Spontaneity and Playing hooky

I know that I have mentioned that word – spontaneity – as being my leitmotif for this year. After the rain yesterday, we again awoke to a most gorgeous beautiful-blue-sky kind of day. I was so not motivated to get back to work on my taxes that when a friend called enquiring as to what my plans were for the day, I replied: “nothing, whatever you want to propose”!

Ten minutes later we were off to France and a mountain resort that, believe it or not, I had never visited.

Megève is well known to those with money to burn or a wish to hang out with the upper echelons, there are even flags pointing out the Michelin starred chefs. However, there are also the more classic attractions: a wonderful church, St. Jean the Baptist whose construction corresponds to three different periods (XIVth, XVIIth and XIX centuries). The St. Anne chapel next door was started in 1500, the church itself “only” in the early 1600s.

St.Jean the Baptist church in Megève

Then there were the local “taxis” – horse drawn carriages, each one unique in its decoration. 

rear of one wooden sleigh

rear of another wooden sleigh

Shadows and light, a typical-to-the-region lunch, mountain peaks playing with the clouds, warmth in the sun and not too many crowds made for a most pleasant day of playing hooky.  Tomorrow will suffice to get back to the duties that call.

shadow of photography

windy on the peaks

sun playing spotlight

firs and mountains

overlooking the valley from the Altiport in Megève

How much wood,

Would a woodchuck chuck,

If a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Is one of those ditties that runs around in one’s head for hours at a time.

There aren’t really any good answers, but several attempted bits of wit on the theme, such as

• “He would chuck, he would, as much as he could, if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
• If he could chuck wood, the woodchuck would chuck as much as he could!
• A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
• A woodchuck would chuck all the wood that the woodchuck would chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
• If a woodchuck could chuck wood, he would and should chuck wood. But if woodchucks can't chuck wood, they shouldn't and wouldn't chuck wood. Though were I a woodchuck, and I chucked wood, I would chuck wood with the best woodchucks that chucked wood.
• If a woodchuck could chuck wood, then s/he'd chuck all the wood, s/he'd chuck and chuck and chuck and chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
• It would chuck the amount of wood that she sells seashells on the seashore divided by how many pickles Peter Piper picks.
• One quarter of a sycamore if you give him a quarter for every quarter of the sycamore he cut.
• It might depend on how many female woodchucks were present. Or, it could depend on whether the woodchuck's mother-in-law was around or not. If she was, he'd be chucking all day. If not, he'd be watching the football game.
• Some maintain that woodchucks could not and would not chuck wood at all.
• It depends on how good his dentures are!
• A woodchuck, would chuck, as much wood, as a woodchuck, could chuck, If a woodchuck could chuck wood. But unfortunately, woodchucks do not chuck wood.
• About as many boards as the Mongol hoards would hoard if the Mongol hordes did hoard boards. »

A partial list taken from « askville by Amazon ».

So although we can’t know whether or not a woodchuck even chucks wood, I have found that in the mountains everyone has been as « busy as a bee ». Wood stacks have sprouted over the past week in places that were entirely bare. Formed in many different shapes and stacked in many different ways – all are interesting as shown from the photos below (and yes, I went a bit overboard, but they were all so different - and fascinating).

So although I don't know one, whether woodchucks chuck wood, or two how and how much if they do, I know a lot about woodpiles in the Swiss alps!