A very Swiss day

“She is a new Swiss citizen,” my baked bean/cassoulet friend said to the waiter. We were having a celebratory lunch at the Château des Penthes www.chateau-de-penthes.ch/home.htm

As we pondered between the hot mushroom salad with smoked duck and pine nuts and a lamb dish, the waiter suggested we choose as a starter the vegetable soup. “All Swiss grown for the new Suissess.” He said it with a grin. The same with the wine. He wanted me to be sure I had Swiss wine, which is not a hardship. And the bread was Swiss. I asked him about the brown, wicker basket.

“Bought in Switzerland,” he said and I saw him swallow a giggle.

Our meals topped off with tarte des pommes and vanilla ice cream with specs of vanilla pod, we walked in the park, savouring the fall air, the smell of fallen leaves. Some of the trees were so beautiful in their size and bough structures that I wondered if there were some cosmic tree sculptor responsible. And having the lake and snow-capped mountains didn’t hurt either.

The park wasn’t a new exploration. I had walked all my dogs there before they went to the great dog biscuit factory in the sky. Unlike those times, my baked bean/cassoulet friend made no request to be picked up and carried.

Thus we meandered and talked and talked an meandered among the Swiss trees, the Swiss grass, the Swiss stones, the Swiss Château, a very Swiss day.