Daily Prompt: Humble Pie

Posted in Challenges by angloswiss

Tell us about a time you found out after the fact that you’d been mistaken and you had to eat a serving of humble pie.

Photographers, artists, poets: show us REGRET.

Lemon Meringue Pie and cream in the Toby Carvery, Romford

This is not a humble pie, but a lemon meringue pie that I ate the last time I was in England at the Toby Carvery in Romford, England. When I visit my dad I do not bother him with cooking for me: at the age of 98 it would be a stress. I leave him to his own thing at lunch time and eat out in a restaurant. I do get some strange looks sometimes when I take photos of my food, but it is all in the name of holiday souvenirs. I quite like lemon meringue and have not made one myself for some time.

I very rarely eat humble pie, if at all. If I talk rubbish and in the conversation it crystallizes as a mistake, then I have no trouble to say it straight away, no problem. I do not make an issue of it and have no intention of becoming a Mrs. Uriah Heep. He was the bloke in a Dickens novel, David Copperfield, who was “ever so ‘umble”. He was so occupied with being “umble” that he was eventually caught and put into to prison for his ‘umbleness. The word always reminds me of this character.

So I really do not have much more to say on this.

As far as regrets are concerned, “je ne regrette rien”. Now that would be good for a song title. Aha, it has already been done by great singer Edith Piaf. Let’s see if we have a video on you tube.

Look what I found and an original recording. Lovely song and great voice.

I did not regret marrying Mr. Swiss and because of this, leaving my home country to spend life in Switzerland. They gave me citizenship when I got married, so I had no choice. After 46 years of Swiss life, 44 married to a Swiss, I am quite happy. Would I like to return to England? Definitely not, I would feel out of place in England, have lost contact with the English way of life and I am not keen on the food. It is good to see old friends and relations again, but I feel like a cuckoo that has been planted in the wrong nest. The world has become smaller with the computer and I have contact with many, even in the dreaded Facebook which also can serve its purpose sometimes.

Perhaps I am not too keen on the cold, snowy winter weather in Switzerland, but the country functions in spite of this. Early mornings are a Russian Roulette on the road with the car, but usually by lunch time the ice and snow on the road surfaces is cleared away: as long as there is a supply of salt to scatter on the roads, no problem. If I was in England and it would snow, the roads would not be cleared by lunch time, salt supplies would probably dwindle to nothing and the schools would be closed. Admittedly England is not a country that lives with cold icy Winters as Switzerland, but it can happen and when it does everything stops.

Mr. Swiss just told me that the comet ISON has reappeared after taking a trip on the other side of the sun at close quarters. It did not burn to a cinder, but survived and is now winging its way again in the sky: a little dimmer, perhaps not so spectacular, but it survived.

I will now leave everyone tucking in to their confessions and humble pie and hope they have more to say about this than I do. This was a little bit of a boring subject to write about mumble, mumble, mumble.

Daily Prompt: Humble Pie

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29Nov2013

Daily Prompt: Keeping up with the Jones’

Posted in Challenges by angloswiss

Tell us about the one luxury item you wish you could afford, in as much detail as you can. Paint a picture for us.

Photographers, artists, poets: show us COVET.

Not every day I see an MG sports car

I do not covet, at least I no longer covet and I would not want the car in the photo if it was given to me free, but I am sure it is the pride and joy of its owner. My car has to be smaller, an automatic and fit nicely into a normal standard parking space as I am not so good at manoeuvring. I had a good subject for a photo at the local supermarket parking lot. Talking of cars, I remember being very impressed once when I was driving home from work. In front of me was a nice shiny red Lamborgini Countach. I had to look it up when I got home to see what it actually was. Even the number plate had red numbers with a gold background. It made a sort of throaty chugging sound whilst it was waiting at the traffic lights; perhaps it was love at first sight, but no. I did not covet it as I would have to be able to drive it and that was a big not possible.

