Sure, you turned out pretty good, but is there anything you wish had been different about your childhood? If you have kids, is there anything you wish were different for them?
Oooh No, if I have done this prompt once, I have done it 10 times, so let’s leave it to the newbies to tell us all about their childhoods. I would just add that next Monday my son No. 2 is getting married (for the first time). It will be the first wedding in the family so I will ask him in twenty years to perhaps write this prompt and let’s see what he has to say. In the meanwhile I rest my case, I have other things to do.
In the meanwhile the weather has brightened up in our country and it seems that the monsoon season has passed onto somewhere else (India?). T-shirts with short sleeves, and perhaps even sleeveless are now sufficient and even the sweat pours from my brow as I cut my path through nature, using my machete. The grass is high and all sorts of different flowers are now showing.The grass is being mowed down or the cows have been turned into the fields to eat what they can find.
“Makes a change from that dry hay stuff” Bluebell told me as she was munching away in the field.
Even the milk now tastes different, but I didn’t tell her. She never did forgive the humans for drinking the milk actually reserved for her babies.
I saw that the opium harvest is progressing. Yes, the poppies are showing their luminous flowers in the gardens and the local population will be looking forward to a nice opium harvest in Autumn. “What did you say” it is not allowed, it would be dealing?. I naturally meant this in a figurative sense of the word, we Swiss have enough to do with laundering our money. No, of course not. The poppy heads are dried and used for decoration. In the meanwhile the flowers in the gardens can be admired and photographed. I think I might plant some poppies myself this year, although I first of all have to harvest my hemp plants which take up quite a lot of space when they grow tall and strong. Yes, there is nothing like having your own herbs in the garden.
I noticed a new horse in the meadow that I had never seen before. Mr. Swiss told me it was a stallion. What a clever man he is, for me it was just a horse. Even the horse was participating in devouring the grass. Yes it is a combined effort in the Swiss countryside, all the animals and doing their best to help the farmer keep the meadows tidy.
It also seems that the Swiss Alps are creeping closer. I, of course, took a few pictures of these Alps, you never know if they might disappear one day. Most of them are already hollow, being used by the Swiss army as storage places for ammunition and tanks etc. If Switzerland is attacked by the others (for example Liechtenstein) we have places to hide. After all the mountains are there for something. It was only a few years ago when the Swiss army were having a practice to see if their weapons were still in working order and by mistake set fire to a few fields over the Swiss border in Liechtenstein, so who knows they might be working out a plan of revenge.
Anyhow here is my prize suspicious photo of the Swiss Alps taken on my walk from a field somewhere in the state of Solothurn. As the crow flies they would be about 150-200 Kilometers away, not counting climbing up and down.
Daily Prompt: Childhood Revisited – Forget it, I went for a walk
Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss 
I just got off a massive battle with my “health provider organization” so I’m not feeling warm and fuzzy. This is a lovely post and deserves a better response, but right now, all I want to do is cause pain to a politician or maybe an accountant.
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I just read about it on your site. I only know the english system (National Health Service) and the Swiss system where you choose your own private insurance. The private insurance in Switzerland might be expensive (3-400 swiss francs a month paid at a 2 month cycle) but it works – you get all you need. We don’t have the extra shocks or surprises that you seem to be getting thank goodness. My only problem at the moment is a special vitamin B tablet I have to take for my muscular problems with diabetes. It is not available in Switzerland, so I have to get it from Germany and it is not allowed on the Swiss medical insurance system.
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Garry has to take Folic Acid, which isn’t covered and for reasons I cannot begin to fathom costs a LOT of money. Our entire system is designed to NOT pay. And all of this isn’t free. It isn’t as expensive as yours, but when you add in all the hidden costs, it’s actually a lot more. Unless you don’t need anything. Then it gets very cheap. If you die, it’s even cheaper.
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Our insurance only begins to pay after the first 300 francs in the year and then they only pay 90% of everything, the rest you pay, but the treatment we get is quite good. Hospital operations are paid for by the insurance. Dentist costs are not covered unless an accident, but then they do not fun luxury treatment, just the necessary. We get a detailed invoice from the doctor so we know what we are paying for.
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beautiful photos- love those poppies, and of course the Alps!!
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Those alps are the most difficult thing to photograph, especially if the sun is shining. It makes everything a bit misty.
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I changed the daily prompt by deleting the bit about the kids. Just wanted to say , what a beautiful view. If I look left as I leave my home I have a clear view of the North Downs and when the wheat ( or whatever crop it is) is strewn with poppies , it is lovely. We have the cheapest form of happiness at our door, don’t we? . All best wishes to son no. 2. Hope you’ve got a nice hat. I’m short and don’t do hats but I was lent a large one for my son’s wedding and I looked like a mushroom.
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There are poppies and poppies. those in the photo are the real McCoy although I do not think it is so easy to get opium from them. The ones that grow amongst the crops are usually the annuals which are not so spectacular.
It’s the registry thing on Monday with dinner in a restaurant afterwards. The church wedding follows in July in Germany and no, I will not be wearing a hat, I do not see a reason why I should and I do not think that son No. 2 would actually want me to wear a hat.
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I meant that from a distance the poppies colour amongst the yellow corn/ wheat looks lovely. Can you tell me something, I think I remember when I was in Switzerland , that the wedding ring was put on the right hand , I’d that correct or am I already senile instead of sliding towards it ? With it without a hat, I wish you and yours a lovely day and Grandchildren ( later ) to tell them your great stories .
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Mr. Swiss did not bother with a ring and I had one on my left hand. They had to remove it under aneastheic when I had an operation as I could not remove it myself, it was too tight. When I awoke after the operation it was on a ribbon around my neck. Eventually Mr. Swiss bought me a very nice new ring. The custom here is to have the ring engraved with the name of the partner and the date of the wedding. Mr. Swiss already has two grandchildren from his daughter of his first marriage. My son is now 41 but there might be offspring, who knows.
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Great pictures! And great post
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Thankyou, It was a great walk, the sun shining and it was warm.
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Monsoon is approaching India. Today I saw the dark clouds all over the sky. But is there monsoon in Switzerland too?
Are those mountains really that far? I mean 150-200 km. They look close in the picture though.
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Of course we do not have monsoon like India, but it is an expression I apply if we have days of rain, which also happens here, sometimes causing floods. According to how the weather situation is and the atmospherics, you either see the alps from where I live or they are covered in clouds. On this particular day everything was ideal for a good site and you really get the illusion that they are just over the ridge. By car it is a two hour drive on the motorway.
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Your photography is quite professional, stunning pictures those are!! Wow, that’s a beautiful stallion and the alps – just amazing.
Love the post. It’s good to know you have a wedding in your family – good luck with it all 🙂
Also, you mentioned the Swiss mountains to be used for hiding in case of an attack. Hahaha, that is genius. On the other hand, the Himalayas with all the earthquakes do not make such a good hiding place.
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Thankyou for the compliments. When I go for walks I just take my pick and shoot Canon camera as the DSLR Nikon is too big to have hanging around your neck all the time. Some of the Swiss mountains are really used for military purpose. Luckily no great earthquakes here, just a few avalanches now and again.
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Your welcome 🙂
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This blog is seriously good, Pat. Are the mountains that far from you as the crow flies? Or did you mean only Swiss crows ? I love all three pictures today, especially the mountain one
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Thanks for the compliment Dai. Unfortunately our mountains are mini mountains compared to the lot you have in the Himalayas. We used to go on summer holidays to Grindelwald which is the main place to be. Mr. Swiss corrected me and reckons it is about an hour by motorway to get there. We had to go via Bern. It always seemed longer to me, but after the motorway you get the minor roads and there are always traffic jams at the holiday times.
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Maybe twice as big, Pat but your mountains are equally beautiful. I’ve always loved Switzerland and those mountains
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What beautiful photography and lovely stories. I so enjoy.
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It is not always that we see the alps so close, it depends on the atmospherics.
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What a great answer to Childhood Revisited! Maybe I should have gone for a walk. It’s raining, however. Tour comment made my day!
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It is now too hot here to go for walks.
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Ruh-roh. Typo! YOUR!
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I know I’m late, but congrats to son # 2 🙂
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It’s never too late to congratulate – thankyou very much
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Since I live on the coast, I’m awestruck at the thought of walking by those mountains. Enjoyed scrolling through your comments and reading a little about your health care since ours in the US has not settled down.
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I am originally a Brit. They have a national health service which is free to everyone. This means waiting 4-5 hours until the doctor sees you even if you have an appointment and getting 2nd class treatment. Hospital beds are rare and if you have to have an operation a waiting time of a couple of months is not unusual. In Switzerland we pay monthly, it is all done by private insurance, although there is a certain amount of control by the government, but I am satisfied. I meet the surgeon that is operating before the operation, he informs me and after the operation he tells me all about it. The mountains look quite near on the photo, but it is a 1-2 hour drive to get there on the motorway from where I live.
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Our health care “settled down” this week unfortunately. Everyone has to pay too much to have way more than they need, no choice and costs about to go up hugely so those who “need it’ can get subsidies. Some do really need them, others make sure not to earn enough to lose them.
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