a 1.5m plastic ice cream cone advertising its wares on the pavement beside it. It's an everyday sight in many holiday resorts. For me, what comes to mind is the question of how to distinguish between a mass marketing artifact like this and an intentional sculpture which may use the same materials, shapes and colours even. Context counts a lot I guess.

We returned to Grabs to escape the intense afternoon heat, and only ventured out again as the sun was setting. We walked to the Alte Stadt, about half a kilometer away, a well preserved collection of mediaeval wooden houses, said to be the only one to have escaped being burned down over six centuries after supper on the terrace. This quiet corner is still a residential area, not holiday homes. It sits at the bottom of a rocky 50m outcrop, on top of which is the fine Schloss Grabs. Its slopes are covered in vineyards. Well, it's still the Rhineland, after all. It was dusk when we walked back around the small like next to the Alte Stadt. Enchanting! My photos are here.

Today, we bade farewell to Heinz and Mari-Luisa mid morining, making the return trip with the same itinerary, just enough time to make each of the four changes of train comfortably, without any delay. We got off in Montreux, did a lot of food shopping, then caught the trolley bus to Terriet, as we had a go-anywhere day ticket - CHF49 with the abonnement demi-tarif. What a bargain, and what a lovely outing! 

Travel plans

At last! An email with an apology and a copy of the certificate arrived this morning. Apart from the rehearsal meeting with the couple, liturgical preparations for the wedding were done and approved two weeks ago. Now I can concentrate on preparing a wedding taking place the following Saturday. That one calls for a recorded mix of western classical and Bulgarian Orthodox liturgical music for use at a wedding. This is rather out of the ordinary, but something I shall enjoy.

Each afternoon this week, apart from walking into town for shopping, we've walked to the plage by the Chateau de Chillon so that Clare can swim. The water offshore is really warm at the moment after weeks of hot weather, although there lots of small pieces vegetation to be negotiated, blown from the trees on occasional stormy days. Even by Swiss standards it's been a long hot summer.

Because of the heat, we've not felt like venturing far up to now, but on Sunday, after church, we go by train to Grabs on the border with Lichtenstein to see our old friends Heinz and Marie-Luisa. As we both now have abonnements-demi tarif,  we were able to benefit from discount fare offers. It's costing  us CHF202 for the both of us to travel there and back - a four and a half hour journey. What this would cost in the UK doesn't bear thinking about.

A trip on the Train des Pléiades

I had intended to visit Lausanne today, but got caught up with writing a document for Ashley until lunchtime, and that discouraged me. Then I decided I should arrange to pay a pastoral call to one of the Villars church musicians, Brigitte aged 82, who's been hospitalised for many months due to advancing osetoporosis. I heard that she'd recently moved to another elderly people's residence in a hamlet on the mountainside above Blonay, overlooking Vevey, but wasn't sure which, as there are three in the commune. 

I called her mobile, and a few minutes later she answered on the landline in her room. Once I know which residence, I was able to hunt for it on Google Maps, and plan how to get there, as I was confusingly offered several different routes. Fortunately, Brigitte said that there was a train from Vevey which stops close to the residence, at gare Les Chevalleyres and the CFF train app was more helpful in revealing the rest of the information. This station is just within adjacent zones of the VMCV Public Transport network.

Les Chevalleyres is about 900m above sea level, in effect 500m above Vevey gare. There's a branch line with a modern narrow gauge train cremaillere, which ascends hourly to the Préalpes resort of Les Pléiades at 1,361m. The train climbs through modern suburban housing estates, then vineyards, pasture and woodland. I was fortunate to catch a connecting train to Vevey in time to arrive at the residence before sunset. I had an hour and a half with Brigitte before my return train. We talked in French for the entire time, even though she speaks English well. It's not the first me I've conversed about theology and spirituality in French, although not for many years. I enjoyed the challenge, as it really does concentrate the mind.

I couldn't buy a return ticket, and should have got a carte journaliere. If the visit had been a short one, a standard time expiry ticket would have done. I needed another such ticket for the return trip. There's no ticket machine on most of the request stop stations on this line, just a hotline phone. A brief call advised me to inform the train driver and when the trained stopped at Blonay, the driver told me to get one from a ticket machine on another platform. Easier said than done in the dark. First find the often uncooperative machine, then persuade it to deliver the ticket you want, all in four minutes. A nerve wracking experience, but I made it back on to the train with seconds to spare.

