Early morning rain

This morning, woke a little later than before - just before 8.  I could hear the rain coming down on the roof so stayed where I was a few minutes.  By the time I rose, the rain had stopped.  Clouds are as low as yesterday, though, and so the day doesn't look that promising.  We'll see.  Elaine had such a bad night the night before (as in, sleepless night) that I've left her to sleep in this morning.

We had been planning to go to Interlaken today, but decided against it - just making sure really that whatever had caused Elaine's stomach upset had cleared.  Turns out, it's good that we delayed - but not because of Elaine.  Wandering around Grindelwald we noticed that a lot of the shops were closed.  We went into one of the few coffee shops open, one advertising itself as 'Latino' and asked the girl why things were closed.  'Some Catholic thing I think,' she said - though obviously Spanish/Latin herself, and presumably Catholic, she didn't know and spoke with disinterest bordering on contempt. 

It turns out it's Ascension day - of course it is!  It's still a surprise that so many shops should close (including, incidentally, the Co-op, which could have left things awkward for us).  I can't imagine shops closing for a religious festival in England - we even need legislation to force them to shut on Christmas Day!  And certainly, tourist shops wouldn't close.

So we settled for a day of pottering, which is a favourite pastime anyway.  The clouds have been low again all day, and it's rained intermittently, sometimes heavily.  (Once again, the evening brought rain - see yesterday.)

We decided to treat ourselves to dinner out - not that easy, since a lot of the restuarants were closed too.  But we found one called 'Memory', fancied a burger, and went in.  The burgers were delicious - the best I've ever tasted.  BUT two burgers (one large, one small), one chips,  four diet cokes and two coffees came to.... thirty-eight pounds.  Come back MacDonalds, all is forgiven.

Absolutely nothing on TV tonight, too wet to go out, so we expect an evening of reading, snoozing, and wathcing DVDs.

More fascinating contributions tomorrow.