I grew up in a working class family, dad worked in a factory on shifts: two weeks nightwork and two weeks days. Mum was an office cleaner in the city of London. She worked from around 6.30 a.m. until 7.30 a.m. before the offices opened. Emptying trash baskets and dusting down the office desks, just generally putting everything in clean working order before the bowler hatted umbrella carrying city gents arrived at work. She was home around 08.00 a.m. in time to get me out of bed for school. As you can see I was not spoilt and was constantly reminded that we did not have the money to buy this and that. I did not actually go without; I just gave up asking for anything. I realised when I was young that if I wanted something then I had to deal with it myself. There was a school trip on a ship, a Baltic Sea cruise, calling in on Scandinavian countries and Russia – Leningrad as it was then known. I wanted to go, very badly. Mum said I will look and see, meaning probably not. I searched for a Saturday job in a shop and found one and worked for a year every Saturday saving. I was successful, paid for everything myself and also had pocket money to take with me.

Coveting was no discussion in my family, if you want it badly then do it yourself. As a teenager I bought all my own clothes, even when I was at school. Keeping up with fashion in the swinging sixties was a must and mum just thought a cheap dress on a stall down the road would do. I worked in the City of London and during the lunch hour would have a look in the various clothing shops and save to buy what I wanted.

Today I am satisfied, having all I need, but just a minute. This afternoon I cleaned the shower. I also have a bathroom to clean and these are the two rooms I hate to clean. Cleaning is not my hobby, but it has to be done. I like to do it regularly to avoid a big and exhausting job. I would love to have a cleaning lady or man to clean my bathroom and shower. It is the time it takes to do it all that bothers me, when I could be writing a blog, taking a walk or reading a book. So, that would be it, a cleaning lady or man. To be quite honest I did not grow up having people clearing away my mess and it is something that would probably disturb me and I would be stupid enough to help out.

Anyone looking for a job, WordPress are paying the wages so no problem.

Daily Prompt: Keeping up with the Jones’

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28Nov2013

Weekly Writing Challenge: Haiku Catchoo!

Posted in Challenges by angloswiss

Your mission is to write five haikus

Door in Solothurn

Begin with a plunge
Cleaning windows on Monday
Makes for clarity

Excitement arrives
Seeing clearly with new eyes
Pick up spectacles

Supermarket calls
A battle for the taste buds
Dearly purchased food

Let it blog today
Haikus are numbing my thoughts
in syllable counts

Unknown tomorrow
stimulates thoughts, finally
My haikus are done

Weekly Writing Challenge: Haiku Catchoo!

28Nov2013

Daily Prompt: Fear Factor

Posted in Challenges by angloswiss

I have a déjà vue with this prompt somehow.

People are afraid of all kinds of things: spiders, the dark, or being enclosed in small spaces. Tell us about your greatest fear — rational or irrational.

Photographers, artists, poets: show us COURAGE.

St. Andrews Cross Spider

The spider posed for the photo about two months ago. She was quite proud having given birth to her spider sack. She waved and said what about a photo, so I obliged. In the meanwhile mummy spider has gone to the happy spider hunting grounds and left me with her developing brood. Mr. Swiss has been given orders not to brush the sack away. It is poised near the crack between the wall and ceiling above the garden cupboard. It seems that one day I will be confronted with over one hundred motherless spiders and I will have to take the responsibility of guiding them into their brave new world. Luckily the new world is a vast expanse of landscape, so they will spread, go forth and probably again multiply. Perhaps some might make a new home in the cupboard below, but I do not mind. They will most likely eat the smaller livestock that might be creeping and crawling in the darkness of the garden cupboard: everything has a purpose.

I am not the gladiator in this world, ignoring all dangers and risking my life every day to overcome my phobias. Do I have phobias? I do not think I have time for phobias. I just let everyone else suffer, whilst I disregard any dangers and predators that may want to eat me, poison me or make my life unhappy.

Mr. Swiss takes a breath of relief every time I return from a shopping trip or excursion on my own. He is sure I will fall somewhere and break a bone or dislocate an important limb. This has all been there before. I do not really think of these things and carry on regardless, otherwise I would never go anywhere on my own again. I let him do the worrying. I am so convinced that I will return safe and unharmed.

