For years I wore no watch, and then I took up scuba diving, and then I wanted to wear a watch when climbing, and then it escalated from there. Now I have Garmin, Suunto Apple, Casio, Xiaomi and other watches. It’s easy to justify wearing the Apple watch because it’s a smart watch so it has a niche. It’s harder to justify the Garmin, Suunto, Xiaomi and Casio watches because they overlap each other.

I watched J’ai perdu de vue le paysage at Vision Du Réel last week and I don’t know whether I like or dislike this documentary, ironically for the very topic that it is exploring. The idea of the eternal return, repeated over, and over. The premise of the documentary was simple. “I have a neighbour and I want to make a documentary about him preparing his next show”, except that inspiration is hard to find, and then the pandemic comes in and scuppers plans for the show to take place, and then there is uncertainty during lockdowns, and the wait for public life to be rebooted, and then the show takes place.

If you’re ready to use buses and trains opportunities for walks and hikes open up. Yesterday’s hike, for example, was possible because we parked the cars in Marchairuz before catching a bus to Le Pont. That’s where we met another part of the group before hiking from le Pont, to the Col de Mollendruz. From here we saw the defensive Toblerones before heading back down. I didn’t expect that the path would take us back down, lower than the road, through the trees for a while, before getting to a clearing and a parking where the smell of barbecue was present.

Over 107 years ago when the disease was not yet understood and under control when someone fell sick with leprosy they would be sent out of society to live alone in caves to avoid the spread of their affliction. It’s only later that the disease was understood and became treatable. The documentary did not address much about the construction of the sanatorium except to say that convicts that were sentenced to death for a crime were made to build the ramparts around the city.

There is an amusing situation. In the morning, when I sit at a table I get brilliant light shining into my eyes. As a result I wear sunglasses indoors. This might sound absurd but it’s for a simple reason. As roofs are covered with solar panels, so roofs that were once made of slate or clay have become mirrors. These mirrors, at the right time of day becoming blinding. You see this when you hike, as well.

Vision Du Réel is a documentary film festival that takes place every year, or almost. It is an opportunity to watch documentary films on a screen bigger than a laptop or television. Many films are screened with the director/producer but they are also screened a second time. Yesterday I went to watch The Mountains Won’t Move. It is an observational, cinéma verité style film. There is no narration. There are no subtitles.

This weekend I went on two hikes. The first was from St-Cergue to La Dôle and back and the second was from Marchairuz to St Cergue. It amounts to about 66,000 steps and thirty four kilometres of hiking. The La Dôle walk is a familiar walk that I have from multiple directions over the years so it was relaxing. There were some patches of snow where appropriate shoes and crampons or hiking sticks will help but other than that the conditions are good.

It’s easy to look at what people are doing and to travel two hours on a train or in a car. In practice it’s a way of exploring the local area and seeing things that you wouldn’t otherwise see. On the flipside sometimes it is nice to stay local. I went from seeing that a hike was in Gstaad that would take two hours to get to, to seeing a hike that would take an hour to get to and participate in, to another.

This morning the transition from Swisscom to Galaxus was completed. I moved from Swisscom to Galaxus because it’s up to 50 CHF cheaper. Whereas I was paying about 70 CHF with Swisscom I now pay 19 CHF per month when I am within Switzerland, and I can pay 39 CHF per month when roaming in Europe. The one issue with this is that if I switch to roaming then it lasts for two months, not one before I can switch back.

Yesterday I went for a hike from Le Day down to the Saut du Day before going up towards the Aiguilles de Baume and beyond. In the process I saw six or more wind mills. The hike is 21.71km long, took about 6hr41 1178m of ascent and 895m of descent.Moving time was around 4hr55min. To simplify the route, it follows the Chemin Des Crêtes du Jura most of the time. To be more specific it was stage 12 There is a detour to explore a little cave which is not as spectacular as other caves I have been through.