Back at Church House again an hour later, I switched on my Sony HX50, and was surprised to find that the live screen display blemish had disappeared. Whatever spec of material caused this may have been subject to surface static charge inside the camera, and that doesn't last, or behave in a consistent manner, but for now, it's gone.

   

Return to Switzerland

After a leisurely day of packing yesterday, I woke up to heavy rain. This ruled out walking to the Coach station, so I called for a taxi. The company advised leaving much earlier than usual just in case there was traffic congestion on Cathedral Road, which is usually the case on a normal working day, but being Christmas holiday week, it turned out to be more like a Sunday morning, so I arrived with three quarters of an hour to wait instead of fifteen minutes. Very little was done to prepare bus shelters for waiting passengers when the temporary coach station was established two years ago, so those in place are open to the elements. At least, the early rain had almost stopped and there was no wind, but I was glad to be wearing my old padded ski jacket.

The coach to Bristol Airport got me there dead on time, a ninety minute journey, same as the train and local bus combination, but cheaper and more relaxing despite cramped coach seats, rather like airline ones. I arrived five minutes before the auto-check in system for the Geneva flight was due to start, but was able to check in at a proper desk with a real counter clerk instead. For once, it too me twenty minutes to clear security, though not because queues were long or slow, rather, it was due to me being selected for a random scrupulous check, which entailed emptying my rucksack of all my digital devices including cameras, and everything being put through the scanner. I didn't mind, as there was no rush with two hours to the boarding flight call.

Altogether, I spent over three and a half hours waiting in the departure lounge, as our flight arrival was delayed. The pilot later explained this was their third round trip of four to Geneva for the day. The first two had been flights from Edinburgh, where the airport was still recovering from previous days of snow induced chaos. It could have been much worse. I was relived to get away as planned. I had to wait ages to retrieve my luggage at the other end, as it was in the last of four loads fetched in from the aircraft. There must have been two or possibly three flights arriving in close proximity, as half a dozen if not more of the passport booths in an arrival hall used by budget airlines were busy dealing with a huge crowd, and at a fair turn of speed, given the vital thoroughness of the process. 

By seven I was at the airport train station, buying an abonnement demi-tarif and ticket to Montreux. I had tried to buy on-line last night, but the payment system wasn't working. Never mind, I got a properly printed abonnement in a ticket wallet, which beats a crumpled print-out any time. I didn't have long to wait for a Montreux train, there are two or three every hour. I sat in a carriage which had another passenger from the Bristol flight, and we started chatting, after she'd noticed my cross and asked the reason for wearing it. She told me she attended neighbouring All Saints Vevey Anglican church. In fact, we'd both been at the same community luncheon back in September, when she was still on crutches following a hip operation. Such a small world!

Jane met me at Montreux gare and took me to St John's Church house. By half past nine I was installed and inspecting a fridge generously stocked with enough essentials to get me through the weekend and two days of public holiday that follow here. It was raining, just as it was in Cardiff this morning, only heavier. So pleased to be back again.

   

Another lakeside lunch

Andrea and Yvette come by train from Geneva to visit me today, and take me out to lunch. When they got off the train in Territet, they went into the open church to look for me, not realising for a while that Church House is next door, so it was nearly half past twelve then the doorbell rang. Like Dianne and Ian yesterday, they were amazed and delighted by the place.

We went down to the Port to eat, but being a Monday, 'Le Contretemps', like many other restaurants and bars was closed. Territet Tennis Club's bar and restaurant a hundred and fifty metres away was however open, and we were able to eat out on the terrace in the sun with a view of the lake behind tennis courts, to a soundtrack of practice games being played. The proprietor seemed to be single handed, waiting on tables and preparing meals, so service was slow,  but it hardly mattered as had so much to talk about. How marvellous to have been able to catch up with so many old friends during our time here. 

After eating and spending even more time catching up on news about mutual acquaintances, we walked along the lakeside to Montreux gare, where we parted company. Passing the covered market hall, much of the area was cordoned off for the removal of all the equipment installed for the weekend's festival of acrobatics - quite a logistic exercise, creating an outdoor gymnasium.