I do not worry about being attacked or even being kidnapped. That only seems to happen to those that are wealthy, young and blessed with good looks. I am not wealthy, am not young and good looks – I leave that for the others to judge, although my younger son once saidI am now at an interesting age. I camouflage myself with grey hair and glasses when I am let out, but to be quite honest I do not have a choice. At least I am a natural type.

I suppose my greatest fear is for my father. He is 98 years old, lives on his own and can no longer walk so well. He just manages a trip to the kitchen to thaw his lunch in the oven. His house has two floors and he can only climb the stairs to his bedroom and toilet with difficulty. I dread that one day he will fall down the stairs and it will not be noticed. At the moment he is waiting for news that there will be a special apartment ready for him with extra care. This will now probably at the beginning of next year, so if I suddenly disappear for a week or so I will be in England helping him to move. This is a Damocles sword hanging over my head at the moment, as I will have to fly over to London and organise things and do not have a clue how. Luckily I have some family members that will be helping and supporting me.

I am a realist. Things that go bump in the night, hide under beds or make funny noises are more to be explored to get to the root of the trouble and not to shiver and shake under the sheets. Being afraid of the dark does not come into the question. Sometime in the early morning hours I have to make a trip for human relief. The apartment is dark, no lights, and I have to manage it all on my own, being careful not to fall over a possible sleeping cat on the way. No problem, I just feel my way. I do not even bother to open my eyes, not much point when everything is dark. I must admit I have made a wrong turn now and again and found myself on the opposite side of the bedroom, but now always have my faithful and trusty iPhone next to my bed. A quick push on the right button and the electric clock illuminates the bedroom. Oh, the wonders of modern science and a big thank you to Apple.

There is something I hate, find revolting and just yuck. That is maggots. How can an animal be mother to such disgusting, squirming wriggling ugly children. “Hello mummy” said the maggot to the fly. “Oh what a beautiful child” answers mummy fly and they fly away together. Not quite, mummy fly leaves her offspring to deal with it all on their own, and I would too if I had babies looking like that.

In the meanwhile the egg sack is still hanging outside in the crack between the wall and ceiling. I hope to be present when the hatching sessions takes place with my special close up DSLR camera. Watch this space for the blog “The birth” probably in early Spring.

Daily Prompt: Fear Factor

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27Nov2013

Blogger Creative Challenge 279: Small

Posted in Uncategorized by angloswiss

Two Firebugs

Click here for more

27Nov2013

Daily Prompt: To Boldly Go….

Posted in Challenges by angloswiss

An impending new year gives rise to reflection and goal setting. What will your goals for 2014 be? It’s never to early to start thinking about self improvement!

Photographers, artists, poets: show us CONTEMPLATION.

Crow on a Lamp Post in Feldbrunnen

I am sure this crow was contemplating whether to take a jump and fly or not. One of those on the spur of the moment photos taken on my way to the train stop in the village. They let me out yesterday as I had to go to the opticians to pick up my new glasses. Life is much clearer now.

My goals for 2014: the most important and really only one is that I will be able to write a similar blog theme at the end of 2014, you never know. I stopped doing goals some time ago, they arrive if they are meant to arrive. Too much excitement is never good for a golden oldie, it might be your last goal. Looking at things in a merrier light, I have already bought my Christmas cards. You can never be too late, although they are still unpacked and telling me to get on with the job. Due to how the world is shrinking with this modern communication thing (blame it on Bill Gates), my friends and relations now seem to be in far-flung places, so I have to get a move on and start writing to make sure they arrive in time. Although it seems I could do it all online. I am still thinking about that one.

Today I had a small goal to take my daily golden oldie creative sleep after lunch. Somehow there was a malfunction in my timing and instead of my usual one hour relaxation in Nirvana it developed into two hours, but here I am awake and ready to go. Is that a sign of growing older?

Do I have to improve myself? I do not think so, what do you think Mr. Swiss? He was just about to say something, but I told him not to bother. After all I am so perfect, I do not want my illusion completely destroyed. Perhaps next year will be the year of the Nobel/Pulitzer/Man Booker prize for me or I might succeed in winning the Blogger of the Year award, if it exists. My gift of articulation has not been recognised yet, but who knows what is around the corner.

I am almost finished with the NaBloPoMo, you know this thing about writing a blog daily during the month of November. That is an achievement in itself. I generally write once a day in any case, but not with intention as you never know what is around the corner, looking on the negative side of things. There are four days to go. Will I win one of those treasured iPads that might be handed out, will I be recognised as a Fifty Shade of Blog that the world is waiting for? Perhaps I will be paid for my future blogs, to ensure that my words of blog wisdom will be maintained amongst my disciples. Or, of course, the world may continue to ignore my blogging talent and all that will be left is an inscription somewhere, perhaps a plaque in the village

She was here

www angloswiss-chronicles com.

Franz Kafka was only discovered and recognised as a great writer after his untimely death, so there is always hope: probably one of the reasons why many of his works were left unfinished. I am glad that blogs are brief works of literature, especially at my age.

On this happy note I will leave you to have a good think about what to do with your future ambitions and to compose a list of goals to achieve throughout the coming year: may it be longer than mine. Perhaps you will not be successful and your talents are left unrecognised as mine, but things can only get better.

Daily Prompt: To Boldly Go

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26Nov2013

Daily Prompt: Simply Irresistable

Posted in Challenges by angloswiss

Tell us about the favorite dish or food that you simply cannot turn down.

Photographers, artists, poets: show us TEMPTATION.

Berner Platte

This is a Bernese Platte, smoked sausage, bacon and potato on a bed of vegetable. In this case green beans, but cooked red cabage is also appropriate. A Swiss dish, but under other names available in most countries and I cooked it myself.

I very rarely turn down anything that goes under the name of food. Not that I would try a grasshopper, a locust or mealworms, everything has its limits, although it seems they are rich in protein. Of course if my country was suffering from famine as a result of drought or war, then I would probably even cook grass if I was hungry. It would then not come into the question to turn food down. However, in our country this is not the fact. We are even guilty of throwing good food away because it might be two days over the date of “eat before” and it is no longer qualified to be sold.

In this connection there is nothing I could simply not turn down. I have my preferences, but we all have our preferences. Mum was not exactly a cordon bleu cook. She cooked as her mother cooked and at the beginning of the twentieth century in a working class environment you could be glad to have meat on the table: One of the reasons why mum always ensured that we had meat on the table, a sign of decency probably. Mum did not know what garlic was, she never bought it and never used it. Actually the only spices she really used were salt and pepper and if French fries were on the menu then you had vinegar to shake over them as well – an English tradition. How often have I heard from my Swiss friends when talking about the English cooking “the English cannot cook and they put vinegar on their chips”. There are a few well known English cooks that can cook and very well. Times change and so does food. My mother had never tasted smoked salmon, that was for the posh. Today smoked salmon is often on the menu at home, generally served on toast with perhaps a horse radish sauce.

Of course I have my likes but I have a funny thing about food. Unless I know how it is prepared and where it comes from I try to avoid it. You do not make me happy if you invite me to a meal in a restaurant. It might look good, taste fine, but how did they cook it, what did they use and where did they get the ingredients from? Oh I am fussy. There are times when I am stressed and cooking a meal for a family can be annoying, but on the other hand at least I know what I am eating. When I was a young mother with four children (2 step) and a husband to feed it was similar to feeding an army. Every day meat, vegetable and pasta, potato or rice, but at least we knew what we were eating. It comes to my mind the big horrific scare the English suffered when it was discovered that horsemeat was contained in their frozen lasagne. Personally I like horse meat, do not eat it every day, once in a blue moon, but why not. In Switzerland the sale of horse meat is controlled. We eat beef, lamb or pork and no carnivore person would bat an eyelid.

Then I ask myself, why frozen lasagne. It is not magic to make it yourself, might take a little more time than just heating it up in the oven, but at least you know what it contains.

An important aspect of eating served food is the ambiance. Some restaurants have it and some do not. A busy overstressed waitress can spoil the meal with her impatient actions. After a meal in a restaurant, no matter how good it was, you feel tired, drink your coffee and go home. If I serve the meal at home, we clear away the dishes, drink our coffee or tea and take it easy: perhaps a sojourn on the settee or even a golden oldie midday sleep – what restaurant offers such a service. This is really only available at hotel Mama.

So what is my favourite? As said I eat it all, am not fussy. I quite like lamb, a shoulder, a leg or just a piece of meat. I like an Indian curry, lived with an Indian family for two years and it was the daily meal, be it a curry, biryani or pakora and the various breads. In Switzerland we are surrounded by France, Italy and Germany and this shows in the diversity of food available: Switzerland itself has a good choice according to where you live.

So you can all enjoy your chocolate cakes spiced with cherries and covered in cream, I can do that as well and do not need a restaurant to serve it.

Daily Prompt: Simply Irresistable

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25Nov2013

Daily Prompt: Close Call

Posted in Challenges by angloswiss

Tell us about a bullet you’re glad you dodged — when something awful almost happened, but didn’t.

Photographers, artists, poets: show us CLOSE.

I made a close call on one of my orchid flowers yesterday evening. I was quietly sitting in my comfy chair playing around with my iPad with one eye and then I heard it.

“Hey”

“Huh”

“Hey, it’s me look in my direction, just do not ignore me. Whip out that high fi special close up on your super DSLR camera and take a photo. I will only be around for a couple of months, if you take care of me, so trap the moment when you can. Wake up human, it’s me your new orchid, the flower in the middle of the others.”

My eyes followed the direction of the voice, a rather noble voice and there she was wide open and nodding. What to do. Of course, I followed instructions, arose from my comfy strelless chair and returned with camera in hand: the chance to take the photo of the year of a talking orchid.

“I am ready, smile” and there was no answer. I repeated my words.

“Forget it, I only do the talking routine once in my lifetime and now take the photo.”

I decided the orchid was talking sense and who is going to believe me that I took the photo of a talking orchid because it told me to.

Otherwise I seem to have come through life unscathed. My first encounter with near death was having my tonsils out when I was seven years old. Actually the doctor found I should have had them removed three years earlier and threatened my mum that she was not being fair to me, having the biggest infected tonsils in the neighbourhood. That was what mum always told me. The surgeons also removed my adenoids, which is some sort of accompanying organ to the main tonsils near the nose, just to be sure. They left my nose and throat where it was, although a small scalling down of my nose size would have been a good idea.

I seem to have come through childhood otherwise unscathed. There was an adventure on holiday once, near the sea where I decided to climb a cliff with a friend of mine. I was not really used to the wild side of country life, growing up in London, so I suddenly found myself hanging onto a plant on the cliffside and trying to get a hold with my feet. I was also looking down to judge the distance I would fall/slide if the plant decided to no longer be planted. I was lucky and somehow managed to pull myself up, or was it dad that came to a Bruce Willis similar rescue. Again I survived. It was the perfect scene for an adventure film, something like Die Hard, the sequel they never made.

Growing up in the East End of London also had its dangers, but you just get used to it. Jack the Ripper’s last murders of ladies of leisure took place in 1888 a few streets away, which was before my time. I would often walk along the Bethnal Green Road on my own after leaving the last underground train around midnight. It was not the days of having a car; it was the days of doing what you could afford. Saturday evenings were fun in the big city, at a palais de dance. Bethnal Green Road was probably an obstacle course for the innocent, but I grew up in the area and the odd strange people walking stumbling around after their visits to the local drinking dens pubs made no impression on me. I remember one gentleman who decided to punch through a glass window with his hand, but probably did not even notice it in his inebriated condition. I just moved on.

I think my mum was the happiest person on early Sunday morning hearing the click clack of my stiletto heels tapping along the street and the noise of my key in the door. She knew her little girl was at home again. She did not know what I had seen and experienced on my walk along the street at midnight, but why cause worry when not necessary.

