They do arrive in all colours
Monthly Archives: October 2018
Daily Inkling: Bump in the Night
It’s Halloween night and you’re home alone. You’re just drifting off to sleep when you hear a crashing sound in the other room. What do you do, and what happens next?
Every year the same show just because it is halloween. When I bought the house it was cheap and I should have know why, but you do not look a gift house in the door: 10 rooms and only a couple of thousand. It all began on halloween of course.
I should have known better, The whole year I have the place to myself but 31st October I have to share it with Morticia and her husband Drac. Then there is another crash as Frankenstein walks through the door, although I left the key outside, but he doesn’t care. He does not have to pay for the repairs afterwards. Not to mention the Headless horseman and his phantom horse. That horse stinks more every year, as well as the rider. I should really not complain too much. When they all arrive with a few more of their friends, I have the best party of the year. Of course they invite me as well. There is no point of making a fuss and no-one would believe me.
If you buy a house next to the local cemetery you have to take the good with the bad. I am glad the vampires bring their own blood. I told them from the beginning, no blood stains on my carpet otherwise they can clean the carpet before the fly off to their various coffins. Otherwise a good time is had by all, although I hate playing hide and seek with them, they keep playing the invisible game. Bumps in the night? Only once a year and if I turn up the music I do not really hear them.
FOWC with Fandango: Weight
When I was young I was really quite skinny
Everyone I knew called me a thinny
I ate and ate until I would expand
My clothes were two sizes larger, although this was not planned
I discovered that eating the biscuits and cakes
Was an enjoyable pasttime and just what it takes
But then I had problems, in my clothes I did squeeze
Something was wrong, the doc said it was diabetes
I thought being heavy would make me look good
But instead sugar was forbidden, I must have misunderstood
As the years went on my body went south
I got it all wrong, stuffing all in my mouth
But today I am shapely if I wear a wide dress
My waist disappeared, I ate to excess
Exercise is good, I do all I can afford
I started with my fingers on the computer keyboard
And now I feel fit, my fingers are agile
Although my outline has become quite fragile
But what does it matter, I am feeling quite well
When I buy a new t-shirt with the size XXXL
Actually I am 1 m 76 cm tall and weight 86 kilo but I do have diabetes type 2
RDP Wednesday: Costume
Some years ago I was in New York, as a tourist. It was then that I discovered a shop that was dedicated to halloween: everything was halloween. They had masks, ghosts and ghouls in plastic and even a doorbell that made an evil chuckle when you pressed the button. I must admit I bought one, thinking it would be a good idea to install when back home in Switzerland. I never really installed it and no-one would have laughed if I had.
Just imagine I am a halloween grinch, at least I have become one. The only halloween we might see in our area is perhaps a decoration in a restaurant, although only to look at. And now imagine I am inundated with telling ghost and horror stories and writing about halloween when I do not really know where to begin. Where I live we eat pumpkins as a vegetable, perhaps turn them into a soup. Our only concession is a carved pumpkin with a candle for the kids to have a procession, but nothing tricking or treating or making a big thing of it.
It is not lack of trying. Great Britain was also a halloween free nation until it was discovered that they could do it as well. In the last few years it has gained on popularity encouraged by the various commercial enterprises that realised they could earn money with it. And then it spread a little to Europe. Catholic countries had always had a hang to it, through their various festivals, but it was a no go in Switzerland. No-one was interesting in transforming their garden into a plastic graveyard, or decorating their home with ghostly articles. And so it happened that the whole idea was forgotten and you could get the various ornaments at half price in the shops, or even less. It was a failure and died a slow death.
I have nothing more to say on this, I have been scraping the bottom of my halloween bowl to find something to tell you that would be enterprising, but nothing happened. I do not paint my face with the colour of blood, nor wear false vampire teeth, When I look in the mirror I see enough horror. Tonight I will go to bed as usual, have my sweet dreams and not be spooked or have constant ringing at the doorbell for tricks or treats. One mother here, who had American connections, tried it with her kids, but most people did not know what it was about, and even if they did they had not stocked up on various caramel skulls or sugar eyeballs, which were not even available here. I really felt sorry for the kids that were left standing with empty bags at the door.
So I wish everyone a happy halloween if they have a party and dress up, I will be dressing up in my nightdress.
Good Morning
It was a strange sky yesterday afternoon. We had drizzling rain all morning but it stopped midday- It was cold with a biting wind and I decided not to go places and see things and then I looked up. At last the sky had cleared but some clouds remained making intresting patterns.
And then the sun came out reflecting in a window opposite. It was certainly a striking effect. I think that was the only excitement I had yesterday, except for making a shopping list for today.
And I had the visit of a magpie. It arrives every morning regularly and sits in the tree opposite. She or he does no stay long and soon flies off to the colony. I think she is just the lookout that reports back to the others.
