Large White Butterfly (Pieris brassicae) Photo By Alvesgaspar – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4087693

Dear Readers, today I started the Big Butterfly Count for 2025 – I’m planning on doing one in the front garden, where there’s a buddleia, some scabious and various other pollinator-friendly plants, and one in the back garden, where the hemp agrimony seems to attract a whole other range of small butterflies, such as Gatekeepers. But, as is usually the case, as soon as I set my timer for 15 minutes all the butterflies head off for a tea break. In the end, I had two Large White butterflies, who chased one another round and round for a bit before heading off up the road.

Sigh.

Still, there are lots of other things to look at, and in particular I’m intrigued with these teeny tiny little bees. They are some species of Lassioglossum or Furrow bees, but I’d have to trap them and dissect them to be sure, which seems very inhospitable. They love my Mexican Fleabane, and good luck to them! While the butterflies might be absent, these insects are having a fine old time.

And here’s a hoverfly – I’m used to seeing the big ones just lately, but this species is very small and neat. I’m pretty sure this is a Syrphus hoverfly, but which species would require someone who could examine the hairs on the fly’s legs, which is unlikely to be me.

And so, tomorrow, if the weather holds, I shall investigate what pops into the back garden. I hope if any of you are doing the Big Butterfly Count you have a few more ‘flutterbys’ to report!

Andrea Gibson (Photo By Andrea Gibson – Friend, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=152126249)

Andrea Gibson died aged 49 of ovarian cancer a few weeks ago. Such a loss, but what a legacy they have left us. See what you think.

How the Worst Day of My Life Became the Best

Andrea Gibson 1975 – 2025

When you are trapped in a nightmare, your motivation to awaken will be so much greater than that of someone caught up in a relatively pleasant dream.
—Eckhart Tolle

When I realized the storm
was inevitable, I made it
my medicine.

Took two snowflakes
on the tongue in the morning,
two snowflakes on the tongue
by noon.

There were no side effects.
Only sound effects. Reverb
added to my lifespan,
an echo that asked—

What part of your life’s record is skipping?
What wound is on repeat?
Have you done everything you can
to break out of that groove?

By night time, I was intimate
with the difference
between tying my laces
and tuning the string section

of my shoes, made a symphony of walking
away from everything that did not
want my life to sing.

Felt a love for myself so consistent
metronomes tried to copyright my heartbeat.

Finally understood I am the conductor
of my own life, and will be even after I die.
I, like the trees, will decide what I become:

Porch swing? Church pew?
An envelope that must be licked to be closed?
Kinky choice, but I didn’t close.

I opened and opened
until I could imagine that the pain
was the sensation of my spirit
not breaking,

that my mind was a parachute
that could always open
in time,

that I could wear my heart
on my sleeve and never grow
out of that shirt.

That every falling leaf is a tiny kite
with a string too small to see, held
by the part of me in charge
of making beauty
out of grief.

Chicory (Cichorium intybus)

Dear Readers, what a lovely, lovely plant this is! I don’t know of many flowers which are exactly this shade of lavender blue, and it was a pleasure to see a big stand of it at Heartwood yesterday. As you might have guessed, this is a member of the Daisy family (Asteraceae), and my Harrap’s Wild Flower guide describes it as an ‘ancient introduction’. But why was it introduced? Well, strange as it may seem, the ‘chicory’ that we see in greengrocers is just the cultivated variety of this plant, and both endive and radicchio are also descended from ‘wild’ chicory.

The plant has been cultivated in the UK since at least the early 16th century, when it was known as ‘succory’ – there were many tricks for producing the blanched spears, by forcing the plant in dark cellars (much like forced rhubarb) or under flower pots.

Belgian endive (Witloof)

Chicory root has also long been used as a coffee substitute – I remember drinking it as an impoverished student back in the late 1970s, though it was never a favourite. Apparently, in 1766 Frederick the Great of Prussia banned the importation of coffee, and a local innkeeper started to use roast chicory root instead.

The roots also contain a substance called inulin, which is a slightly sweet starch, also found in Jerusalem artichokes – it’s used by the food industry for sweetening, and as a ‘prebiotic’.

The leaves of the wild plant can be used as a salad vegetable, and the blue flowers are also edible – very attractive in a salad, I imagine. Chicory is also valuable as a forage crop – it sequesters selenium, which is an important element for cattle and sheep. In addition, domestic animals which have chicory in their diet seem to have a lower parasite burden.

With flowers as exquisite as this, it’s not surprising that folklore has grown up around chicory. It’s believed that it can open a locked door, but there are a number of requirements for how it’s picked – it must be gathered at noon or midnight on St James’s Day (July 25th, so you still have a few days!) Furthermore, it must be cut with a gold instrument, and the person cutting it must be silent, otherwise the harvester will die. Yikes! Just go to a locksmith, people. On the other hand, chicory harvested in this way can also grant invisibility, so maybe it’s worth it.

In Chinese mythology, the ‘silkworm mother’, who takes care of the silkworms, shouldn’t eat chicory or even touch it.

The leaves of chicory are the foodplants of the Marbled Clover moth (Heliothis viriplaca) and the Feathered Brindle moth (Aparaphyla australis), both moths of open grassland such as the kind we see above.

Marbled Clover (Photo by By © entomart Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=315028

Feathered Brindle (Photo by By This image is created by user Joop de Bakker at Waarneming.nl, a source of nature observations in the Netherlands. –  CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20562761)

And, while looking for a poem about chicory, I came across this one, by John Updike no less. I’m not sure that it’s great poetry, but it is closely observed, which always pleases me. See what you think.

Chicory
by John Updike

Show me a piece of land that God forgot—
a strip between an unused sidewalk, say,
and a bulldozed lot, rich in broken glass—
and there, July on, will be chicory,

its leggy hollow stems staggering skyward,
its leaves rough-hairy and lanceolate,
like pointed shoes too cheap for elves to wear,
its button-blooms the tenderest mauve-blue.

How good of it to risk the roadside fumes,
the oil-soaked heat reflected from asphalt,
and wretched earth dun-colored like cement,
too packed for any other seed to probe.

It sends a deep taproot (delicious, boiled),
is relished by all livestock, lends its leaves
to salads and cooked greens, but will not thrive
in cultivated soil: it must be free.

One of the meadows at Heartwood

Dear Readers, I was pining for the Alpine meadows of Obergurgl today, and so I was whisked off by my friend L to visit the largest new native forest in England. Heartwood is close to St Albans, and, at 858 hectares of woodland and meadow it represents an important habitat for all sorts of plants and animals. There is true ancient woodland here, including a bluebell wood, but over 600,000 new native trees have also been planted by the Woodland Trust’s army of volunteers. It is a magical place, and the meadows were expansive and varied – maybe not quite as varied as an Alpine meadow, but still absolutely full of life. 

On the way to Heartwood we passed through some fields full of horses, including one which was role-playing as a zebra, two who were grooming one another, and one magnificent heavy horse.

Then it was back to skipping through the flowers, while L stopped to say hello to many, many dogs. I told her that she should have a teeshirt with ‘dog-deprived’ on the front.

The weather was supposed to be dreadful today, but instead the sun shone, and the crickets sang.

And here was a real treat – a stand of Chicory. It is the most extraordinary shade of lavender-blue.

The variety of pollinators on the Creeping Thistle was extraordinary, with lots of different fly and bee species, and a lot of ladybirds, including some native Seven-Spot Ladybirds.

And look at the size of this queen bumblebee, she was about the size of a thumb-joint.

I really love Wild Carrot (Daucus carota) – it seems to also attract a wide range of pollinators, including the ‘bonking beetle’, though there was no bonking going on today.

Lots of the young trees are now full of berries, including these lovely Rowan.