Being at the station, meant I could visit the ticket office and buy a one way full price fare this time, CHF36 for my horribly early return journey to Geneva Airport on Thursday. No more hassles with uncooperative ticket automats! After walking back home, I started thinking for the first time about gathering my belongings to start packing my case. Over the course of six weeks, stuff gets spread all over the house. As I get older, I am becoming more like Clare, who habitually starts packing several days before departure. We're not so good at last minute rush there days.

     

Visit to Bienne long overdue

I walked into Montreux gare to get the 10.45 train prescribed by my discount ticket. At Lausanne I changed for another inter-city express to take me in an easterly direction to Bienne, also known as Biel, as the roeschtigraben seems to run through this town, so French and German conversations can be overheard on the streets. You're never sure whether neighbourhood passers by are going to greet you with bonjour or groetzi as polite social custom requires. It keeps you on your toes. Laura met me in the station car park. We were both incredulous that our last meeting was in 2010, the summer I retired.

First stop was a big Migros supermarket to buy fish, fruit and veg to cook with, then to Laura's amazing modern wooden house whose exterior is entirely glazed in armoured dark glass. It has a modern kitchen too, with powerful induction hobs to cook with - a good as gas. She invested in photo voltaic solar panels early this year, a wise long term economy in a place which gets more than average sunshine.

Despite the unfamiliarity of the kitchen, cooking the paella went well. I felt especially blessed to be able to cook with olive oil, which Laura was recently given by a Florentine cousin - pressed from his own Umbrian olive trees. I was pleased with the end result, and thankfully, so was Laura. She'd bought a Catalan Tierra Alta Garnacha red wine, which we drank with the meal, and afterward some ice cream with figs her cousin had also preserved. Memorable flavours all round.

After lunch and washing up, we went for an hour's walk in the communal forest to the east of her housing estate. It's mostly deciduous woodland flanked by cornfields currently being harvested. At the turning point of our walk, the snow capped peaks of the Berner Oberland were visible across the fields, some seventy kilometres to the south.

There was much to catch up on. News of our children, and the story of how Laura has come through the nightmare experience of losing her husband Daniel when he was away walking high mountain paths in Corsica. His body still hasn't been found. He was an experienced mountain man, careful and fully aware of the risks.The only other person I ever met who shared this experience was Peggy in my last Parish, whose fiancé, a naval captain, disappeared in Cairo towards the end of the war, and was never found. It's hard to imagine what it means to live with a person's unfinished life story.  Laura never ceases to be a positive person, and says that having many friends, and an active, varied musical life have sustained her this past three years. "Despite what happens, you just have to get on with life in the end" she said. Or go under, I thought to myself. Such admirable courage.

I left on the 16.45 train to Lausanne. It was very crowded, but I found a seat, and dozed off half way along Lake Neuchatel, waking up only when arrival at Lausanne was announced. The connecting train once more was conveniently just a 30m walk from one platform to another, and I was back in Montreux, walking home by 18.15 after a very easy discount journey. 

The rest of the evening I spent helping Ashley with crisis management resulting from a breakdown of relationships over strategic policy in the BCRP Board of Management. It's what happens when busy people don't take sufficient time to develop a full understanding of what 'partnership' requires of them, or try to lead on the assumption that everyone must agree with them. Everybody does it. Brexit negotiations show this happening day by day.

  

Autumn equinox - already

Well that was an uncomfortable night, though not too painful thankfully. Now I am limping slightly, wearing shorts for the first time during my stay here, to avoid chafing the knee wound. It's many decades since I last had scabs on my knees. Bones and muscles don't seem to have been knocked out of alignment, thankfully, but localised kneecap swelling makes going up and down stairs awkward. I found some Voltarol Clare left behind, and rubbed that into the swelling, and over the course of the day, and with additional rest, the swelling diminished.

Earlier in the week when I discussed with Laura my trip to Bienne to see her, she suggested a way I could get a half price discount on an off peak fare, even though my abonnement demi-tarif expired last Saturday, by booking a ticket through the CFF website, branded as a billet degriffé. You have to register for the ticket with your name and date of birth, and it's not transferable. It's certainly worth the effort, if you have a flexible travel timetable, that's for sure.

Laura was church administrator at Holy Trinity Geneva during my time there, always able to find a good price, and the church benefited from them. She hasn't lost her touch in the twenty five years we've known each other. She travels a great deal as a professional musician and music teacher, and makes the best of internet commerce, something that wasn't available back then. To spare me using a UK bank card and having to pay currency conversion charges, she bought the ticket for me, and proposed reimbursement in the form of a paella lunch shopped for and cooked by me at her place.

This afternoon I ventured into town to see if I could obtain any of the Spanish spices I prefer to use, and assess how well I could walk. Thankfully, I had no joint pain, a great relief. But I did feel a little self-conscious about being out and about in shorts, as nobody else was. There were various paprikas on sale, all unknown and untried by me, but I couldn't find imported pimenton anywhere, only ground coriander, which I also needed. I also found a pack of chorizo sausages, quite a rarity here, and bought them to cook with, as they'll add an element of Spanish flavour to what is destined to be a seafood paella. Geneva shops, with a bigger Spanish population is more likely to stock what I need. There's a Portuguese shop opposite the station, with spices and sauces from back home, but not from the other side of the Iberian Peninsula.

After bouts of rain in the past week, the snow capping mountain peaks across the lake is thicker and lower than previously. Although it's pleasantly warm at the lakeside by day, the zero degree line up on high is creeping lower down, as autumn reveals itself. Many still green trees now have flecks of brown and gold in their foliage, though few have turned colour entirely. I learned recently that those responsible for tree maintenance, planting and planning have paid close attention to the diversity of deciduous and coniferous trees planted, and their positioning in the landscape, in order to enhance the array of autumn colours. We notice such stunningly beautiful displays, but don't realise the thought given to lending nature a hand.

This evening I was delighted to see on Facebook several photographs posted by Fr Phelim of Bishop June's visit to the foodbank in St Saviour's Splott, where she also celebrated St Matthew's Day. Adamsdown and Splott areas have been inner city urban mission frontiers for more than a century, so it's a positive affirmation of the 'Church for others' mindset which makes both St Saviour's and St German's marvellous parishes to minister in.

Luncheon outing

I received an email from former British honorary consul Sandra Darra, long retired but still very active as a member of All Saints Vevey congregation. She was inviting me to attend a community lunch she organises occasionally for British expats in the church hall. I decided to go to Lausanne today, and thought it would be a good idea to break my journey and enjoy eating in company for the second day in a row.

Yet again, I had trouble with the slow touch screen ticket machine at Territet station, and instead of receiving an open return day ticket, was issued a two hour time expired ticket on the local transport network. Both are the same price. This stopped me from going to Lausanne and having enough time for a good look around to refresh my memory of the place. I should just have bought a single ticket, but the thought of needing to use another of these wretched machines deterred me in the first place. So I paid more than I needed to for a trip to Vevey, and felt cheated by the misleading machine.

Anyway, I arrived in Vevey with enough time to look around and take photos before walking to the church, and joining nearly fifty people for a three course lunch. I met chaplain Clive Atkinson for the first time. He's been ministering her for fifteen years, a long spell in one place by diocesan standards. It means his five year contract has been renewed three times, and no wonder, as Vevey is a place with lots of opportunity for expat ministry, and he has excelled at building worshipping community. 

The group of diners was mostly older residents, several had come from Basel, other from Lausanne and Montreux. The food was good and the conversation interesting. It was after four by the time I made my way back to the train station, three hours after my inappropriate ticket expired.

Geneva reunion (2)

After an unhurried morning, we set out by car with Yvette to visit and have lunch with Alec and Ann-Marie still living close to the French border at the edge of Meyrin. Long ago I memorised the route to their place on back roads. Little has changed in their immediate area, but we missed the crucial turning and got a little lost. One significant change was unexpected. Memorised instruction from decades ago were to turn left on to Chemin Vert by the large white corner house. Since our last visit five years ago, it's been painted bright yellow, making this look like a different place, as most domestic dwellings hereabouts are white or grey.

Also invited to lunch were our friend Gill and another Yvette (Morris), plus the current Holy Trinity Chaplain Alex Gordon and his wife Geraldine. Alex and I have spoken on the phone, but it was good to enjoy their company. Inevitably we reminisced about people we'd known in times past. After all, it'll be 25 years this December since we went to live and work in Geneva. It occurred to me that so many of the remarkable people who were part of church and community life all those years ago, Alex may never have heard of, since he's only been there three years. It was an amazing adventure in ministry for me, not so much because of the place, but due to those who were the Body of Christ there, with great breadth of vision and high ideas, and memories reaching back to World War Two, and the start of the international organisations that make Geneva what it is today. I could only be a keen spectator on the scene, but a grateful and privileged one.