So there we have it, no bullets to dodge, no risks taken, or I have probably forgotten them in the meanwhile. I now live in the land of bank gnomes, cheese and yodels. The only risk I could now take would be serious burns from a cheese fondue and I usually leave that part of the job to Mr. Swiss, dealing with igniting the burner. I would add that I do not ski or any other such life endangering sports. Mr. Swiss forbid it, knowing I am slightly accident prone.

Daily Prompt: Close Call

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24Nov2013

Daily Prompt: Have Confidence in Me

Posted in Challenges by angloswiss

Are you good at what you do? What would you like to be better at.

Photographers, artists, poets: show us CONFIDENT.

Cheese Fondue

It was decided a cheese fondue would be an ideal evening meal yesterday evening, due to low temperatures outside and me not wanting to cook something that would take hours of my time. I am particularly proud of the caquelon, the bowl for preparing and cooking the fondue. It was in the family before I even met Mr. Swiss and must be now at least fifty years old if not more. Old is gold – I tell myself every time I look into the mirror.

Having confidence to make a cheese fondue is not difficult. Of course I know how it works and naturally my cheese fondues are always a perfect masterpiece of Swiss inventive cooking. I am married to a William Tell lookalike. The crossbow might be missing and he has never tried to shoot an apple off the head of our sons, but today he voted in one of our numerous elections: not only for himself, but for me and my elder son. He just filled out the forms and we signed. Not that we have infinite trust in what he decides, but quickly looking at the problems of our country I decided I could let him loose on these decisions. OK, to be honest two of the items on the list were a little over my head, financially compensating mothers that look after their children at home instead of placing them in care to enable them to go to work and something called one in twelve (I think that one was something to do with keeping wages lower for those that earn too much like big bosses in the finance world). They were turned down in any case, so why bother.

The third idea was to put up our motorway costs to one hundred Swiss francs per year. All brave car driving citizens in Switzerland that take their cars for a ride on the motorway have to pay forty Swiss francs per year and some bright spark decided that this was too cheap and one hundred francs would be more appropriate. Who this bright spark was I do not know, but he managed to collect enough signatures for his brain dead proposal to send us all to vote for it. Needless to say it was turned down, common sense won again and so we are still paying our forty francs per year.

To return to the cheese fondue: of course I know how to make a cheese fondue with a perfect result. You go to the local supermarket, buy a packet containing the ready mixed ingredients sealed in aluminium foil. Put the caquelon on the cooking range but first of all rub it out with a cut garlic clove. The solid mass from the packet is then put in the caquelon, keep stirring until it turns into a liquid smelling strongly of cheese and wine and then place it on the little burner on the table.

In the meanwhile you have cut some fresh bread into small cubes (I always use a baguette for this purpose) and then you pierce a bread cube with a fondue fork and dip it into the bubbling liquid, turning it constantly to coat with bread with a fine layer of cheese. I would recommend a quick blow on it before eating. Hot cheese tends to burn the mouth if you are not careful.

I hear you saying where is the creative vein? Just melt a ready mixture: any fool can do that. Of course, but not any fool produces a perfect fondue when they make it from A to Z themself. You have to fill the caquelon with white wine, take grated cheese of the sort you want, and put it into the warmed wine to melt and also adding a little kirsch to the liquid for flavour. You think that is all? How is the melted cheese going to form a super cheese sauce without something to bind it and that is where the problem lies. Generally you add a spoonful of cornflour to the warm wine when mixing the cheese in and this is the secret for a wonderfully smooth creamy sauce. How many Swiss housewives have thrown the fondue away, emptied it into the sink, cried Swiss crocodile tears, only to find that it did not mix and the result was a clump of melted cheese sinking to the bottom of the caquelon surrounded by a milky white liquid – the wine. This can be especially embarrassing if you have invited people to join in. Eating fondue alone would be almost suicidal, you have to be surrounded by family and friends, but what is the point when the fondue is a cause for depression and tears.

For this reason my fondues are always perfect. No tears at the table, no tantrums in the kitchen and no disappointment or talk from the family about Mrs. Angloswiss not being capable of serving a Swiss cheese fondue. I buy mine ready prepared in the Swiss supermarket, have never been disappointed. Yes my name is Mrs. Angloswiss and I do not make my own fondue. The confessions of a Swiss cook.

I could have told you all how I am a perfect writer, an icon with the written word. The blogger to beat all bloggers, sitting in the shadows waiting to be discovered, my chances of winning a Pulitzer/Nobel/Man Booker prize being not recognised: perhaps through jealousy, through being too good to be true – who knows?.It remains that my talent is still unrecognised, but I can make a pretty good, perfect, Swiss cheese fondue. There are no disappointments at the table and the plates and caquelon are emptied.

Daily Prompt: I Have Confidence in Me

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23Nov2013

Daily Prompt: Playtime

Posted in Challenges by angloswiss

Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?

Photographers, artists, poets: show us PLAY.

South American Musicians in Solothurn

I was about to go home after a visit to the local town of Solothurn and as if on order, this group of musicians appeared and started to play. Being always armed with my camera I took a photo just as they were playing El Condor Pasa – perhaps not quite Simon and Garfunkel but it sounded very good.

Of course I play in my daily life, from the moment I arise in the morning until evening. The day is just one big playtime. There are two sorts of playing, what you want to play and what you have to play. Sometimes wanting coincides with having to and then the day is just one big round of games.

I can even enjoy ironing, although that is a must, but combined with music from the CD player it can be fun. Imagine ironing your husband’s shirts accompanied by Jumping Jack Flash from the Rolling Stones. You forget the work and just sing along. Ironing duvet covers is a longer job and there I prefer something more soothing in the background, perhaps one of those long guitar pieces from the late Gary Moore: I am thinking of “Still Got the Blues”: ideal for flattening the creases.

Hoovering does not go so well with music as the vacuum cleaner is a noisy machine. However, you can still have fun, watching the dust disappear, leaving a trail of cleanliness behind. I do not have so many carpets, mostly stone tiles and wood, but the vacuum cleaner game can still be fun. Of course it is a game of concentration. Have you suddenly discovered that the machine makes a painful noise, as if to say “turn me off, I have just swallowed too much and am suffocating”. Concentration is required for this moment of playtime, it might be that one of your cats/children/you have left a large object in the way and the vacuum cleaner refuses to play.

I love playing with gadgets. Turning on the washing machine, watching the water fill the space between the garments, with a layer of soap suds, the noise resembling a miniature version of the Niagara Falls. It is a thankful game, as you can leave the machine to play on its own, knowing that in an hour or so the game is over and the wash is ready to be hung up. Some continue this pastime with a tumbler, but that can spoil the game. You no longer have the fun of hanging up the gaming parts to dry or ironing them. It can then become boring.

Some of us do real games, like playing with the computer. I must admit, here I am guilty. Switching the machine on, hearing the throbs of electronic pulsing through its component devices and mother board. The name “mother board” lends a friendly touch to the game, you feel secure and protected. You know that you belong, you are moved when the computer says silently “what shall we play today” as you enter the world of Google, Internet Explorer or perhaps Firefox. The world is at your fingertips, you can create, be part of it, communicate. Unfortunately all good things come to an end.

A hunger feeling creeps into your body and already the next enjoyment approaches on the horizon. “Let’s cook” it says and already you are passing time with potato peelers, chopping knives and other accessories in the kitchen. This is a musical game. The ouverture is the preparation, the first movement is the actual cooking and the grand finale is when all are seated at the table and play the eating game. You may be applauded, showered with praise, you may have a silent audience, all are positive. There might be remainders of food left on the plate. This is not such a recommendation, but you cannot win all the games.

Daily life goes on, make the most of it, it can only get better and do not forget we are all playing one big game of life so enjoy it while you can. You never know what is around the corner.

Daily Prompt: Playtime

Playful Pingbacks

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.