And here’s the path into the new wood…

Lots of butterflies about today, including this Ringlet (Aphantopus hyperantus). This is a grassland butterfly, but it was taking a little break on the oak leaves.

Then, back past the horses…

…and past a barn where Barn Swallows were nesting. House Martins were also flittering about, and a lady in a wheelchair was watching them, enjoying the sunshine and the birds.

And then it was time for lunch at the Heartwood Café (highly recommended), and a leisurely 40 minute drive back to East Finchley. I had no idea that such riches were so close at hand – it goes to show how important it is to go on an expedition every so often, just to see what’s happening. And it also goes to show the sheer variety of animals and plants that will turn up if we recreate the right conditions for them.

Well, Readers, we managed to avoid all the storms yesterday, much to my surprise – I was fully expecting to be stuck in Innsbruck for hours while we waited for the thunder and lightning to dissipate over Gatwick Airport, but in fact we arrived only ten minutes late. What a muggy, clammy afternoon it was, after the crisp mountain air! But today it actually feels a bit better, and as I look out of the window I can see the Buddleia in full flower, a sure sign that we’ve reached the middle of summer.

My lovely neighbour has been watering the pots and windowboxes in the front garden, and they’re looking very lush and green. I know I should probably weed the box in the photo above, but I rather like the combination of Mexican Fleabane, Herb Robert, Delosperma and grass, so there you go.

I have all sorts of plants just popping up – I thought this was Purple Toadflax, but the colour is wrong. Still, the Common Carder Bumblebee seemed to like it. There’s a whole lot of self-seeding going on!

The Hyssop is doing very well, and providing a bit of late summer nectar for the bees.

And the Hylotelephium (or Sedum as was) is just starting to change colour.

Some Scabious have self-seeded into a spare pot, along with the Purple Toadflax etc etc, and very delicate it is too…

The back garden is a positive jungle. I have a rather lovely magenta Buddleia there, but the insects still prefer the ‘wild’ version at the front, maybe because it gets more sun.

And the Purple Loosestrife is in flower, and is actually vertical for once (a bit like me :-)) while the Hemp Agrimony is literally taller than I am.

And so, as always, it’s nice to be home.

First Orchids of the trip…

Dear Readers, I may well be home too late tomorrow to blog, so here are some of my favourite photos from Obergurgl and around…

The Hohe Mut Alm

Alsike clover (Trifolium hybridum)

Martagon Lily (Lilium martagon)

Mother Marmot

Baby Marmot

Italian Sheep

Black Vanilla Orchid

Alpine Gentian

Newly fledged Kestrel

Vivaparous Lizards

Fledgling Kestrel

Creme Brulee – doused in Kirsch and set on fire!

Rosy Chafers on Spiniest Thistle

At the Kirchenkarbahn

Cake at the Sahnestuberl!

Looking back along the Timmelsjoch

Dear Readers, the walk back down from the Timmelsjoch is the biggest challenge of this holiday. It links the Passeirtal and Oztal valleys, and has been used as a trading route for as long as people have lived in this area (possibly as far back as 6300 BCE). However, today the trick is to jump onto a 320 bus, let it take you to the top, and then head back down, culminating at the Sahnestuberl. The Timmelsjoch is at 2509 metres, and the Sahnestuberl is at 1650 metres, so that’s nearly 1000 metres of downhill. Quite the challenge for my legs and feet, but I’ve grown in confidence on the tricky rocky/boggy paths this holiday, so I was nervous but up for it.

Looking back along the path

And what a glorious day it was! Cool but sunny, and as we’d caught the 8.40 bus it was fairly quiet, and we even grabbed a quick cappuccino at the Rasthaus Timmelsjoch. And then off we went. The climb felt relentless, but on the trickiest bits my husband went in front so I had a helpful shoulder to steady me. Of course, this could have led to the pair of us sliding down, but as luck would have it we both stayed more or less vertical.

