Blogger Images and Words 224 – Before and After – OOps

Posted in Blogs by angloswiss

Before

Spider with lunch

and after

Spider with lunch

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18Aug2013

My Orchid

Posted in Blogs by angloswiss

You know those tropical plants that are actually parasites sort of. Not that they live on the tree that they inhabit, but it seems they find a fungus to feed on. I am not a bontanical expert, just read up a bit in Internet. It seems that modern civilisation, due to the world growing smaller, has discovered the orchid to the extent that you can buy them in almost every supermarket in various colours and flavours. So Mrs. Angloswiss decided to keep up with all the neighbours and people whose homes she visited where they had the customary orchid perched on the table, on the dresser, or just standing in the corner, waiting to be admired by all.

I bought my orchid in a weak moment in the local supermarket as they had a special offer. It was flowering, blossoming, and quite tall. After a month the flowers started to wilt, hang their heads despite my care with regular supplies of specially bought orchid fertiliser and regular water. I did not drown my plant as it seems once a week suffices.

Eventually my orchid was reduced to a corner on the patio in the shade where it was forgotten, shunned and no longer required. The flowers had gone and bare stalks do not impress when the locals come for a visit. That was until this week (about three months later).

“What is that on the orchid” Mr. Swiss asked. I almost answered “what orchid” as I had cast all memory of an orchid out of my mind, having discovered that my roses and buddleia were blossoming in the garden – I mean who wants an orchid.

I took a closer look at my orchid and this is what I discovered.

Orchid

It seemed that a botanical miracle had taken place in a dismal corner of the patio. It was alive, showing a display of buds. This was about three days ago. The buds are still there, but I am sure they are thinking of opening. The plant has now been removed to the table on the patio and we are waiting for the great day when it flowers. It seems I was not the only one to find the development interesting. After a closer look I found this little chap perched on the top of the highest branch.

Grasshopper on the orchid

Watch this space for more developments: life is so exciting on my patio.

18Aug2013

Daily Prompt: Procrastination

Posted in Challenges by angloswiss

What have you been putting off doing? Why?

Photographers, artists, poets: show us TIME.

Platform 1 Solothurn station

Can you see it, the Swiss Railway clock at my local station of Solothurn. This is not just a clock, but THE clock adopted by Apple iPad/iPhones. So you see Switzerland is not just the country of numbered bank accounts, gold bars, gnomes, cows and mountains. We have a clock, the clock. And now down to business.

It is a funny thing with that word “procrastination”. I first saw it on web sites used by some colleagues over the pond in the States. Apart from having issues (problems) and going to the movies (cinema) they did some procrastinating in between. I never really bothered about the word and thought it was some sort of complaining. We all complain otherwise we would not be human. Now I discover – thankyou WordPress – that this is the way to do a job you do not want to. Just procrastinate it, push it on one side, forget it and with luck no-one will notice.

I found procrastination was the ideal solution when the boss at work asked if you had dealt with a particular job that you actually did not want to do, had not yet found the solution on how to do it, or it just plain “sucked” – one of my WordPress colleagues from over the pond came up with this word in a blog, most useful. I almost forgot it, from my Beavis and Butthead fan club days. So yes, I procrastinated with the work: said to boss “I will have a look”. Being a boss with other things on his mind, this answer seemed to suffice and he we usually forgot the whole thing. Should he remember, it was so long afterwards that the solution had found itself.

Since becoming a golden oldie I am not supposed to procrastinate any more. I have nothing to do all day; I have no work, just sit at home and write blogs, read a book, read magazines, knit. I had to strike that one, my knitting days are gone, due to a few aches and golden oldie pains and still waiting for the first grandchildren. Although they will probably want the modern onesie dress with the studs, all made in stretch modern material. So there I am sitting around wondering what to do with my luxury life.

At the beginning of my retired days I did not procrastinate so much. I had a newly found freedom and caught up on all the chores that I had procrastinated throughoutl my working life and that was 35 years in Switzerland. You do not just clean windows now, but the frames are cleaned at the same time. There are kitchen cupboards to be scrubbed. What about the tiles in the bathroom, let them shine again. Curtains to be washed (here I am lucky, I do not believe in curtains, more trouble than they are worth) I have blinds. Oh, yes the blinds must be cleaned – a wash down with the hose outside (live on the ground floor). So after a month or so all these procrastinated things were no longer being procrastinated, they had been completed.

Did boredom set in? No, you cannot just do these forgotten chores once after retirement. I still have a few years left (I hope), so these procrastinations must be upheld, dealt with regularly, otherwise we return to the working days when everything was either not dealt with or fitted in once a year some time.

At the moment it is summer and living mainly outside, the apartment stays more or less ok, although just a minute. The hedge surrounding the garden grows. Mr. Swiss cut it the last time, but since has had an attack of the dreaded back problems – we all get them in age, but they can lead to immobility. A new plan had to be found. It was discovered, procrastination abolished. I found I was shopping on my own, back in the planning and logistic department on a home basis: compiling shopping lists and having conversations with the butcher and other sales personnel in the supermarket. I even began to drive the car on a regular basis instead of only a once a week trip to my Tai Chi training sessions. At emergency times like this I am grateful for an automatic gear change – just have to sort your feet out.

Needless to say the procrastinated garden hedge is still growing, but next week I have decided to attack it with the electric saw – no problem. It is all a matter or organisation, in between shopping, cooking and eating and my golden oldie sleeping session daily. If I abolished the sleep recovery therapy I would have two hours more to deal with the stuff I procrastinate about, but I decided when the retirement happy hunting grounds arrived, that life would now be what I want to do and not what I have to do.

Today is Sunday, not that it has to be a procrastinating free day for some reason, but all the shops in Switzerland are closed, you are not allowed to mow the lawn, or any other noise making work outside, so today I cannot even do things that I should do, through procrastination.

Tomorrow is Monday and the procrastinating week begins and tomorrow afternoon I will cut the hedge. There is one small problem, our super-efficient weather forecast has predicted rain. As rain has been scarce for the past week, we expect something deluge similar. As Mrs. Angloswiss does not want to develop webbed feet or an attack of a common cold, I think I will have to postpone the work until Tuesday afternoon. Oh, I forgot, Tuesday afternoon is reserved for Tai Chi.

Wednesday? I might fit it in some time around five in the afternoon, but it could wait until the end of the week really. Oh this procrastination is such a stress.

Daily Prompt: Procrastination

Let us do some Pingbacking

Being honest the title is based on a remark made on one of my blogs by a supporter.
"You always turn a topic inside out and on its head" were words also applied by a visitor to one of my blogs. I think she hit the nail on the head.

Prompts are there to act on, not just tell everyone what you had for lunch or your likes and dislikes. I trust that on my blog you find something spiced with humour. Mr. Swiss, my other half, has been known to say that not everyone always understands my humour (I do not always understand his).

Blogging is for me coupled with having fun. I do what I want to and not what I have to.

Disclaimer: Not reponsible for any spelling or grammatical mistakes. I do my best, but having two langugages revolving in my brain (yes, I have one), sometimes the result is more bi- than unilingual.