She'll be a coming round the mountain

At 1600m I can imagine I am on top of the world or at least on the 25th floor - not made it to the penthouse yet but ever hopeful. Snow capped peaks reach for the sky and I have a Toblerone moment -sweet, oh so sweet, but with the background knowledge that I'm near the end of the bar. 'You can always buy another' I hear you say but life isn't like that, is it? The taste is never the same twice. The recipe contains the same ingredients, in the same quantities but perhaps it's what it follows, where it is eaten or even the mood of the moment?
A mirror image of where I walk is scattered with what looks like rockfall - a cluster in a shaded patch of green, another clinging vertiginously to an upper slope. The tinkling of bells, carried to my ears through the clear air tells me that the ricks are in fact cows put out to Summer pasture. I am in the cliche that is Heidi.
A speck enters my periphery and passes close enough for me almost to feel the velvet brown wings of a small bird of prey, a kestrel perhaps. Is he concentrating on lunch running far below or is he too just enjoying the moment, sweeping and soaring for the sheer hell of it? I like to think so.
I thank the Pilates exercises for the strength in my core that keeps the strain from my knees as I take the steep path down. Before me lies a giant's bowl of broccoli like fir, every inch taken. The smell of forest draws me into it's cool shade. Dampness pushes it's way through my sandals and caresses my toes. I can hear the ice-coldness of burbling streams, preparing their voices for the roar of snow melt to come. I pass the well-named Chalet Silence, windows shuttered. I'm sure it sighs in it's sleep as I tiptoe by.
Round a corner on a small plateau that juts out into the valley, cows are being milked. Six at a time calmy chew in rhythm to the pumping of their udders whilst the waiting queue patiently await their turn. Big brown eyes, eye lashes any girl would die for, smiles of contentment. I think of contentment filtered into milk and I buy a litre, still warm. I look down into the creaminess and I see my mother spooning the 'top of the milk' onto my childhood porridge. Thank goodness some things do not change. No DEFRA rules here!