The Rasthaus, Timmelsjoch

You’ll see that there aren’t many photos on this blog – I didn’t want my camera dangling while I was concentrating on the downhill. But it is the loveliest walk, from the scree slopes high up to the meadows beside the river, and then the woods above the Sahnestuberl.

A little boggy stream

When we get to the Smuggler’s Exhibition, we know that we’re about half way through the walk, so it’s time to find a handy rock and munch on a banana. Though today, some people had already got to the bench.

The Smugglers Exhibition

By the time we got into the woods, my legs were feeling decidedly tired, but there were lots of Nutcrackers calling (they’re a kind of jay), and every so often we’d get a good view of one. The last quarter of a mile is relentlessly downhill, over slippery tree roots, but by now I could hear the call of the cake – the Sahnestuberl is renowned for its ‘cake of the day’.

Finally we collapsed onto a bench, and got stuck into an Almdudler, followed by a tea…

And today’s offering was peach, with a creme fraiche filling (it wasn’t as sweet as it looks) 🙂

And although the restaurant seems to have new, young staff, it still has a cat, who lounges under the benches like the queen/king that s/he is…

And so it’s home, and packing, and prep for our flight home tomorrow. Tonight the Obergurgl Glacier Run takes place, with people starting off at 2 a.m. to run 62km along some of the tricky paths that we have gingerly crawled along during this past fortnight. Good luck to them all!

Well, Readers, they do say that discretion is the better part of valour, so when we awoke this morning after a night of torrential rain, and saw that there was snow on the high peaks around the village, we decided that a challenging downhill walk from the Timmelsjoch Pass probably wasn’t the best idea (though we’re very hopeful that we’ll be able to do it tomorrow). So, instead, we decided to try a new lift that we’d never tried before – the Kirchenkarbahn. It takes you up to 2,800 metres in two stages, and there’s a very nice cafe and the Motorcycle Museum at the bottom, so it seemed worth a go.

To get to the Lift and the Museum, you have to pile onto the Timmelsjoch bus (which is always full of walkers, regardless of the time) and squeeze past various road-resurfacing vehicles who are coming around the hairpins as you try to make your way up. Then you sit around for ten minutes waiting for the caff to open. It was worth it to see the clouds burning off and the sun coming out, though – last time we came, in 2023, it was sunny but a bit too hot, whereas this year the weather has been at perfect walking temperature but the sun’s been in short supply. You can’t have everything!

Well, it all seems very civilised as you make your way up on the lift, but when you get to the top it’s pretty impressive. Blimey, as my Dad would have said. You can walk along that icy path to the left, but I have quite enough titanium in my body for one lifetime, thank you, much as I’d like to be airlifted off the mountain by a strapping Austrian paramedic.

You would think that, by now, I’d be used to the temperature difference between a warm car park and the top of a mountain, but it still sometimes takes me by surprise (though I always have hats, gloves, multiple layers etc). And up here, it was windy and cold enough to take your breath away (more about the wind later).

On the way down, our gondola stopped at just the trickiest, highest point. This often happens, but it hadn’t happened previously on this trip, and I always find it disconcerting, as you dangle there with the wind whistling around this little glass and metal tin, suspended from what looks, at closer inspection, like something someone might have crocheted. After about five minutes we lurched back into action – normally it’s because someone needs a bit of extra time boarding the gondola, or because they’re loading supplies, but it can be because it’s getting too windy. Apparently, wind speeds of over 50 m.p.h, can be enough to close a lift (and if you look closely all lifts have a wind speed device), but so can particularly gusty weather. It was good to be back on the ground.

We took the bust back to Obergurgl, where we were decanted at the far end of the village because the preparations for the Glacier Run are well underway. Apparently eight rooms are taken at our hotel for tonight and Friday – this will be a shock as we’ve practically had the place to ourselves, but of course it’s great for the owners of the hotel to have some other guests, charming as we are. Next to the Gurgl Carat (the town hall) the stage is set up for announcements and no doubt some music, the finishing line is being installed with all the usual electronics showing the time, and there is a notable buzz about the village.

