Good Morning

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Feldbrunnen to Langendorf and back 26.08 (1)

I live in the country. I like living in the country. I grew up in the middle of London, East side, near the docklands: where the lorries were happy to charge through the streets already occupied to overflow with double decker busses, cars and all the rest. It smelt, it sometimes actually stunk. I grew up with petrol fumes in my lungs and smog to enhance the whole effect in Winter. I had a permanet smell of petrol/gase in my nose.

One day I moved to Switzerland, met Mr. Swiss and 50 years later am still here. Switzerland is country where the hedgehogs and foxe say goodnight to each other, even the town of Zürich, which is the business center. I now live in a 500 cow village and share my home with birds, bees, and a garden. During the summer months my early morning call is the bird song. They are early risers and like to tell everyone about it. It is now almost September, and the birds no longer sing in the morning, but a few of them still do some cawing, cooing and a few stifled chirps. I even have a pair of blackbirds that visit my garden every morning searching for a worm or two. Their kids have probably now left the nest and after I feed them through the Winter, they will be the next generation. Isn’t life good in the country?

At least it was until the object above in the photo moved in. Actually it is part of a fighting force. Of course it has a purpose. It is constructing our new main road running through the village. Of course we have motorways in Switzerland as the main connections for the trucks and getting to large towns, but Switzerland is a country of villages and villages are not directly connected to the motorways. For this we have village roads where you can reach all the places with strange names like Riedholz, Niederbipp, Wangen, Zuchwil and Feldbrunnen being my village.

Where it used to be bird song, it is now heavy machinery teering the road surface. They have a particular example, perhaps it is the one in the photo, that insists in hooting every 10 seconds. How do I know? because I counted in between hoots. It rolls back and forth, according to the acoustics I hear from my bed and now and again makes a louder noise. Probably when the driver stops to admire his creative road surface. There is another machine, which I have not yet discovered, only heard. At around 8.30 a.m. it sounds as if a sirene is signaling an attack by a foreign power. It probably marks the beginning of another phase in the daily work, or perhaps the tea break for the workers.

Life is full of surprises. We were warned in the local newspaper that our “through road” would have various obstructions during the repair work, but there was no mention about it being noisy repair work. I often wanted to tell the birds to shut up when they began their chorus at 5.00 a.m., but now I wish they were back.

At the moment it is silent  – 8.30 tea break of course. However all good jobs come to an end and it was published that the work will be finished some time in October, only another 2 months to go. No wonder most of the birds are now preparing for their migration to the South. Mr. Swiss informed me this morning that storks (we have a colony near by) no longer fly to Africa, but stay in Spain. It is nearer. Luckily we have snow and ice in Winter which means the road work will stop. Unfortunately it is the ice that causes the damage to the road surface so when they have finished their work, they will probably be planning the next repair job.

Otherwise it is a morning at home. This afternoon the chief doc, my neuologist, has beckoned. Why I do not know, but I got a telephone with an appointment. It is probably to do with treatment for my MS, which I do not have up to now. He tells me there is no rush and I agree, but suddenly he has probably remembered that I exist and so we will have technical discussions to see what to do. I am still thinking about it, it is very confusing.

Enjoy the day and if you happen to see road workers with machines in your area, then my advice would be to emigrate where there are no roads to repair.

15 thoughts on “Good Morning”

  1. Good morning, Mrs AS. This morning in bed I felt the Norwood Earthquake, which is what we call the shuddering caused by big lorries thundering by. This should be a quieter road, but the low bridge on the main thoroughfare has been hit 17 times this spring, so now the biggest lorries have been rerouted down our leafy avenue.
    We have to keep smiling so try to find a copy of THE PUSHCART WAR, by Jean Merrill. I read a chapter of this delightful small book to my PA every morning at breakfast. The NY pushcart peddlers in the 1970s were being bullied by too many big trucks and they took matters into their own hands. It’s very funny, with lovely illustrations, and characters like Morris the Florist, and Harry Hot Dog. Hope you can find it and enjoy the story.

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    • I will definitely have a look for that book. am always glad to discover something new and amusing. We have a limit on the size of trucks passing through Switzerland – 40 tons, which is heavy enough and they are not allowed to travel during the night unless it is perishable goods.

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    • Things are never as they seem. you do not get MS at the age of 70, and I am already in the so-called “chronic” stage, meaning just do something to stop it advancing further. No big problem, I am in good hands, using one stick is enough at the moment for me.

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  4. I hope & trust, too, that the doctor will how come up with good suggestions or treatment to help you cope with your MS.
    As to living where there are no roads to maintain, the road by our place is just a gravel road, so a maintainer makes a few passes every spring & summer.to keep it smooth. Not much to that. However, two combines just finished their day of roaring in the fields behind, beside, and in front of us. So you really should add “A place where the farmers don’t have modern machinery.” And the trains pass our yard frequently now, carrying away the harvest.

    But we like to eat, so I’d best be quiet and let them go at it. 🙂

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    • I have to take it as it comes. It will not get better, it is chronic, but there is a treatment to help avoid two canes, a zimmer frame and later a wheelchair. I just take it as it comes.
      We only have one main road through the village but you would think it is a major connection to europe the way they are looking after it. Our farmland lays on the other side of the road, so we do not hear it so much here. We have a road train passing through the village every half hour, but no longer notice it as it is a regular occurrance.

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      • Our trains are sporadic, between one and three per day. But they thoughtfully pass through when traffic is at a minimum, so as to avoid possible collisions at the highway crossing a mile SW from us. We usually hear a long one going through—passing just west of our yard — between 12:30 and 1am. And often in the evening there’s one going this way or that. There’s often on Sunday mornings about 9:30 am and many evenings between 9 and 11.
        Some are long, some short; sometimes only two engines heading SW for an attachment to their cars. We’d call 150 cars a longish train; the longest we ever saw was 237 cars.

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