Today I left Elwyn and Rob in town to hire mountain bikes and do some crazy things on them amongst the hills around Chamonix. That gave me most of the day to do a long walk south of the village, with my MacBook of course so I could stop and write often. Along the way I found this gorgeous little pine cone. Rob photographed it in case I couldn’t take it through customs. And it’s on the map of my walk – very clever of him:-)

Along the way I found an old, old plough horse, happily spending his days in the pasture. And a very busy, burbling stream – special ‘cos we have so few of them where I come from.