Probably one of the last to show, they are now finished already for the Spring.
Daily Archives: 30/03/2017
Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Letters I or J
Bread and Jam
Japanese Cherry Blossoms
Icicle on Birdhouse
Colour Your World: Hot Magenta
Daily Prompt: Not quite a fortune
Being a Brit I would visit my dad in London once a year when possible. I live in Switzerland. We never had a Swiss-exit because we decided from the beginning that we did not belong in the EU, only geographically. For this reason the Swiss kept their Swiss francs. The Brits were always something completely different and although they agreed to belong to the EU, probably beause of the wine prices being cheaper, they kept their English money, as well as their pints (english beer should only be served by the pint apparently).
The result of my many back and forth travels to London was to acquire a fortune in english change. I grew up in Great Britain with a money system that was quite unique. Decimal? Why do it easy. Tens and hundreds, even thousands, were too complicated for the british. Why should it be so easy. Our original monetary system was composed of pennies, being 12 of them to a shilling, and a pound which was logically 20 shillings. We also had guineas (21 shillings) but not as a coin, just as a price. These were the basics. Of course, we also had halfpennies and farthings (quarter of a penny), threepenny pieces and sixpence, as well as half a crown which was 2 shilling and sixpence. Imagine growing up in an english education system and learning it all, but I could do it. None of that adding zero to siplify addition and substracion. Why do it the easy way when you can do it more complicated.
I left London in the throws of the introduction of a decimal sysem. Switzerland no problem, they had decimals with their Swiss francs for some time.
After the decimal system had been abolished in England, there we still some of the old coins in circulation, but they had different values. The Brits had to get used to it, but for my once a year visit I had a mixed purse with various generations of english coins, some decimal and some that had become decimal and some no longer existant. If I bought anything in England at the time I did not have a clue what I had in my hand. The shop assistants were very helpful, and I felt like a complete idiot. My country, but no longer my momey.
I kept two purses at home in Switzerland. My daily purse with the Swiss money and a second purse containing english money for my visits to England. My father passed away last year, and I no longer have intentions of visiting London. Mr. Swiss was a business man and travelled to England now and again, the result being he had also accumulated a fortune in english change.
This week we had a sort out and he gave me a bag full of english change. My english purse was now full and so I had to transfer it into a box – see photo above. It is not a fortune. My No. 2 son will be going to Edinburgh this year for a conference, so I will probably see if I can pass some on before he goes.
A Swiss Fortune
Good Morning
Even sunrise over an estate can have its qualities and you can depend that the sun will rise, although not always with a splendid glow. I rose this morning, but not so splendidly and would have preferred to remain hugging the bed.
So what will we do today? Nothing special : a 20 minute job on window cleaning and the usual tour de Dyson in the appartment. The afternoon will be at my leisure, although I have a few things to organise moving stuff around in the garden.
Yesterday I finished my current book and I found it a good book. I was at a loss of what to read, but discovered a best selling Amazon author, although I did not really know what that was. I suppose it was someone that only writes books for Amazon, which would be the logical conclusion. As I find supernatural and sci fi usually does it for me, this might be my sort of thing. The author is RR Haywood and is apparently well known in the realms of Zombie book readers. I discovered this after downloading the book on my Kindle, otherwise I would not have bothered. However, this book was not actually zombie, just a couple of heroes saved from dying in their last heroic moments to save the world. Of course there was a lot more to it, and when I had finished the 400 pages on my Kindle I was a fan. The book is “Extracted” and part one of a trilogy and I am hooked to find out what will happen in part 2 and 3. The basis is a time machine. The world at the end of the 21st century is lifless, the end of the world, and the theme is to find out when it happened and why and perhaps alter the destiny – through the time machine of course.
Ok, I know it needs an imagination and it is not reality, but I like to escape from the every day reality now and again. Now I am on the search for my next book as although I have part 2 and 3 to read of the last book, I do not like reading the same thing continuously, but prefer to keep something on the sidelines. I am not sure what my next book will be, but I may take a break and do a few online jigsaw puzzles to keep my brain active.
As I have google chrome as a browser I automatically sign into my google page when I fire up the computer in the morning. Google tells me that have developed a new “sign-in* formation. Of course it will be better than the present entrance page they assure me, much quicker and more efficient. At least they have told me about it, and not just “plonk hello, we are new, get used to it” which is the genral idea of our favourite web sites. I know it is coming. I am not an active Google member, my blogs just get cross posted into google. I try to keep my online life in limits, as I would otherwise have no time to lead a real life.
Make the most of my hedges to be seen in the final photo. Next Monday they will be removed until Autumn due to building work, although I am not quite sure why, but the rebuild commando will probably have a good reason. And now to move on to fight through the daily chores and come out successful at the end. Enjoy the day.
Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss 