Summer holidays

Here is one time of year that I find I’m very 'glad to be here', as we realise that for many of our English friends, the summer holidays have just begun this week, whereas we have already enjoyed two glorious months of summer holidays.

June 26^th, saw us making a three-hour drive to Avon, Colorado. This is just three miles or so from Vail, which most of you will have heard of, and less than a mile away from Beaver Creek. Colorado Ski country. I didn’t know much about this area, despite growing up in Colorado, but made the unremarkable discovery that it’s lovely (if you can ignore the rape of the mountainsides that the ski-runs necessarily entail).

My mother has a time- share condominium in Avon, hence our stay, but as cheap holidays go, the expense of doing anything in this part of the world geared to tourism made it unsuccessful on that score. Other than hiking, which is largely free, any other activity usually involved an expenditure in the range of $200 for the four of us.

However, I can highly recommend the 18 mile bike ride down Vail canyon and would do it any day of the week. Here is Sally, at 17 and one day, who probably enjoyed herself as well.

I also had a fabulous time spotting and trying to identify wildflowers, which were out in profusion. These are columbines (no one here calls them aquilegias), the state flower, which were accompanied

by wild delphiniums, geraniums, violets, orchids, huckleberries, penstemons, and dozens of others I don't yet know. To my great delight, one day we took a trail which led us alternately through two aspen groves and pine forests, only to have the third aspen grove carpeted with bracken. It was my first sighting of bracken here, and, even though one is aware of it's reputation as a thug, I was thrilled to see it as it reminded me of home.