Not quite there yet, but almost. The bush opposite my garden is getting ready for the big show – watch this blog 🙂
Daily Archives: 14/04/2017
Cee’s Which Way Photo Challenge – April 14, 2017
A walk along a path near the River Aar, Switzerland.
A nice safe path, no traffic allowed unless you want to deliver something or are a cow.
At the local cemetery, where a stream runs through it.
Colour Your World: Jazzberry Jam
One Word Photo Challenge: Fish
Swiss fish do not swim in the ocean, we have to import them, but we have freshwater fish. Here is a selection at the local supermarket of trout, although according to the label they are danish trout. At least they are certified biological trout. They probably had a nice clean life before it came to its end.
Daily Prompt: Measure, because I am ready to explode
I find blogging fun because it gives me something useful to do with my golden oldie life. I can write, take photos and generally follow the prompts. I like things to run smoothly, with no excitement. At the moment I am have a luck of the draw with my computers. We have two stations in our appartment, one at the front and one at the back.
It is all wireless, Wlan or whatever – I am no expert. If I take a photo with my mobile phone it automatically uploads onto my computer.
When all of this works, I am a happy bunny, no problems, you do not even hear anything from me because I am writing, working on photos on my computer and generally a nice type of person to get on with. If anything intrerupts this normal process I am annoyed, lose my patience and my little world breaks apart. I have even been known to utter profanities. Today was one of those days. I wanted to write about measure, I am writing about measure.
This afternoon I fired up my Apple computer and wanted to begin to write. I got no reception, nothing. I had the correct network (we have two), but was left with a blank screen. I noticed that my iPad was a bit slow on the uptake after lunch, but now the computer had given up. I checked my phone and discovered that a couple of photos I had taken were not uploading through the normal cloud and was confronted with an eternal turning circle searching for a connection which it could not find. What do you do. Ask Mr. Swiss? Yes and No: he is not Bill Gates and was busy with something else. His computer on our other wave length on the other side of the appartment was functioning OK, but for good measure he switched off the modem and fired it up again. Still a problem, no reception for me.
I moved my apple macbook to his room and I had power, my web sites were functioning. It must be our Fritz Replicator which gives me my signal (read the name on the little plaque) – see photo. We restarted it by  unplugging and replugging and lo and behold my computer was alive and I can do what I usually do.
I have now calmed down, although another pet peeve of mine is losing time. Time is not something that hides in  corner which you find again. It is something you must make up for. Time cannot only be measured in seconds, minutes or hours, but in nerves, in something lost and never found again.
If all of this seems a bit sketchy in the explanations it is because I really do not know the correct descriptions for all these computer devices. I would also add that I also tried my Microsoft computer, but had the same result. It was then that I realised something must be wrong with an installation somewhere.
I actually measured this ditch in front of my computer room window for a prompt theme and I even began to blame the workmen that created it  for destroying my computer wave lengths. Mr. Swiss said it was not possible for them to interrupt my wireless connection, because it was wireless. I mean when you get annoyed, it can be anyone’s fault, only not your own. I did  some ironing this morning in my computer room next to this magical wave length strengthening box – so who knows. Perhaps I moved the plug just a little bit – but only a little bit, I did not measure the distance.
Good Morning
My supermarket tells me it is Easter with the various easter bunnies in all shapes and sizes. What do you do? You take a photo. And what are my plans for Easter? I have no plans for Easter, that was long ago when I had kids wanting to decorate the 30 eggs I had boiled and a mother-in-law that I invited to Friday lunch. Now all things of the past. Mr. Swiss bought the coloured eggs in the supermarket, so at least we have something that makes it feel like easter and they are eggs from Swiss chickens of course, but they do not lay them in the various colours.
I will be cooking fish for lunch today, but that has nothing to do with Easter. It is mainly because the supermarket has special offers for fish on Friday, although I bought my cod yesterday because today the supermarket is closed. Another wonderful thing about Easter, your complete weekly programme is destroyed. Mr. Swiss and I ventured into the supermarket yesterday, when everyone else was filling the kitchen with food. Due to our meticulous planning by cloud shopping list on our iPhones, we knew exactly what we needed. It went perfectly. I told Mr. Swiss that first of all it would be meat. When you have the meat, you can build up the remainders around it, and it might be possible that the meat you want they have already sold. We were lucky and we did not have to wait.
We moved onto the vegetable, which was not difficult. The only safe veg we buy is cauliflour and fennel and some tomatoes, because No. 1 son does not like any green vegetables. We eat the green ones during the week when he is at work. Mr. Swiss made a divergence to the fruit. I am not a great fruit eater, but he was planning on making one of his famous apple tarts, so I let him get on with it.
Eventually we made a pause at the refrigerated goods section to compare our cloud lists and eliminate the goods already bought. We were left with only a few items and realised that our quest was almost completed. There was one small problem. As we placed the stuff we bought on the conveyer belt I discovered that the lamb filets were not enough. I left Mr. Swiss to deal with packing the goods from the band, and made an excursion to get another portion of meat. I am not the quickest in walking, but I completed the quest and returned to the till where everyone was waiting for our extra meat. They did not clap when I arrived, but the lady at the cash desk said “look Mrs. Angloswiss is here” and Mr. Swiss was glad that the embarrassment of keeping everyone waiting was now over. However, the couple behind us said that has also happened to them as well, that is how you meet new people when shopping. Of coure everyone knows the Angloswiss family at the supermarket, so no problem.
After the shopping Mr. Swiss had to make a quick visit to the kiosk and as the flower shop is opposite I decided to get a couple of plants I wanted for the garden. We arrived home in good time and congratulated ourselves on the perfect logistics we had applied to the shopping expedition. We are now covered with food until Easter Monday and excursions to supermarkets and shops are now completed. Mr. Swiss will make a short solo journey on Saturday morning for what might have been forgotten, but we seem to have it all.
I even managed to quickly clean my windows yesterday afternoon and now have nothing do until next week. The gardeners and workmen that are helping to rebuild out outside living quarters have also now disappeared, so it will be peace and quiet until next Tuesday when the scaffolding will be constructed.
I remember my days when I was a working woman, with family and kids at Easter. Reflecting on it all I do not know how I managed the shopping quest after the working day and the preparations. Mr. Swiss could not help me then as he was working to far away. I remember it was stress and to top it all our company had the fantastic idea of inviting everyone to an Easter enjoyment in the local village hall, with speeches on the general annual turnover successes (or not) and having fun together. All I wanted to do was go home and get it all behind me. Easter was always a stress in the export business as the orders all had to be finalised and sent to the four corners of the world.
Not everyone celebrates Easter by closing down and time is turnover of course. Even as a golden oldie, my company send me an invitation to join in with the other pensioners at the Easter fun. Sorry, but it nerved me when I was a worker and now I have the choice to say no. It is a nice thought, but at last I can relax at home, eat and do nothing. That is the real meaning of Easter for me – forget all the bits on the side.
And so with these meaningful words I will leave you to begin your Easter holiday with eggs, chocolate bunnies and all the trimmings.
Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss 