Parting, meeting and thoughts on homelessness

We walked into Montreux Gare this morning, in good time to catch a train that would reach Geneva airport by eleven o'clock in just eighty minutes. Lac Leman was shrouded in mist with just the snow capped peaks of the Savoyard Alps visible. Enchanting, mysterious, magical. We kissed goodbye at the security check entry, and I was back on a train to Montreux just after one. I had time to shop and cook myself lunch and eat it before welcoming a group of half a dozen church people for tea and cake with topical discussion on biblical themes. It was good to have guests in, to take the edge of being home alone in this large and welcoming abode.

Following the surprise appearance of Natalya at the Epiphany party on Sunday, discussion focused on homelessness, and the image of the Holy Family in exile. The reasons for anyone becoming homeless are generally complex, and it seems that modern life, although it caters so well in many respects, for needy and vulnerable people, doesn't cater for everyone in this kind of trouble. Here in Switzerland, so famed for its hospitality towards exiles and refugees over many decades (it is said, accounting for one in six of the population), there are still people who slip through the net because they are sans-papiers, not registered on anybody's system, lacking residence or work permits, even if they have a passport or i/d card. These do not qualify for social support, and can be eligible for transport as far as the nearest border, where they become someone else's problem.

This may particularly affect those with untreated mental health issues who cannot be fitted into any country's health care programme or budget. This was the case twenty years ago when I was in Geneva dealing with persistent needy individuals from far off places, not fitting into any of the usual categories of refugee or asylum seeker needs. All the expected provisions of care are there for citizens who have maintained an identity, or foreigners who have acquired the right to stay,  but not for those whose mental or social conditions have led them to disconnect from society and slide into anonymity. This is a human concern which knows no borders. I'd love to know who, if anyone is at work on these issues internationally.

Having arrived in the departure hall with the best part of two hours to wait before boarding, Clare found that her flight was delayed by an hour, just as mine was on the outward flight, but she was home again by tea time. She's not a noisy person, but tonight the house seems quiet without her.

  

Winter journeys

Thankfully, only a few inches of snow settled during the night, and the temperature stayed the right side of freezing to stop everything turning to ice, and traffic was running freely, except that the road running past Kenilworth Castle was made impassible for a while by water over-flowing a low lying section of main road still known as 'The Ford', causing congestion elsewhere. Our route out of town, when we left at noon was not at all busy. 

It neither rained now snowed, while we travelled, despite being overcast. By the time we reached the M50, we drove out from beneath the pall of cloud into bright sunshine and blue skies. The weather system producing traffic chaos didn't extent Westwards into Wales, so we were most fortunate to have a trouble free drive, all the way.

I'm glad to have a day in hand to organise myself properly for travelling to Switzerland, as I have an early start on Friday morning, catching the coach to Bristol Airport at nine. No sooner than I've unpacked from our Christmas trip, it's time to get ready for the next. A bigger suitcase than usual is needed for the extra wollens. Montruex Church Warden Jane phoned me this evening and said that there'll be no church car, as it was more than it was worth to bring it up to the Swiss equivalent of our MOT. I'll buy a month's abonnement demi-tarif fare card instead, and share the cost with the chaplaincy. It works for nearly all public transport, as I found last time.

Swiss train travel - a holiday from uncertainty

There was thunder and lightning in the night. We woke up to see clouds rolling in from the west into the Rhine Valley, giving the landscape a magical and mysterious countenance. Rain was promised for later, but after a memorable Swiss fruhstuck, Heinz went and collected a Renault Megane estate from the Mobilis a local car short term rental pool, to drive us to one of their favourite places in the mountain territory of nearby Lichtenstein, on the other side of the Rhine Valley.

Half an hour later we were climbing a thousand metres up a winding  mountain road to a calm and solitary place in the forest, where currently a clinic is being constructed for patients suffering from burn-out. When it's open, it is unlikely to suffer from a scarcity of clients in our insanely pressurised modern world. We parked nearby, and followed a pathway along a contour through pine trees rooted seemingly precariously, on an extremely steep mountainside. I was surprised to see two different enclosures in which donkeys were grazing and wondered why there were being raised here so remotely from the urbanised valley floor below.

Cloud was already partially obscuring the view below, but only towards the end of our walk did it envelop us. Shortly after we reached the car, it began to rain, and continued steadily until it was time for me to take my leave and return to Montreux. Clare stays another day, but I need to travel to Verbier tomorrow, an hour's journey from Montreux, for a wedding preparation ahead of Saturday's service.

The train from Buchs to Sargans was three minutes late. This left one minute to change to the mainline express train to Zurich - four minutes allowed by the phone app. Energised by the challenge, I ran to the necessary platform, arriving as the express pulled in. It then waited to collect case-lugging stragglers, while I settled into a seat and regained by breath. We left three minutes late. How kind. We arrived punctually in Zurich, where the Lausanne train was waiting. Likewise at Lausanne, the train to Montreux  arrived conveniently as I crossed the platform to wait for it. 

This took me to Montreux in time buy some bread and wine before returning to Church House, as it was a late opening night at the COOP. The only disappointment was a half hour wait for a bus to Territet to complete the journey. The scheduled bus didn't appear. The next one wasn't a full sized electric bendy bus, but smaller. It was rammed with passengers already.  If it hadn't been raining, I'd have walked back anyway, but didn't relish the thought of arriving soaked through,. So I waited instead. I might well have been back in Cardiff waiting for a bus. Timetabling post-rush hour, when services and vehicles deployed change over, rarely delivers what post rush hour bus travellers find satisfactory. 

I'd like to think that in the next quarter of a century, real-time information about travellers' needs on local public transport networks will provide services to match, in the way that rail networks across Switzerland seem to achieve as a matter of national pride.

    

A day on the train

One of the reasons for obtaining abonnenements demi-tarifs was the cost of an outing to the Rhine Valley in the eastern Swiss Canton of Saint Gall to see our old friends Heinz and Maria-Luisa. Clare studied eurythmy with them in Stourbridge when I was Team Rector of Halesowen in the late 1980s. Since we last visited them five years ago Heinz has retired, and they've moved from their wonderful eco-house in Grabs to a smaller modern penthouse apartment in nearby Buchs. It's not that we saved much money on the total expenditure for this trip, but rather savings on all other trips we can make in the month's duration of the abonnement which justifies the initial expenditure.

This morning there was a midweek BCP Communion service at St John's, but nobody came, apart from Clare and I, but we continued with the service anyway, so we could remember our Parish Priest back home in Cardiff, Fr Mark Preece, who's in hospital for an operation. This meant that we could leave an hour earlier for our trip across Switzerland. 

First, we took the Train Regional to Lausanne, then the InterCity to Zurich in the north east of the country, to connect with another InterCity train to Coir/Chur caiptal of the the Grisons, somewhere we've never been. In each case, we had time to make the connection without difficulty, aided by the brilliant and comprehensive SBB/CFF smartphone app (or internet site, take your pick), which gives timings and platform numbers, all the detail a traveller could possibly want in your own language. It's so accurate, it's what the train conductors use. Our total journey time, four hours.

The Zurich Coir/Chur train connects with a local shuttle train to Buchs at Sargans, where Heinz met us at tea-time, and took us to a local bus from the station while he cycled home ahead of us. The bus gave us a few moments of humour, as the driver couldn't get it to start properly, and kept diving under the bonnet before he could get all the electronic on-board systems started working properly, and when we got going, he grumbled to us in Schwiezerdeutch over the tannoy.

Heinz and Maria Luisa's apartment is on the roof of a three storey block with amazing views of the  mountains enclosing the Rhine Valley on all sides. The south side walls are mainly high strength insulating glass, as are the interior rooms on this side. Temperature control and room privacy is managed by the use of opaque blinds. With a series of glass doors to open, rather than windows, it's easily possible to ventilate the apartment for eight months of the year. What it's like in colder times it's hard to imagine, though it has a wood burning hearth set in among the south side windows, also, I think, underfloor heating. We had much more to talk about than domestic design, so some of my curiosities remain un-tended. 

The evening was spent catching up with each others' lives, and eating outdoors on the apartment terrace as the sun set. We're in a Canton where church bells still ring at six in the morning, nine at night and at lunchtime, quite apart from church clocks ringing four times an hour. Such timekeeping is a legacy from the old days in this era of digital timekeeping, but it's likely to be bound into civil as much as ecclesiastical regulation to maintain the status quo.

Church bells are rung nowadays not by an ancient sacristan entrusted with the job, but by an electro-mechanical timing device, which is far more impersonal. No doubt many people if not most, regard this as redundant, unnecessary, if not an intrusion, in a world oppressed by many digital alarms. For me the sound of church bells, with their unique character in every place they are rung, by whatever means, for whatever purposes are a reminder of the opening words from the Paschal Vigil.

'Christ, yesterday, today and forever: all time belongs to him and all eternity, to Him be glory forever.'

When the technological failure is yours

We were fortunate yesterday's weather was warm and fine, allowing us to walk and talk with Colette along the lake shore to the Chateau de Chillon and back. Today's morning weather was ominous and overcast. Clare and Colette went for a walk after breakfast, but I stayed in to work on producing a baptism certificate ready for Sunday. I'll also need to take with me a suitable large bowl to use as a font, the St John's Paschal Candle and a decent plain baptismal candle for the child. Aiglon Chapel is simple Vaudois Protestant in its furnishing, and doesn't have a font, only an altar table.

After an early lunch, we walked with Colette along the lakeside to Montreux gare for her return train to Basel. It began to rain, lightly at first, but we arrived at the station and were under cover as the full downpour began. After waving Colette off, we made our way, dodging the heavier rain to the COOP supermarket in the centre of town. Several days ago we made some food purchases here. Clare paid with a preloaded currency Mastercard containing Swiss Francs and Euros. As the transaction was completing she noticed on the terminal display that the CHF bill amount was converted into Sterling, and then back to CHF for debiting from the card. Later inspection of the relevant smartphone app confirmed that this procedure added one and a half Swiss Francs to the bill, due to differences in currency purchase and sale rates in those few fleeting seconds. 

Something was wrong, and we formed the opinion that the default for UK Mastercard must be to convert CHF to ££ automatically. Anyway, Clare decided to tackle the store manager about this, and returned next day. He was puzzled, and promised to investigate and report back, when he had found out what happened. She forgot to give him the Church House phone number however, so we popped in to give him this, and buy a few food items, with cash if needs be.

After spending a while inspecting the wine shelves, curious  to learn where apart from Switzerland the store obtains its produce (I didn't actually buy anything), I found Clare chatting to a charming checkout lady. It seems others in the sales team were aware of the card issue. We checked out our purchases, and Clare inserted the card. It showed a menu she'd not noticed when punching in her PIN on our first visit. It showed payment options possible with the card - CHF, Euros, and Sterling. The latter was shown first in the till menu, given the card's origin and use with UK currency pre-loaded as well as other kinds. It's an option a card user has to remember to reject in favour of the currency desired. So it was, in reality a simple case of caveat emptor. The purchaser must instruct the card how to behave. It's not automatic. Clare had, in fact, automatically treated her new multi-currency card as she would use a normal debit card.

Still, it wasn't quite as embarrassing an encounter as it may sound. Her conversation with the store manager aimed to suggest staff be reminded to check with foreign customers about their choice of currency, when a multi-use currency debit card was presented. With so many foreign clients from all over the world, it must happen from time, retail staff are generally keen to follow best practice and remind clients of the options in front of them. As we cheerfully parted company with the checkout lady, the store manager appeared, bearing a bottle of Pinot Noir du Valais (one of our favourites!) as a good-will gift. I was astonished by the generosity of spirit this displayed. After all, we made our own mistaken, due to lack of experience in using the card. How marvellous!

We then went to the nearby Metro centre for a cup of coffee in a place with a balcony window which overlooks the lake, and watched the rain slowly diminish and the sky start to lighten. Eventually we caught the bendy trolleybus back to Territet to avoid getting wet. We asked the driver if we could buy a ticket and he pointed to a ticket automat in other half of the vehicle. Then I realised when the bus drove so far from the shelter before stopping. People got on via the back entrance, somewhat counter intuitive. 

By the time we reached the machine, walking up a fast moving bus, two of the four stops had been passed, and we were speeding the last leg to Territet. Neither of us could make sense of the picket purchasing routine, nor how much of a ticket we needed. There are no machines at bus stops, just an information panel which would make more sense to locals, the primary users, than to foreigners. 