If I start taking photos of my boring breakfast table in the morning it really means I do not have a lot to report from the wilds of Feldbrunnen at the moment. My orchid is still with me since two months and doe not show a sign of wilting yet. It was one of those orchids that Mr. Swiss now and again brings home for me, not really, he says he likes to brighten the place up a bit.
Our new method of shopping is working well. He has a coffee in the supermarket restaurant and I do the safari work in the store, although now and again he also makes an appearance in the store for a few bits and pieces, but does his own thing. Today he has a mission for a bottle of white wine, only for cooking purposes, as I used up the remainder yesterday. Our supermarket does not sell alcohol and the store for that is on the ground floor.
I used to take the escalator to the top floor, but now stick to the lift as I am a bit unsteady with a trolley. Growing old is not such fun. You no longer have to work for a living, but the fringe benefits are combined with bones that creak and a brain that is no longer how it used to be. That is one of the advantages of growing old together. What Mr. Swiss forgets, I remember, and it also works the other way round. If we both forget we always have our notes in the iCloud reminders in he iPhone. I often wonder how my mum and dad managed without our modern day helpers, although supermarkets were then not so common. I remember mum would buy the fruit and veg from a stall in the street market- The stall holders would buy their goods from the London wholesale market halls, yes those were the days.
Now it is delivered daily to the supermarkets and what it left at the end of the day and no longer can be sold is just thrown away – modern times.
And now to depart for my daily clean-up. If the weather holds, I will again be on my way this afternoon, with gloves and operhaps even a woolly hat. It is cold out there. I was planning on a cemetery visit tomorrow, as they get quite a crowd on All Souls Day, but rain is reported, so I will have to wait and see.
Have fun and enjoy the Autumn colours. I know I am.
FOTD October 30th 2018: Mandavilla
Although it has many other names. I know it as Dipladenia. It seems to be a favourite as grave decoration and I often see it in the local cemetery.
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Places People Live
I pass this villa every time I go into town. It was built be the owner of a factory, but was empty for some time. There is even a tennis court in part of the garden.
Another one of the local villas built by a doctor-lawyer family, but now in other hands.
And now and again you find those neat littles houses where you wish you could also live.
Daily Inkling: Thirty-First Contact
Aliens have finally visited Earth and are ready to make contact with humans! There’s just one thing: the aliens unknowingly landed on Halloween. What happens next?
“Let’s go, I am not staying here, no way.”
“Why what’s wrong?”
“Look out of the window. They cut our heads off and eat the contents. They are cannibals.”
“Yuck, let’s go home, how disgusting, although that human over there looks quite tasty.”
“True, Klongle collected a few humans, for dinner, but only the heads.
FOWC with Fandango: Centre
“Move over your bunch of feathers, it’s my turn now.”
“You don’t have to be insulting, I saw that seed first. Go and hover somewhere and wait your turn.”
“What are you two chirping about, just take your place in the queue and keep your beaks away from the sunflower seeds, they happen to be my favourite.”
“Ours too.”
“Stop arguing down there. I am freezing up here, my feet are falling asleep and make sure you leave something for me. Those blue tits are observing the situation up on the trees and if we are not careful they will pounce and then we will have nothing. I am coming, so move over birds and make room.”
“OK, I have to go now in any case, promised the missus to bring a few seeds home. Looks like it will be another good Winter this year. See you again tomorrow at the central bird feeder, same time. Hope the human fills it up in the meanwhile, almost nothing left.”
“Of course the way you are stuffing yourselves. Remember what happed to No. 10 sparrow last year. He ate so much he lost the balance on the bird feeder and fell to the ground. We had to carry him back to the tree, and was he heavy.”
“Yes I remember, but he is no longer with us, the feline got him.”
“Is she still around.”
“Yes I saw her prowling around this morning. She tried to catch me with her paws, but she is no real danger now. She is getting older and no longer as fit as she was.”
“So enough of this chirp talk, I have eaten my rations for today. See you all tomorrow, same time and same place.”
RDP Tuesday: Dead
A shop window like any other, but this was a window with a difference. Everything was carved in stone, smooth or rough. A cat. why not, one of her favourite animals: even a pillar with an apple balanced on top, now who would want something like that. Suddenly she saw the little round object with a face, almost a laughing face. The things that people thought of today, but why not. She entered the shop. A man approached from the back room, covered in dust.
“Can I help you?”
“How much is that little round smiling face.”
The liitle round face? You want that one?”
“Is that such a strange choice?”
“Not really, it was just an idea for something completely different. Is it for someone close.”
“Just someone dead.”
There were no more words spoken, and she bought it there and then. It was even half price. She arrived home and waited for the evening. It was dark outside, and she began to dig. In the morning she had a new ornament in the garden, a round smiling face on a mound of earth. The joke was on him eventually.
She went to the police and reported a missing person, but he remained missing. Sometimes the most obvious is not found.
Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss 