I used to have them in my garden, but alas they only live for a year in our cold climate in Winter.
Daily Archives: 22/05/2017
Share Your World – May 22, 2017
What one thing have you not done that you really want to do?
I have been there, done it and at the age of 70 no longer have any great ambitions. I am glad for every day I can look out of the window.
How often do you get a haircut?
Meet Heidi, the lovely lady that is not only my hairdresser, but my friend. My hair just needs a good cut every 6-8 weeks, according to how long and fast it grows and she cuts it perfectly. I like to keep my hair short. She listens to what I say, and during the operation, we talk, she snips and suddenly she is finished. I am the victim taking the photo.
In regards to puzzle what’s your choice: jigsaw, crossword, word search or numeric puzzles?
And now back to Heidi and the hairdresser. To prevent her customers getting impatient whilst waiting for the haircut, she had a jigsaw puzzle in the window of her saloon that you could help to piece together to break the waiting. In this case from the choice above I would choose the jigsaw puzzle online on my iPad. I also quite like a game of Scrabble if the mood takes me.
How many cities have you lived? You can share the number of physical residences and/or the number of cities.
I grew up in London in the house where my mother and her sisters and brother were born. After my dad returned from the war he moved into the top floor of the house as it was empty and that is where I grew up: 45 Norah Street, Bethnal Green, London E.2 – I can still remember the address. I left at the age of 20 for Switzerland and lived 2 years in Zürich where I was also working. I changed my job, but remained in Switzerland, and then lived in Zuchwil, a small village. I met Mr. Swiss, moved in with him, eventually got married and we were living in Solothurn which is the capital town of Kanton Solothurn in Switzerland. Zuchwil is one of the small villages on the edge of Solothurn.
Today I live in Feldbrunnen, another small village next to the town of Solothurn. I no longer plan to move anywhere else.
What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up? I am glad to get the last week behind me. Too many appointments and changes of routine. I had to go to the dentist, Mr. Swiss had to go to the dentist, and I had to do the week-end shopping on my own. I managed OK, as I had the car, but no longer have as much energy as I used to when putting the shopping in the car and removing it at home.
This week it looks like the pre summer weather has arrived. Nice and warm and comfortable. I have no plans, am not going places, and will take it easy. The week began well with a wonderful evening walk with the camera. No stress, no other wanderers around. I sat on a bench at the local cemetery took a few photos and was completely alone except for the birds singing in the trees.
One Word Photo Challenge: The Fox – and the chickens.
Do not be disappointed, but you will not get a photo of any real live foxes here, although they do exist in Switzerland and live in the forests. My first sighting of a fox was a few years ago, unbelievable. I was sitting on the terrace of a country restaurant with the family and looking down saw a fox walking quite calmly amongst the guests on the lower floor. He was not in a hurry, and was most likely looking for any food that might had fallen from the tables-
My second meeting with a fox was from a more distant place. I was driving to work in the early morning and have to drive over the local castle grounds and suddenly I saw a fox on the edge of a field. Being an ex Londoner we were never spoilt for sightings of wild animals. This fox also disappeared.
Instead I can show you Harald, the hero of the chicken coup. He saved his womenfolk from the fox. He even got a medal for it. How Harald saved his chickens from the fox
Daily Prompt: Adrift – Without Control
Today I had my usual after lunch sleep. I sleep after lunch because being a golden oldie my daily rhythm needs this lunchtime sleep. I do my best to avoid falling asleep in the armchair in the evening and find this a very good method to avoid such events. I generally sleep OK during the night, but after the morning chores, perhaps shopping and definitely cooking lunch, I like to relax.
Mr. Swiss is a great help after dinner, clearing everything away and then we relax for half an hour with a coffee or tea, according to our taste. I check through my iPad to see if anything spectacular is happening in my world and then we both disappear to our own preferred places of rest. I choose my bed where I can cover up and sink into oblivion. I need my after lunch sleep and so does Mr. Swiss.
And so life goes on until the builders arrived to do good things to our building. Although there were no real threats of our building falling apart or submerging into a sink hole. We were happy. I would look after my gardens and we would sit outside for meals in Summer, weather permitting. My cat would curl up beneath a tree or lay in a shady place and do what all cats do, mainly sleep. This is now a thing of the past. We are now fighting to survive the summer that never was.
Today I was almost there, eyes shut, brain turned off and sinking slowly into the world of sleep. It was then that they decided it was time to perform the last rites on the corridor next to our appartment on the ground floor (see photo). I had been following the work process over the past weeks. First of all the top layer of the wall is removed with aid of a cutting tool. Of couse it is noisy, but a quick job. the next part you hardly hear when they remove the polysterol foam layers from the old insulation. These layers were fixed with cement, and the cement has to be removed. There is no way to do this manually, with a light tap of a chisel as was the case in the old days. No, today it is done at high speed with a pneumatic chisel, breaking all records of decibel noise. They began to remove this layer from the corridor next to my bedroom (right hand side of the photo behind the brick wall) which almost pushed me out of bed. It was unbearable. Adrift was not the word for it: more attempted murder.
