Today I had a concert in front of my bedroom window that began at 7.00 a.m. I thought Charles Ives had returned. He was an American and one of the first composers to engage in a systematic program of experimental music, The Unanswered Question being his most well known work. One of his experiements was in the town where he lived. He was standing on the church tower and organised bands to march on the roads leading to the tower, all playing something else. This morning the builders were on the tower playing the drill and hammer and I was lying in bed trying to rescue the remainder of my sleep. As if this was not bad enough when I arrived in the kitchen another shock was awaiting me.

Mr. Swiss always buys one of those breads to finish off in the oven for Sunday, making it nice and warm and fresh. Yesterday we ate something else the baking of the bread was forgotten. When I arrived at the bread board this morning I found three lonely stale remainders of the bread from last Friday. I am not really spoilt and can always find a solution somewhere, but this time I was a little worried. My teeth no longer enjoy grinding down archaic stone age bread rests in the morning for breakfast. An alternative breakfast does not exist for me as my digestive system cannot cope with cereal and milk and I do not like yogurt.

I am not blaming anyone for fogetting to bake the bread, although I never really bother with the process – less said is perhaps better. However, where there is a will there is a way and I had a brilliant idea. We have two toasters: one is for toasting four pieces of bread at once, and the other for only two pieces. I chose the four piece toaster and sliced the raw unbaked bread and toasted it. It was great, a real feast for a Monday morning.

In the meanwhile the builders continued undaunted in slowly demolishing the surface of our building.

Where there used to be pictures of flowering plants, fresh green leaves and even birds singing in the bushes, we now have heaps of styrofoam. Did you know that the lumps of the styrofoam are just the peak of the iceberg. If it happens to be windy, even a slight breeze, the remainder of the foam flies in the air and you are sure it must be  snowing outside.

In the meanwhile another person has appeared on the scaffolding, but this time on the other side of the appartment. We are surrounded, under attack from both sides. I recognised this building warrior as the person that removed our wonderful sheltering blinds from the window, leaving us exposed to light, and the sun’s rays. He has returned to removed the sun blind: the large cover on the porch to keep us safe from intense heat in the summer. We could replace the other blinds on the window with a new system for us, which we paid for ourselves. There are no replacements for a sun blind and this will only be replaced as an epilogue to the concert being performed outside, the last movement I could say.

Life can only get better – a last picturesque photo of life in a small Swiss village where the cows and foxes used to say good night to each other, now replaced by the silence of the drills and hammers.

I would add that all photos are Angloswiss originals, all taken during the process of writing this memorable report on the current actions.