Waves of Happiness

My roommate and I share something wonderful: every once in awhile we’ll feel just immersed in a happiness wave. They come unbidden and not often, nor are they explainable as to why then or there, they just appear.

I had one yesterday as I left the mountains for the trek home to celebrate the Swiss National Holiday August 1^st.

After the cold and rain of Monday, followed by a general clearing out of clouds and bad weather on Tuesday, Wednesday was a brilliant day: the greens were greener, the blues as blue as they’ll ever be – everything was shiny and seemingly new.

Then today – the Swiss National Holiday: it was in 1891 that the date of Swiss National day was first decided upon – August 1 (the chosen date of August 1^st harks back to summer of 1291 when three cantons bonded together, not as a country, but in a pact of mutual support should they be attacked by the reigning Habsburgs).

Then, the Swiss not being particularly rapid when it comes to many things, took over a hundred years before running a vote to actually give themselves the day off. Following the vote in September 1993, the day became an official national holiday in 1994.
 
Celebrations are similarly low-key with a gathering of the community, the reading of the pact and a bonfire. Often children carry lanterns (and yes, some still have real candles in them) and parade around the village.  It is a very special sight to be on a boat in the middle of some small lake in Switzerland’s interior and see the bonfires on all the surrounding hillsides.
So happy vacation to all of you wherever you are – enjoy the beauty of your surroundings.

La Batiaz Bridge, Martigny

Chalet, Les Marécottes, VS

Lac Léman just out of St.Gingolph

August 1 decorations

"Use it or lose it"

I didn’t so I did.

As foreseen, awoke to a gloriously sunny day here in the mountains, light breeze, temperatures hovering around 20°C (68°F).

Although it took awhile for me to get out, weather and the ankle combined to make a hike possible (o.k. it can hardly qualify for a “hike” – after five weeks of very sporadic and mostly flat surfaces due to the ankle – that just sounds better than walk, or, as my brother would probably qualify it – a leisurely stroll).

I was pleased that I could go straight up the mountain path without stopping for a whole 15 minutes, but boy it sure doesn’t compare to just a few years ago when I would hike straight up for two hours – and an altitude climb of approx. 2’000 feet – then take the cable car back down.

Still it’s a start: I find that one thing has greatly improved with the years – I no longer stress if I don’t do so many minutes/miles per day. If I stop due to a cold, a sprained ankle, too much to do, that I can get back to it and build slowly up to the same level (if not speed and distance).

It’s a pleasure – and enough - just to be able to be on my own two feet, walking where fluffy white clouds drape themselves over the mountains and where the woods are green, the streams lively and the wooden chalets starting to fly their Swiss flags in honor of the upcoming National Holiday August 1^st.

Guest Editor Scooby-Doo 3

Ah – lunch was Mexican and good even if not exactly the Tex-Mex of my youth, so why did my hostess think that one measly yogurt for supper was a meal? I mean, really, I need sustenance.

Especially in light of the short night: that storm they had foreseen for late afternoon managed to announce its booming presence – at 4:30 a.m. totally interrupting my beauty sleep.

That, of course, led my hostess to think that I could perhaps benefit from a coffee tasting – in spite of what my mistress had told her (that I couldn’t hold my coffee and would need to be within a 3-foot radius of the facilities all day long!). Some people just refuse to understand certain realities. Good thing she had a husband and a mother who took anti-diuretics and knows where every toilet is in Geneva or any other spot where she spends any amount of time.

Decisions, decisions, cup? coffee?

 

As the weather man was correct, for once, in his predictions that there would be 100% chance of rain, we didn’t move much. What he didn’t say was that it would be for 100% of the day!  My hostess, wishing to spare me I suppose (as I had neither winter jacket nor rain equipment) left me to my own devices, i.e. a nap, and went down to Martigny for coffee and a look around. She returned pronto as all the tourists were shopping and she doesn’t do crowds.

Ah the comforts of home.

Weather wise and just to impress upon you the variations that we deal with here in the Swiss Alps: when we arrived Saturday afternoon it was 32° C on the car thermometer; today when she went to the valley it was 12°C (90°F and 54°F approx.). And then we wonder why we are tired?

Well tomorrow is another day – we enjoyed the break in the weather – and the sun will probably be out again. I could really get used to this “vacationing” thing.

Guest Editor: Scooby-Doo 2

It is different sleeping in the mountains: tired, but excited so didn’t sleep all the way through.

This morning, I learned that a Sunday in the chalet is entirely different from what I have observed up until now: the hostess got the Sunday paper and proceeded to have coffee and breakfast (peanut butter and jelly) for almost an hour – who could have imagined?

Sunday paper in Switzerland

My window

Then as it was already warm outside I was packed into a backpack and we set off to discover the wonders close to home: waterfalls, wooden bridges for the walkers, etc.

Fountain - many along the way.

Pedestrian bridge

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I even got to hug a tree (don’t I look relaxed about that? The second time I was feeling a bit more confident).

Wild strawberries- nummy...

After resting on a bench in the full sun I could understand her muttering about the heat so, after sniffing out a wild strawberry, I graciously allowed that we could return home (after all I didn’t want her to end up fainting like my mistress’s mother a couple of weeks ago, nor have her throw me over a cliff… amongst the mutterings was “he is just too hot to be carrying”).

The chalet was a cooler 24° (75° F) and as I write, she is taking a shower, so I hope that she will come out with her usual good humor: wonder what’s for lunch?

