We have found this purse. Someone is now miserably sad and depressed. We need your help to find the owner. Please spread this news, because I have maintained that we are more likely to find the owner through the Internet than if we simply hand the purse into the lost property office.

Our vacation took me and my youngest into the Tessin. A trip by train to Locarno with a supersaver ticket costs for us 22,50 francs. In Locarno, because of the film festival, it’s more like a state of emergency and in any case we are drawn to the water and the outdoors. We had already grown fond of the River Maggia. We love the delta, where the river flows into the lake, a popular hotspot for all owners of motorboats. We had taken my Stand Up Paddle with us and in the delta compete to see who can stay on the paddle longer. If one actively tries to push the other into the water, the average time is rather short.

But not only the delta is exciting, also the wild river full of stones has a lot to offer. We get on our bikes and pedal up stream high up the mountain, from where it comes. A wonderful, shadowed path, a real mercy in this crazily hot summer. We observe how the sun and the high temperatures damage the wild life. The grass is completely yellow and dried out, the leaves hang sadly from the trees and some have already shed some of their leaves and they lie, brown and curled up, robbed of all their juices dismally on the ground. Now and again they rise with the wind for a final dance before they fall to pieces. A symbol of transience.

We arrive at our favourite place, where the Maggia has created a natural open air pool. It is hot, suffocatingly hot. We want to park our bikes in order to go swimming and then my youngest notices the lost purse. It can scarcely be seen, because its colour matches the undergrowth so well. We inspect the contents and look for clues to the owner. As it contains jewellery, we assume a girl. We enquire in the neighbourhood and learn that recently a German-speaking family had left this place.

I imagine this girl when in the evening she discovers that she no longer has her purse. She searches everywhere, more than once, but nothing helps. And yet the solution is so close. Write to me and we’ll send the purse there where it belongs.

We then go for a swim in this soothing but rather cold water. I estimate it’s about 20 degrees. We climb on the stone walls rising from the water and my youngest then leaps in skilfully, one dive after the other. I would like to have said to him he shouldn’t do it, because it could be dangerous and we are not familiar with the conditions here. But I don’t want to be an anxious old mother, so I bite on my tongue and examine more carefully the underwater world.

It would please me most of all, if we were to find the owner. That would be a perfect end to the vacation day and would confirm my belief in the power of the Internet.