Chamois Herd, their Last Easy Meal....

...... was eaten today because tonight the first real snows will arrive where they are living, on the side of Les Diablerets Massif. They will survive, scratching through snow drifts to find some plants to eat, but mainly they will survive on the fat they have built up during the summer and autumn if they avoid avalanches! It's a hard life for these beautiful animals. I was fortunate to observe (from behind a rock as they are very alert) about 20 of them grazing before they walked off into the cliffs above. The weather started changing rapidly and I walked to the mid station of the Glacier 3000 cable car and was whisked back from the wilderness to civilisation.

Civilisation is an interesting concept. Calling In at The Co-op on the way home, I gave money to a softly spoken lady, selling the Swiss equivalent of The Big Issue, then gave a big bag of tangerines to a woman collecting for people who need food parcels. Where is our civilisation going and how much worse could it be in America, depending on the election? The result will have world wide repercussions: but the chamois, they should survive this crisis.

Sorry to go on a bit tonight, feeling somewhat raw. Thanks for all the presents for yesterday's mountains blip, you are a lovely lot.