Guest Editor: Scooby-Doo

Dear Mommy,

After you abandoned me here in Switzerland, I moped for a bit as neither grandma, her fiance nor her friend let me sleep with them. 

 

It was so hot too and when I overheard them discussing the mountains, I decided to stow away.

Such excitement – I climbed into the trunk, but got found quickly. The driver took my presence well and seeing how hot I was began looking for refreshing views and entertaining stops. You wouldn’t believe the water I’ve seen on the way to the alps: Lac Léman (often simply called Lake Geneva much to the disgust of the people in the next canton up as well as the French who share part of its shores);

Lac Leman

 

the Rhone river (looks awful, as it is gray, but the driver told me that that is because it is glacial run-off so carries a lot of stone sediment); 

Rhone River

an artificial lake at one of the most gorgeous highway stops I’ve ever seen;

Relais du Grand Saint Bernard

 

the Trient river, which flows through a gorge of the same name and the Dranse, which runs under a too-cute-to-be-believed wooden bridge.

La Batiaz

Pretty is, as pretty does.

But there was also playtime – 

 

 I got to sit on the swing,

 ride the frog,

 

climb the ropes: sure am glad she didn’t make me go down the BMX run – my tummy felt funny just thinking of those bumps. 

BMX park in the Chablais

 

Since I am a bit afraid of swimming I didn’t go in the lake to play with the ducks nor jump off the bridge (Western City), 

 but I loved sitting at the picnic table, 

 

posing with my cousin and aunt

hugging a cow (thank goodness it was only a plastic one – they are too big for me!). 

Then I got to lay on a very old car, which parked by mine 

 

A real day to be remembered, but I am glad now to lay on the sofa and recuperate: who knows what she’ll want to do tomorrow? 

WCP or a variation on household tasks

When we moved into our new home May 2, 1981 I remember telling my husband: I take care of the children (at that point only one), I take care of the house, I work for our business full time, but I don’t do the garden. Well, he didn’t either

Over the years we have been ecologically proper without even trying, i.e. the lawn that I spent so many hours weeding on hands and knees the first couple of summers, turned into a prairie – one where dandelions provide the greater share of color, although in recent years a touch of blue has been added by some other weed that likes the soil and climatic conditions. The hedges flourish – their roots preventing any serious planting of more delicate flowers.

The oaks have this thing for promptitude and regularity: every year thousands of acorns receive their blankets of leaves – all needing to be raked and disposed of in green compost bins. Now, I know some would say, why don’t you just leave them be? That would show lack of knowledge about oak acorns: 5 days and you have a root about 10 “ long – our lot would now be an oak forest and the house non existent, strangled by offshoots and buried in leaves.

When we built the winter garden, we transplanted the terrace several feet further: it likes to collect any stray seedlings and moss if the springs are wet.

As I travel a lot – and so far have yet to find guests or housemates that enjoy gardening – it is a good year if the front and terraces are in reasonable shape for the annual August 1 cocktail party (Swiss Independence Day). Once it was perfect even with a new stone patio laid when a neighbor needed work for an immigrant that she was sponsoring, but it was only once.

The cleaning lady plants a flowerbed and occasionally mows (an electric mower, which the parents could handle, was an anethma to both sons: even bribery didn’t work as they would reply, that, thank you very much, they had enough pocket money!). The housemate and myself rake the acorns and leaves and occasionally remember to water houseplants.

Until that glorious day when said housemate fell in love: the “fiancé” enjoys gardening as a physical outlet for all his intellectual occupations – hallelujah. In one day a couple of weeks ago he managed to totally take care of leaves, rubbish and weeds under the roses, then continued to dig up stones and lift the tarp covering from what used to be the front lawn until the cleaning lady and I dug it up, then didn’t put water in the roller to properly level it. Replacing them, he realized that one was shorter than the other so laid them horizontally, which led to redesigning the front walkway and entry.  OK, we haven’t had time to implement much, but it’s a start and gave me the necessary push to weed the terrace and water the one flowerbed – thus the watering part of today’s acronym.

Clipping: I was on a roll and the sun not yet at its zenith, so took the clippers and went along the outside hedge cutting all the very spikey, sticky weeds protruding on to the sidewalk at all levels: passersby now no longer risk their skin and clothes being torn, nor I a suit for damage.

Planting: more minimal, but I had found a clematis bearing my name in the local garden center – so it joined the flower bed before it got hot this morning, as did my grown-from-seed cornflower seedlings.

Now to watch it all and maintain the rhythm. Thanks for the help R!

“All is well that end’s well.”

This is, of course, best known from the Shakespeare play of the same name, but it was a proverb before it was a play title. John Heywood included it in A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the prouerbes in the Englishe tongue, 1546: (his spelling errors, not mine). A proverb that means: problems do not matter so long as the outcome is good.

 

Why the title? For those of you who are regular followers, you will recall that on July 13^th I wrote of my housemates mishap – falling face forward into the entryway.  Surgery was indicated – more for esthetic reasons they said – and although she wavered a few times, she did go in yesterday. As it turns out, a very good thing since they found bone splinters whilst placing the titanium plates to stabilize her eye socket.  These would have had the potential to do some real mischief down the line so it is a well that the doctors proposed surgery.

Her fiancé and I brought her home today and we are hoping that this year’s allotment of disasters is also now well ended – I know the road to the University Hospital way too well!