We decide to go up to the Hohe Mut Alm (a very nice salad was had yesterday, and as Austrian cuisine has a bit of a lack of raw vegetables this was a welcome change). However, the wind had closed the top lift, which was a shame and a surprise. I guess the cold front that brought the snow has bashed into the warm front that expected to raise the temperature into the sixties (Fahrenheit of course) tomorrow, and it’s gotten gusty as a result. Never mind. The mountains are nothing if not volatile, which is maybe why I love them so much.

Dear Readers, when it’s a wet, misty day where visibility is at a premium, we always seem to find somewhere high up so we can gaze out into the clouds and see approximately nothing. And so it was that today we decided to take a trip to the Tiefenbach Glacier, on the second- highest paved road in Europe (2,830 metres at its highest point). The highest, in case you’re interested, is the Veleta, which is a dead end road to Granada in Spain. Hah! This road has numerous hair-pin bends and practically no barriers, so there is a lot of tooth-gritting involved if you’re sitting on the right-hand side.

And look at this tiny chapel! This is the Saint Bernhard Chapel, situated next to the Rettenbach Glacier. When I first visited Obergurgl back in 1997, there was a single-person chair lift that operated above this glacier, and I remember it being a spectacular though terrifying ride. These days, the Rettenbach gondola is open in August, and the Tieffenbach gondola is open in July, so on we went.

St Bernhard Chapel

Rettenbach Glacier

You then travel through the highest mountain tunnel in Europe and emerge onto, well, a car park. With an ancient lift system crossing some exhausted-looking ski slopes.

In the tunnel…..

There are a whole bunch of solar panels (though not much sun around today), a cafe in the round building to the left, and to the right there’s some ice with a blanket over it – there’s a lot of ‘ice duvets’ on the slopes up here. 

The gondolas here are of the old-fashioned kind where it’s easy to brain yourself, as indeed I did on the way back down. They are also the slowest gondolas in the whole of the Oetzal Valley. But it’s all an adventure, so off we pop….

When we’re near the top the wind starts to blow a hooley (as my Scottish pal would say), and there’s a lot of groaning, both from the lift and from me. My husband is much more copacetic. When we get out we can’t see anything below us, and the gondolas just disappear into the mist.

I take a few steps and nearly get blown over, whereas my husband goes out onto the viewing platform, shown below when we here in much warmer conditions in 2023 – Readers, I can’t even see the blooming thing. I wonder if he’ll get blown off and I’ll never see him again.

The viewing platform in better conditions

But somehow he survives, and back down we go, missing the 11.35 bus by exactly 30 seconds. Not that I’m bitter.

Anyhow, a cup of tea in the round hutty thing (called ‘Snow Beach’ in case you’re ever at the Tieffenbach Glacier) and then it’s the midday bus and back down to Solden.

Once we’re down, we hot-foot it off to the Öetzal Bäck in Solden. I had promised a photo of the baked goods, but they are particular about people taking photos of their cakes, so here are two that I sneaked. Highly, highly recommended.

The weather is supposed to improve for our last two days, and so tomorrow, if all goes well, we will be off to the Timmelsjoch Pass (a mere 2474 metres high, pah) and we will walk down to the Sahnestuberl for yet more cake (and probably to apply some Compeeds to our blisters). Wish us luck!

Snow Blowers

Dear Readers, of all the walks that we do on this holiday (or at least were likely to do this time), this seemingly gentle little walk from the Hochgurgl Middle Station back to Obergurgl is the one that makes me most nervous. There is a tremendous amount of downhill, much of it on rocky, dodgy paths, and so it is one of those trips where I hope I won’t trip. However, I remind myself that most of my recent falls have been domestic ones – falling down stairs, tripping over a kerb – rather than on uneven ground where I have to concentrate on my balance. I find that literally lowering my concentration from my head to somewhere around my belly button usually helps.

Onwards!

We pass the row of snowblowers that always greet us on this walk – I’ve never been here in winter, but I assume that they redistribute the snow for all those eager skiers.

And some things never change – this guy has been here for at least twenty years, and very menacing he looks too.

We pass though ‘the boggy bit’, which this year has been pretty much dried up following the very warm spell before we got here.

There are lots of ‘baby’ Arolla pine trees here, planted by Nutcrackers, the local corvids – they act to spread the forest by planting pine kernels for future eating, in much the same way as jays spread acorns, and hence help to ‘plant’ oak forests

We come to a very dodgy downhill bit, so I stop to take a picture of this lovely Bearded Bellflower (Campanula barbata). It’s only when i get home that I realise that there’s a Black Vanilla Orchid in the background (the little purple guy)

On we go….

If we carried on we’d enter the Konigsjoch, one of those valleys which involves a relentless climb. We’ve done it in previous years when there have been snow patches, and finding the path can be treacherous. There’s an old customs hut at the top, where smugglers from Italy used to sneak past (and no doubt smugglers from Austria in the opposite direction). But it feels a bit too much for this trip, so we start looking for the planks of wood that enable us to cross the river and get to the other side. One year they were washed away in a storm. That was fun. But this year, the bridge is in place, and so we are soon safely on the other side.

Now it’s a long and relentless downhill back to Obergurgl, via the forest. We stop for a banana and some water, and I notice this lovely lemon-yellow plant, emerging from under a dead pine tree. This is Alpine Hawkweed (Hieracium alpinum), and I love how furry the buds and leaves are, maybe as a protection against the harsh climate.

And if you look closely at the heads of this Spiniest Thistle (Cirsium spinosissimum) you’ll see that it’s home to several big fat Rose Chafer Beetles. Such a treat! I love how they’re all tucked up in the middle of the thistle flower. This is a truly ugly plant (to my eyes) but it attracts a whole lot of unconventional pollinators.

We head on through the forest, past some larch trees…

…and we are almost at the bottom when we are accosted by goats. We had a similar incident back in 2023, but this year the whole herd was laying across a path up to a bridge that we wanted to cross. I started to move through them, but they thought we were driving them, so instead of letting us walk through they started to climb ahead of us. Then the Billy, who was possessed of very impressive horns, started to eat my jacket and give me a tentative nudge, as if seeing how much I’d put up with. Well, readers, we decided that discretion was the better part of valour – as I’d been keeping vertical for all this time, it seemed impetuous to allow myself to be butted into the undergrowth so close to home. So, we reversed engines to take an alternative, more boring path, only to have the goats follow us excitedly for a couple of hundred metres.

They really are very fine animals, but an 89 year-old lady who was here last week, and who was walking on her own, was nearly knocked over by these guys. I’m not sure what the answer is, but it’s good to be aware.

All the way along the path we’d been seeing signs for the Glacier Trail Run, which starts this Friday and involves up to 900 keen runners taking on the mountains and paths around Obergurgl. The most extreme race starts at 2 a.m. on Saturday, and involves a run of 62km. Yikes! From Thursday we’ll have a longer walk to catch any bus that we want to get, but it will really change this sleepy valley for a few days. Very exciting! Though I’m glad we’re walking these paths now, and not after 900 pairs of spiked running shoes have thundered through the Alpenroses.

And finally, up in the lift to the Hohe Mut, for an Almdudler. I’m sure this would really take off if it was marketed in the UK, it’s just the thing after a long walk.

And a couple were getting married at the Hut – you can have one of the chairlift gondolas covered in lace and draped with roses for your ascent. This couple (she in white, he in a very fine pale green suit) stopped for photos on the saddle of the Hohe Mut. I loved that they had their dog with them too.