After a long and delicious lunch with a double helping of two of Ann-Marie's legendary desserts, we parted company. Traffic congestion being what it is, there was no question of Yvette dropping me off at Cornavin station. She drove back to Chambesy station on the back roads, to take the shuttle train to Cornavin to connect with the Inter City to Brig. This stopped at Lausanne, then went on to Montreux, the journey taking just one hour. I left Clare standing on Chambesy station chatting with the two Yvettes as they waited for the outbound shuttle to take one of them back to Pont Ceard. I was sad that Clare had to return home early to resume work with a kindergarten class, but the time we had together was enjoyable and precious.

Now there are domestic tasks to continue with, and Sunday sermon preparation, plus a few visits of my own to plan in coming weeks.

   

Geneva reunion (1)

After lunch we took the stopping Train Regional to Lausanne, then the non-stop Intercity to Geneva. The latter part of the trip takes just over half an hour now that the third railway track is operational for most of the route. We'd been invited to stay with our friend Yvette in Chambesy, and this meant catching the Train Regional which shuttles between Geneve Cornavin and Coppet at the east end of Geneva Canton, back toward Lausanne. Chambesy station is currently a building site. It's  being remodelled to create along the station length an additional section of rail track, to enable trains on a single line to pass each other. Once done, four shuttle trains an hour will run on the single line.

Hopefully, this will help attract more commuters away from car use. Geneva has a wonderful public transport network, and one of the worst imaginable road traffic congestion problems, as the city has borders with France on either side of the lake, and the only way to pass from one side to the other, and not go the long way round using the motorway bypass, is through the town centre, using the Pont du Mont Blanc, near to Holy Trinity Anglican Church. Debate has gone on since the 1980s about driving a road tunnel under the lake, or possibly building another bridge. Progress has been made on every other possible transport improvement, but not this. 

Recently, agreement has been reached to investigate bridge building possibilities, though how this could be funded remains to be seen, as the cost would run into billions of Swiss Francs. Figuring out how to get a return on the investment is not going to be easy. Swiss railway networks are subsidised, and trains are well used, but revenue is not rising. Fares have risen to compensate, but this tends to drive travellers back into car usage. Not a good idea. Modern economies rely entirely on efficient transport infrastructure. Rarely is this really profitable. Infrastructure running costs are a big social investment, a burden on tax like the NHS, and tax is how we invest collectively in having things work as well as everyone wants to work. But how we resent this!

Yvette met us at the station and drove us to her house. It's all so familiar, it doesn't seem like five years since we were last here and staying with her. In the evening, our friend Manel came over to join us for dinner, full of excitement about a guided tour of her native Sri Lanka she's organised for a church group visit, leaving this week. Doing detailed background research for this trip has been an absorbing and interesting experience for her. She discovered that a Chaplain of Holy Trinity Geneva in the 1930s, W S Senior, had previously ministered in Sri Lanka. This led her to research his biography with great interest. I learned that Holy Trinity Archive material is now being assembled to deposit in Geneva's Cantonal archive. It's another interesting process of discovery, but well worthwhile, given that the origins of the chaplaincy as a Church of England entity reach back into the late eighteenth century. 

  

Verbier wedding preparation

Another train journey this morning, to the Val de Bagnes for a wedding preparation session in the ski resort of Verbier, meeting Gary and Nicola, the bride and groom, for the first time, following a long series of email exchanges over the past three months, which has certainly reduced the number of explanations needed to be made about the whole event. We planned to meet at the Telepherique station in Verbier, and continue in a nearby restaurant.

My carefully timed journey nearly came to grief. I crossed the road to Territet gare with half an hour to spare before the Train Regional took me to Montreux gare for the InterRegio to Martigny. Yet again, I was unable to make sense of the information presented by the automatic ticket machine, which presented me with four Verbier destinations and connection details. I didn't know which to choose. Also the touch screen search mechanism seemed not to be functioning adequately to give what I needed when I returned to the beginning and repeated my search. Perhaps the network was busy, but I didn't know what to do, and panicked. 

Rather than travel one stop without a ticket and have a repeat performance by another machine at Montreux gare, I decided I still had enough time to make the fifteen minute walk to the booking office there, and gamble on there not being much of a queue. I reached there with ten minutes to spare before the Martigny train arrived, queued for five minutes and made it on to the platform a few minnutes before it appeared. The marked destination was Verbier, with none of the local options offered by the machine At Martigny, it's a two minute walk through the underpass to branch line platform 50 beyond the main station building where the Train Regional to Le Chable was waiting. 

An hour and ten minutes after leaving Montreux I stepped off the train in Le Chable on to a wooden temporary platform. The station area is a building site at the moment, with a huge trench excavated beside the railway line, I imagine, to house a car park for those who drive up the Val de Bagnes and then take the téléférique to Verbier. There was a yellow Car Postal waiting for passengers in the car park, and as it was conveniently there, I got on it, rather than waste time finding out how to access the téléférique. The fare is included in the ticket.

The bus climbs up from 850m to 1,530m over 7km from Le Chable to Verbier on a very good alpine road. The journey is fifteen minutes, twice as long as the téléférique, when the roads are empty of visitors. I can see it taking much longer in the ski season when people drive up laden with ski equipment and passengers. I fooled myself into believing the bus station would be in much the same location as the téléférique. No such luck. First, I had to ask directions, then walk uphill half a kilometre to reach our meeting place. I hardly recognised the town, as I was last here in the summer of 1999, on a week's study leave to prepare for the trip I was about to make to Mongolia. It's changed a lot. So it was like being a first time visitor, unfamiliar with the town layout and how things work.

Gary found me at the téléférique and took me to a nearby restaurant he'd mentioned. I'd not been able to find it for myself as it was in among several shops and its signage didn't stand out enough to make it recognisable from a distance. I discovered it was the couple's first Verbier visit also, so they were unfamiliar with the town plan, and thus unable to give clear directions for finding it. Anyway after introductions, I gave them a full briefing on the wedding service procedure, and then we drove a kilometre uphill to the ski village of Le Hameau at the foot of a nursery ski slope, which is a section of a golf course most of the year.

We had difficulty finding the chapel, and Gary called the local wedding arranger who came to join us. It took her a while to find the place. I got the impression this wasn't a venue she'd used before, and hadn't visited it, only seen it on the internet, like the bride and groom. It was in a courtyard with modern chalets of wood and stone in the style of Valais houses with a restaurant, all around the courtyard. The entire complex was deserted, possibly having few or no permanent residents, but could be accessed most easily by driving into an underground car park. Summer holidaymakers had already gone, so the place won't see many people coming to stay until autumn half term, or until December, when the nursery slopes are once more snow clad.

At one end of the courtyard stand La Chapelle du Hameau built in wood and stone, matching the chalets. It's of the same age as is surroundings, also in traditional alpine style re-imagined, with some lovely stained glass panels, a full sized glass window overlooking a small enclosed rock garden, with the sculpted image of the Crucified One strikingly suspended in mid-air, over an altar table made from a granite boulder. It's designated as an Ecumenical chapel, dedicated to Our Lady, represented by a life sized image on a wooden panel on the north wall of the sanctuary, said to date from the 13th century, brought from elsewhere. Its pews hold up to fifty people.

A stone embedded in the church's threshold is engraved with a mason's mark and dated 1903, suggesting there was a previous chapel sited here, as the present one, like the housing complex, dates from 1990. A lovely place for a wedding, though the shuttered buildings and the absence of local occupants made it feel somewhat folorn, under low cloud and spitting rain. But, a far better place to be than a thousand meters further up the mountainside in the outdoor venue originally planned.

With the day's preparations completed, I was driven back to the téléférique, where I discovered the hard way that my train ticket didn't extend to a cable car ride as well. SBB/CFF rail travel booking app and timetable gives timings which include this way of getting to the top, when there is no bus, but doesn't mention that you have to pay extra. I went up in the left to the departure platform only to find an automated access gate which scans bar coded tickets. Mine had no bar code, so I returned to the entrance area and found ticket machines which again offered me all kinds of travel options in the Quatre Vallées region ski lifts, none of which made sense. There was no single button to press for an aller simple to Le Chable.

In frustration, I stomped down the main street to the station Car Postal only to find I'd just missed the bus on which my train ticket was valid, leaving me 55 minutes to wait, so I stomped back up the hill to find a booking office open with a real human being to pay nine francs to ride the cable car back to the Le Chable station, in good time to catch the 16.11 train to Martigny, and soon life went back to being normal, smooth and predictable.