Bus ticket machines also have an entirely different user interface from the ubquitous CFF ticket machines, almost identical to others of its kind, at least, all over Europe. Since we couldn't figure out how to pay, we decided to get off at the next stop. It turned out to be our stop. I felt bad, getting off without paying, and humiliated by being unable to read or work the ticket machine while the bus was moving about vigorously. Welcome to old age, I thought. 

This is likely to happen increasingly, given the pace of technological innovation, as our responses to change of any kind slow up - the way my sister June complaining about. The world about us just seems to get quicker, leaving us on this occasion bewildered and embarrassed, not yet helpless.

Montreux's Old Town

We both slept late and made a slow start to the day, but after lunch we walked to Montreux Gare to enquire about tickets for our forthcoming travels. The day travel card is still good value but only for a nine hour train excursion. Its price is has increased from CHF50 to CHF60 over the past decade, understandably, but now there may be no price advantage for travelling to Buchs to visit Heinz and Marlies as we plan to do next week, unless we buy a carnet of six for the price of five, which would make each single journey six francs cheaper. This would leave us two spare tickets for another day trip together, but we can't decide at the moment where we would go on the few spare days we have left, given that we're arranging to see several old friends over the coming couple of weeks while Clare is here with me.

We walked from the station up into Montreux Vielle Ville, through which the train cremailere up to Glion, Caux and Rochers de Naye runs. The old village spans both sides of a steep ravine with a fast flowing stream, and walking routes which take you up the Gorge de Chauderon to the heights of the Col de Jaman.  Houses are stone built, 3-4 storeys high with shuttered windows and wide eaves, solidly built, rather plain, and asutere, reflecting their protestant social environment. We found the mediaeval church of St Vincent, patron saint of wine growers, perched on a rocky promontory and flanked on either side by neat rows of vines, planted on steep slopes. It's the protestant Temple of the Paroisse de Veytaux, a building of 13th century origins, ordered with great simplicity and respect for its primary liturgical functions of celebrating word and sacrament. It would serve equally for Roman Catholic services as for protestants today. One thing lacking is a font. It's fairly rare to find one in Vaudois protestant churches, app part of its particular reformation history no doubt.

Rather than walk back into Montreux, we followed a road and a footpath which led us back down to Territet and into the churchyard garden where, this evening, I found the tombstone of Henri Nestle founder of the great chocolate empire. I can't help wondering what the grand old man, who died in the first year of the twentieth century would make of the company's way of doing business in the twenty first.

   

Swiss discount travel sorted

Yesterday morning I took a funeral service at Thornhill crematorium for a man who'd died alone at home. He'd been an angler who'd lived in Cardiff in the last decade of his life, and had not made any friends. There were just six mourners. It was possibly the smallest funeral congregation I've had in decades. Being alone in the wilds of nature can be a consolation, and for some even, a way of life. To be alone in a city, infirm only able to remember past haunts is sad to contemplate.

Clare and have both been thinking about our forthcoming time in Switzerland, people we hope to see, places to visit. Our dear friends Alec and Ann-Marie will be in Anzere as we arrive, and as that's not too far from Montreux we'll be able to meet up with them. Cousin Dianne and husband Ian plan to be in Monthey some time during our stay, and we have Geneva visits lined up as well. When I checked my regular medication, I found I'd be a week short before returning home, so I wrote to my GP, and dropped a letter into the surgery, conveniently located near St Catherine's, where I went to celebrate the midweek Eucharist for ten of us this morning.  

Travel in Switzerland is a pleasure, since public transport is so good. It's expensive, but value for money if you buy an abonnement demi-tarif which gives you 50% discount on public transport fares and some special offers on museum entry charges etc. When we were in Geneva we had an annual subscription, but visitors can buy one for a month. It can be obtained on-line, but there are several websites offering similar services. Sorting out which one to use and how the system delivers the product is a headache, because several options are available - digital, postal, pick up at the airport station on arrival - but, by the evening we had spent nearly a hundred quid each and received a digital document for printing which, presented with one's passport entitles us to half price train tickets. The outlay will soon be covered with trips we have planned.