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Third lake

I’m trying to learn German, been trying for years. It’s a few years now but we used to stay in a largely German speaking area of Switzerland. Great chance to practice, way better than getting strange looks in Yorkshire trying out my second language. As a result, these days I have to practice by ordering the occasional German magazine or newspaper.

I’m not going to kid myself, my second language capabilities are still pretty rudimentary. There are reclusive Himalayan mountain sheep with a better grasp of German grammar than this Yorkshire Pudding. Which basically means that quite often it’s picking out the occasional word I can translate amongst a sea of letter confusion. It’s a good job you get pictures in the magazines to at least give me a few clues on what on earth is being written about.

A couple of years back I was trying to read a German magazine article about Interlaken, a beautiful Swiss town which was often our Sunday morning adventure. Best hot chocolate of the holiday. Best shop combo ever for the three of us. One shop, three happy punters. Hawklad looking at a huge Schleich toy section, his mum looking at a huge wall calendar section and me fascinated looking at the amazing cuckoo clocks on the wall.

Interlaken given its name is unsurprisingly a town between TWO huge lakes. But this article mentioned a third lake. A mysterious lake, as hard as I searched on the maps, I couldn’t find it. In the end I decided it was either a massive underground lake or a famous fictional lake from some mega Swiss story, maybe a continental Europe version of Brigadoon.

Yet this week. In an English magazine, an article about last Ice Age, that mystery lake was there again. And this time I could read the words all about the now not so mysterious third lake. Apparently the two Interlaken lakes, Thun and Brienz, were once a mega lake called Wendelsee, Lake Wendel. No wonder it’s not on the maps now, and what a good job it’s not. Our favourite shop would have been underwater, right smack in the middle of that lake. In this case two lakes is definitely better than one.

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Time

Hawklad’s Mum had a bucklet list of places she really wanted to visit. She was blessed to tick off quite a few locations from the list but sadly a few still escaped her. One such place was in Switzerland….

A small lake called Blausee found near the river Kander in the Bernese Oberland. A deep blue lake set in stunning surroundings which is completely fed by underground springs. As a result it is crystal clear and you can clearly see the bottom of the lake, even though it’s 12m deep. It’s apparently MAGICAL.

Photo from My Switzerland

Frustratingly we were frequently in the area but never quite made to the lake. It was always one of those,

We will get there NEXT TIME…..

TIME does run out, so if you have those places to visit, don’t let time runout on them.

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Lake one

Ullswater in the English Lake District. The usual grand weather there….

About 200 years ago the poet William Wordsworth spent much time here, you can see why. A hundred years later Donald Campbell disrupted the creative peace by braking the world water speed record here, over 202mph.

When we visited Hawklad blew my mind, again. Randomly he started to list every top division football champions in both England and Italy. On the patchy internet I checked, every single year answer was correct. Staggeringly that went back to 1889 for England and 1898 for Italy. Even taking the time to fill in the key footballing history, managers and top goal scorers. How on earth does he do that, apparently I’m his Dad and I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast.

2019 – School gave up on him. I remember a Head of Year saying that ‘HE is low attainment with many special educational needs… there are plenty of alternatives for pupils who leave with no qualifications…. College isn’t everything’.

2023 – still on track for his goal – UNIVERSITY.

How many great kids are wrote off by the system when with the right support, THEY CAN FLY.

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Secret

Some blue sky is always welcome here. Ok it might only last for a couple of hours before the next rain clouds roll in, but it’s still most appreciated. Especially when the days are filled with much frustration and road blocks.

A couple of hours is enough time for a mini adventure.

Been at out home for a couple of decades now. Life has happened over that time. Seen 6 cars, 5 UK Prime Ministers, 2 Pandemics and something like 460 Simpson episodes. And now we can add 1 hidden lake.

Almost from day one the local map showed up an expanse of water on one side of the village. In all those years we never found a way to get to it. Until now. Sometimes you just have to live on the edge. Be a rebel without a cause or maybe without a clue. Time to ignore some PRIVATE signs. Pay back for a tractor dropping mud outside our garden gate over all those years. Jump a few farm fences and finally get to see the Hidden Lake. It might have only lasted for a few minutes but it was worth it. It’s good to have adventures some days.