I went to bed in a triumphant mood because England won. I was on my way to my room when the final SMS from Bernd arrived informing me that The Three Lions had actually won 3:2 against the Swedes. And I slept well, but woke up very early. So, I went down to prepare things for the helicopter that was scheduled to come at 10:40. The mouse was not there. Maybe this time I took it far away enough, or it drowned because it fell off the bridge and into the river trying to get back to the house, or it’s simply sulking…

Claudio arrived shortly after nine to help with the heavy things that needed to be packed into special big sacks for the helicopter to take away. All the rubbish and bottles and the empty gas containers. We had just finished when the helicopter arrived, earlier that planned. I was close to the fountain outside and got showered completely because the wind the helicopter made was blown directly in my direction. Within seconds it had delivered new gas and all the food and stuff I had ordered and taken away the other things.

We spent about an hour unloading the sack and putting everything away. Then Arturo and Emanuela arrived and I started to prepare lunch when there was a sort of explosion that startled us all. It took us a while to realise what it was, Arturo then noticed that the wheel of the wheel barrel had burst. Must have been too much for the wheel barrel, wheeling all that wood around the past two days.

I had all this lovely new provisions and some leftovers, so I decided to serve my friends and again only guests today (I am not counting the two walkers that pasted through and only had a coffee) to a treat and made zucchini in the oven filled with the rest of last night’s pasta sauce, fried zucchini and feta as entrée, served with love by the guardiana:

 then risotto with green asparagus and the rest of the polenta in the oven with cheese and lentils and salad (I know, polenta again, but at least Claudio loves it):

For afters there was raspberry cream “a la Berlin”:

The men fell asleep after lunch, maybe it was all the food, or the sun, or the wine, or the combination of the three. Emanuela basked in the sun and I washed up. Then everyone started doing some work for the hut as usual. This, for instance, is Claudio hammering corrugated tin into the huge slices of wood that remained from the tree that was felled for the new table, preventing it from splitting. They are used as “platters” to serve antipasti or cakes or so in a nice way.

I did some hammering too, but I didn’t like the picture, so I’m not showing you. At six o’clock the three left after they ate the last pieces of cake. And I was on my own again. Nothing to do but make fire again, which I love doing, write for the blog and admire the view. I have two guests tomorrow night, who are walking the “Via Alta della Vallemaggia”, a trek that starts at Alpe Cardara near Locarno and ends in Fusio, or the other way round, and takes five days, passing the huts Alp Masnèe, Alp Slpuga, Tomeo and Soveltra. None of the huts besides Soveltra has a guardiano, meaning you have to take your own food with you. I think I will have to do that trek too one day, there are beautiful pictures and descriptions of the huts and the white-blue-marked path across crests reaching heights of 2500m in the book that was written by Luigi Pedrazzini and published by EdizioniA2 only last year.

Considering the weather is so good, there might be people coming up to eat tomorrow during the day. I will bake another cake in the morning, this time with fresh apricots that arrived by air today.