Being a Brit, you would think that tea was something special in my life. I really never bothered with it. Of course mum and dad were constant tea drinkers, with their milk and suger. I was more into coffee actually. I only really discovered tea in the last few years when I noticed that my digestive system was no longer happy with coffee. What could I do, I have to have some sort of drink to strt my day, so I decided to try tea. Milk and sugar was not my thing, and so I drink it pure. Just a cup of hot water with tea leaves. I soon discovered that tea bags were not my thing – tea leaves in a paper bag? No thankyou. What sort of tea? There are many types, but Ceylon was too weak for my taste. Eventually I discovered Darjeeling growing on the slopes of the Himalayas I had to find a supplier, and now I order it online. After all tea is not just tea.
And another histroric building disappears behind the scaffolding. I ask how these buildings existed for 5-600 yers and now suddenly they have to be reinforced and repaired. Is this a product of our air pollution? I suppose in the middle ages they had more pollution with the canalisation, the air was pure.
My apple tree is flowering and it will probably be a record harvet this year. I decided to hang a couple of buckets on the branches so that I will not have to pick the apples. They will just fall into the bucket – or??????
We all need it, food, but what we eat depends on taste . At the beginning of my married life I discovered that my taste, my favourites, were not important. No. 1 son would not eat green vegetables, Mr. Swiss was – well – Swiss and he was not in the english way of things. Otherwise I had three others at the table and it became difficult, but somehow I managed. No-one was interested n my preferences and so I eventually ate everything that I cooked – because of the taste of the others. There were criticisms of course, but we survived. As time went by the children moved out, and a year ago Mr. Swiss left for his golden oldie home. I am now left with No.1 son, who still does not eat green food, but we manage. He otherwise seems to eat everything. Being autistic he does not say so much, but gradually, perhaps because we are now alone, he has begun to tell me what his preferences are in vegetables. He is basically a carnivore, but now is is discovering his preferences. He does not like peppers, but aubergine and courgettes as on the good side. And now the time has come when I eat alone at midday, as my son works during the day.
I can now cook what I like and have discovered that my diet is almost without meat. I like cheese and make my own soups with various vegetables. I lived from soup packets all my life and have discovered that a self made soup is no great work and quite tasty. This evening I am alone, No. 1 son is at a pop concert. You can see my evening meal. I decided on asparagus, as there was a special offer, with some air dried meat and of course a sauce hollandaise (which came from a packet).
For tomorrow lunch we have a lamb rack with green beans and french fries. No 1 autistic son once confessed that he likes lamb, another triumph of discovering what he actually likes.
There is always an apple at the bottom of the bin that leads its own life, until the others are eaten and then it appears. . Amazing what settles on the surface.RDP Saturday: Surface
April is a silly month. It cannot decide what to do. One day we have sunshine, temperatures climbing to double figures in Centigrade and the next day we have ground frost, with minus on the scale. Again wrap yourself up warm and do not forget a hat and gloves when going out. And of course the garden, cover up the plants which have decided to grow that they do not get frost bite. It was a bit of a silly day today. It only rained once, but began in the morning and now we have late afternoon and it is still raining. Tomorrow will not be anything better. I did make order with all my spare cardboard and paper as we have a collection next week on Thursday. And now to think about cooking something for the evening meal, something nice and warm, definitely not cold
Imagine living in Switzerland, as I do, and you have the complete country available for a super holiday for a few days, a trip by car. Actually this photo is from the Cbamps Elysee in Paris as all my photos from Switzerland on our various trips are still photos from the years gone by, but this photo shows how it is to make a trip on the Swiss roads, especially on national holidays.
We have the Easter week-end and everyone with a car that wants to go on a trip in Switzerland packs the family and luggage in the car and goes to the favourite place for an Easter holiday, namely the area known as Ticino, the Italian part of Switzerland. Lugano, Locarno and all the nice sounding Italian place names you can imagine. However, as said, everyone goes so you have to get on the road early. I remember one such trip we made, driving off at 5.00 a.m. It is a usual four hour trip and you arrive on the sunny shores of the Italian Lakes during the morning. At least that would be the idea. The first traffic jam you meet is approaching the Gotthard mountain pass which you have to cross to get to the valley of Tessin. In the meanwhile they have built a motorway over the pass, which everyone is taking. There is also a tunnel going through the pass – a 20 minute drive. However forget it all, because these are times with normal traffic. The traffic jams in this direction begin already a day before the Easter holiday and they are jams. I remember sitting in the car for 2 hours with a wonderful view of the car in front and the car behind. This was 20 years ago, but things have not changed. I was reading in the newspaper and seeing it on the TV that the jams were again reaching 20 kilometers towards the Gotthard and on the other side already in Tessin, the jams continued.
So if anyone would like to spend the Easter in the sunny part of Switzerland, forget it. Stay at home and enjoy the peace because everyone else is sitting on the road hoping that it will soon pass. By the way, if you have the kids with you, hope that they do not have digestive problems in the car on the way. Yes, it happened to us, with a few other problems on the way.
A placid view of our local River Aare. It is not always so placid, but mostly. On its way it passes not so placid places as our Kanton Solothurn, but it behaves quite well here. There are even expert swimmers that swim their way from our town of Solothurn to Bern which is about 45 Kilometres: apparently the good swimmers can do it in half an hour.
The expert sleepers are cats, without a doubt, They spend 23 hours a day sleeping, and the remaining hour is divided between eatiing and searching for somewhere to sleep. Do they dream? I think so, as sometimes in their sleep they make a strange nouse as if someone was approaching with a can opener.
Do I dream? Of course, although as I get older my dreams seem to get more realistic, as if they were not dreams but really happening, And then I suddenly awake and realise that it was all a dream after all: everything being as it should be, nobody missing or injured. And yes sometimes I seem to be back in the past living where I once lived in London, but not quite – with other people. I talk in my sleep apparently now and again, and if it gets vivid it can get a little loud, although I would not know today as I have no-one to wake me.
I am Ahmed Abdi, a Wordpress blogger and storyteller who searches for stories that inspire people. I love writing because it’s a reflection of how I perceive the world around me. Lost in a world of endless chaos in my childhood, Unforgettable moments of tragedy and triumphs taught me the art of storytelling where I found myself through letter writing and then turned into stories but then sadly had lost everything I wrote for years. In 2018, I decided to create a Wordpress blog site that would allow me to store and retrieve every piece. Stories from my community, city and people are what make my writing so interesting and inspiring! I’m a tea lover so a cup of tea sometimes makes my blog.
"Summer is the Season of Inferior Sledding" -- Inuit Proverb. Martha Ann Kennedy's Blog, Copyright 2013-into perpetuity, all rights reserved to the author/artist.
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Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss 