I decided to add this and my videos (filmed and edited on my phone) to my story, as these ducklings will never know how much pleasure they provided us, whilst we waited to be able to return to Switzerland.
The Swallows
Another delight were the swallows, who visit several times a day, so whilst having breakfast we watch them flying at high speed around the trees. Quite often they fly in tight formation and perform an amazing aerobatic display! They frequently came quite close to our balcony, as if they were checking us out. We had noticed that all the other birds suddenly stop flying every time they came. The seagulls are the only ones that were not frightened by their speed!
Apart from not being able to be in Switzerland for Trudy's mother's 99th birthday, we were also unable to do much about our own 51st wedding anniversary, or my 80th Birthday. We were unable to see our children too, as they had to cancel all their travel plans!
Our Return to Switzerland
Eventually we learned that all the borders would be open on the 6th of July, so we booked our hotel stops and organised our drive back and we left on 7th July. We were concerned as a couple of days before, a lock down had been imposed again, not far from our route, near Barcelona. But we decided still to go, and we arrived safely back in Winterthur three days later.
I had a silly accident on our way, after our first night, as I was bringing things down to the car, to be ready to leave after breakfast. Stupidly, I miss-judged the stairs and managed to fall down quite a few of them . . . They were extremely hard
tiled stairs! I already had an injury on my leg that was almost better, but it was hit hard once again, in the very same place on my shin! A few days later I had bruises in several other places too! The worst was my ankle which swelled up about three days later, yet luckily, I was able to drive, without realising there was any problem with it, I was much more concerned about my shin that remained the most painful. I was healing rather slowly.
We had such a lot to do, particularly with our garden, which was in such a dreadful state. We had to pay for gardeners to come and deal with it all - awfully expensive here in Switzerland! But I could not have coped with it myself, it was such a relief once it was made more presentable.
News of Maxi and Lexi
We were so pleased to hear from Georgia and Rosa that Maxi and Lexi
(the names we had given the ducklings) were still doing well, about a couple of weeks after we had left. Especially after reading on the Internet, that wild ducklings sadly, are often neglected by their mother, and once left on their own at an early age, 90% will not survive! Apparently, they cannot fly until they are about 50 days old, but happily they were last seen to fly away.