Thursday 1 November

Both of us stayed up late last night, which is always suspicious on the last day of the month, and so as we simultaneously lunged at each other after midnight, we agreed to call November a draw for Pinch’n’Punch.

Rita had arranged to take Mutti to the city on the bändli (tram) today, but after her trip out yesterday, Mutti was still feeling a bit tired and so the trip was cancelled. Instead, we went over to her place for a visit before lunch, and then Rita and I went for a walk on Dentenberg. After we parked the car on the entrance to the Dentenberg plateau, the first thing we saw was a Christmas Tree Farm. We have often thought about establishing a Xmas Tree Farm at Taggerty, so we paid close attention to how they had done it here.

We then walked across to a little farm, and were amazed at the vegetable garden (with low hedges).

This farm also had a little market shed selling pumpkins of all shapes and sizes.

We were particularly impressed by the basket of pumpkins of all shapes and colours. We bought half a dozen as a gift for one of Rita’s best friends.

We then went for a walk across the ridge of Dentenberg and past the forest where Mutti likes to walk.

As we reached the other side of the ridge, we went up through a forest with a floor of autumn leaves.

We emerged into the sun again above the town of Worb, to be greeted by a couple of horse riders.

We sat there on a bench for quite a while just enjoying a view of the countryside and the Alps in the distance.

As we left this area to go across to the other side of Dentenberg, we were farewelled by this hound who must live on an adjacent farm. With the Alps in the background, this looked like a classic Swiss scene.

On the other side of the hill, we saw this traditional Swiss building, with housing at the front and the farm buildings behind and underneath.

We also saw this “birth pole” which Swiss farms erect to celebrate the arrival of a new child on the farm.

As we left Dentenberg, I got this shot showing several layers of hills, mountains and Alps.

We then went back for afternoon coffee with Mutti, and in the evening we went to dinner with Frank and Annette at their house.

Friday 2 November

Today was Rita's 57th birthday. But for most of the day, she was in no mood for celebrating, as she was feeling unwell and developing a migraine headache - maybe too much red wine last night at Frank’s? So she slept all day to try to recover, because tonight she was having a birthday dinner with Regina, Sarah and Albon. Luckily she recovered sufficiently to enjoy it - the Comte hats and aprons provided by Albon (his cows provide milk used to make Comte cheese) added to the festive spirit.

Saturday 3 November

In the morning, I continued work on this blog. while Rita went over to Mutti for a chat and coffee. The trees outside Mutti’s old apartment were certainly developing some good autumn colours.

In the afternoon, various members of Rita’s family arrived at the old apartment to lay claim to various of Mutti’s leftovers that she had not taken to her new apartment at the nursing home. While they did this, I went for walk and found this solitary mushroom growing in a lawn of green.

Sunday 4 November

Since today was our last day in Bern this time around, we took stuff over to Mutti for her to store in her basement room, and then came back to collect our own stuff for the trip back to Auxonne. As we pulled into the parking spot for the last time, I noticed a gorgeous collection of autumn colours in front of us. Sometimes you just don’t see things that are staring you in the face.

We then hit the road to drive to Besain, where we had coffee with Sarah&Albon, before continuing the drive to Auxonne. We got there just before sunset and were rewarded with this view of a swan at sunset.

It was good to see "home sweet home” again, and so I bled wheelhouse heater once more, and we relaxed in the warmth of the barge and with a simple home-cooked dinner.