Mr. Swiss appeared and said that our cat was now hiding beneath the settee and would not come out, no way. He was more than adrift. He was sure that lives No. 5-9 were now used up (he lost the other 4 some time ago).
To take the photo above I took a walk to see the cause of the trouble. The workmen were overjoyed to see me of course, although I said it was not enjoyable to have such noise when wanting to sleep and my cat has now disappeared under the settee. They reassured me that by lunch time tomorrow all the noisy work would be done. When I appeared the words I heard from the worker “here comes the boss”. Big joke and when I returned to Mr. Swiss he was also laughing. In the meanwhile a pile of roof rubbish had assembled in my garden, crushing the remains of my hollyhocks and forget-me-not, which had already been crushed last week and were making an effort to revive themselves. I now had 3 roof workers in front of my window with a bucket of some sort of black liquid painting parts of my wall. Apparently they were sealing the wall. Mr. Swiss tells me it is bitumen. Whatever it is, it smells quite strong. I am gradually becoming an expert of building techniques.
I suppose it is all the name of improvement. I wonder if Christopher Wren or James Hoban, annoyed the neighbours as much as I am annoyed by our building processes.
Somewhere in the distance I can still hear drilling – this is reminding me of the Ephraim Kishon “Blaumilch Canal” book. Read it if you have not yet. I used to laugh when I read it, now I am not so sure.
Good Morning
Yesterday I did something I have not done for years. I went for a walk in the evening at 7.00 p.m. Not that I am particular about times, but I heard the churchbell ring. I had been at home all day doing this and that. I wanted to take a walk with the camera, but it was one of those hot sunny days and I do not go for walks in the hot sun. After eating something in the evening I discovered I had nothing really useful to do and it was a really pleasant evening, so off I went telling Mr. Swiss where I was going and be back in an hour.
I decided to walk past the stables to see if there was anything happening. Our local castle in the first photo is always a background to anywhere I walk. They always seem to build castles on a hill, and I was not in a mood for climbing hills, so took a photo long distance.
Walking past the stables this particular horse seems to wait for visitors. I think he loves to have a photo taken. The nice thing about Sunday evening is that you are on your own. I have given up walking on Sunday afternoon in the good weather, there are too many people with the same idea.
So I walk on and the path leads to the cemetery. Again I was on my own. I think I was the only person in that cemetery, it was so wonderfully peaceful sitting on a bench listening to birdsong from the trees. You can always rely that the residents make no noise and are very peaceful.
I noticed things I had never noticed before like this little statue on a grave. I decided walks in summer in the evening are ideal. Not too hot, no stress, and you are really on your own. I returned home and Mr. Swiss breathed a sigh of relief. He tends to get worried when I go off, although I am armed with my mobile phone and a walking stick, but that’s what partners are for I suppose.
This morning I read something in a Swiss rag online newspaper, but it was all so familiar. It seems in that a lady suddenly had a friendship request in Facebook from a man dressed in uniform, an American soldier. This attracted my attention, because I have had at least 10 of these good looking well built men dressed in uniform wanting to be my friend (a 70 year old golden oldie?). I read on and this lady, also an American, suddenly received flowers and the soldier said he really wanted to meet her when he would be on leave. Ok, all well and good, she was happy and found why not. This soldier also had a daughter who also began to write to this lady saying how happy she was that her father had now found someone. This continued for a few months. One day the soldier writes he has found money in Afghanistan and would like to send it to her for safe keeping until he is back in the States. However, he would have to pay for the money transfer and does not have the funds, Whether she would help out. Now this American lady was certainly not stupid and broke off the contact immediately. The daughter wrote to say how her father was now so sad and she should really reconsider. The daughter added it brought her to tears to see how this affected her father. This lady made investigations and found the flowers she received came from an address in Australia and many other things just could not be genuine.
Why I am writing this is because I too have been approached by various so-called Ameican servicemen serving for their country and asked for friendship on Facebook. Needless to say I did not even bother, but it was interesting to have my suspicions confirmed that somewhere something must be wrong. It seems they use photos that are not their own. Although I would add that the photos I received were too good to be true. No man looking like that with such a perfect body (the all seem to be wearing tight t-shirts) could really be looking for a woman.
And now to the background sound of a pneumatic drill (the generators are today parked opposite my garden) I will leave you. It is Monday, I have places to go and things to do. Might even find a few good photo subjects on the way. Have a good week everyone.
I will leave you with a photo of young horses that another farmer keeps. As I was walking home I passed one of the local road railway stations and through the hedge at the back of the station I can see the meadow where the horses graze.
Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss 