We were awoken by a 5am thunderstorm - all thunderbolts and lightning, very very frightening. When we arose later, we saw the evidence of the storm in the muddy Aare River, and the workers opening the sluice gates from the channel down to the river.

Given the inclement weather, we had a quiet morning, but as skies cleared a little we thought we would make the most of our last day in Bern by taking a drive down to the old bastide town of Gruyere with Doug and Lynne. On the way down, we stopped at the Rest Area at Lake Gruyere, and waited for a storm to pass though. When we arrived at Gruyere, the weather was overcast and threatening, but not raining, so we thought we had lucked out again.

So we went for a walk around the town, exploring the various buildings and shops. That afternoon, a band in traditional uniform was playing, and one of my favourite shots was one of the guys taking photos on his smartphone of the other band members - I just loved the juxtaposition. Maybe he was collecting evidence on the other band members who had just emerged from a local “tea-room” - perhaps they had not been drinking tea during lunch. When we heard them playing a little while later, it was clear that it had not been tea! Now we started to understand Rita’s rule about not drinking in between sets at our gigs (-:

When we continued our walk, we could see rain approaching the town and before long we were walking in the rain. But we couldn’t complain, since this was the first time we had been caught outdoors in the rain since the band arrived in Europe over a month ago. We soon headed down the hill again to the car, and arrived just as the skies opened, so once again we were lucky.

Since the day was coming to an end, we were now heading to Friburg, where we were scheduled to have dinner with one of Rita’s other brothers, Lothar. On the way, however, an accident on the motorway had brought it to a standstill. Luckily, we reached the end of the queue just at the entrance to the rest area at Lake Gruyere, so we pulled off the motorway, did a u-turn and went back to the last motorway entrance, where we got onto the cantonal road for the trip to Friburg. Once we got to Friburg, we headed to the University to look at a sculpture that Kuno had constructed many years ago. It still looked in fine condition, and was just as powerful as I had remembered it from 1998.

When we got to Lothar’s place, we met up with Rita’s dad Frank and later with Lothar’s son, Janik, both of whom had cruised with us on Kanumbra last year. Dinner at Lothar’s was a fantastic rack of venison, which fuelled conversations long into the night. Eventually, we took our leave and headed back to Bern, dropping off Frank and then Doug and Lynne. As we dropped Doug and Lynne, we met up with Gere who had arrived back from his holiday in Italy. We thanked him for the loan of his apartment, and then stood out in the street chatting until well after midnight, before finally heading home to Kuno's.