Reservoir Cats - 1

Nera: At last for some peace and quiet. That was a very busy night. Tabby is still out in the field and Fluffy is sleeping somewhere. Think I will head for my favourite wardrobe seat while the going's good. As soon as Tabby arrives she will grab the best place, the cushion at the end of the cupboard where you have a view of everything. Better be quick – first jump up on the desk, then the TV and up onto the cupboard top. From there it’s only a short flight up to the wardrobe cushion. Am I glad I am at home first of all. Oh, I can hear the cat flap, Tabby’s coming.
Tabby: Wonder if my big sister Nera is already at home. I bet she’s already taken the front seat.
Nera: I heard that Tabby. You will have to take the cushion at the end, I am already settled for the day.
Tabby: You mean I have to take the cushion where you don’t see anything, the one where you don’t have a view of what’s going on.
Nera: Actually we are here for a day’s sleep, so I don’t see why it is so important to know what is going on when you are sleeping.
Tabby: Then why are you in the front cushion?
Nera: That’s different. I am bigger than you, and was born first so I have the first choice.
Tabby: You are not bigger, just more fluffy and that with the born first you can just forget. I was ready to go out and you gave me a push back with your hind leg and you went first.
Nera: I don’t remember.
Tabby: I didn’t think you would remember.
Fluffy: Hey, you two up there on the wardrobe – we have problems. Mrs. Human is a bit worked up down here. She is not very happy with us.
Nera: Mrs. Human is very rarely happy with us, but what’s wrong now.
Fluffy: She said something about a dead mouse outside on the porch under the table.
Nera: Well it wasn’t me, I didn’t find a mouse all night.
Tabby: I am innocent, the only mice I saw last night were faster than me.
Fluffy: Well the mice don’t just commit suicide on their own, so someone must have done it.
Tabby: I am sure it was that French miaowing cat Bobinette that lives next door.

Fluffy: Forget it, she is on holiday with her humans.
Tabby: Cats don’t go on holiday with humans, they don’t like travelling away from their natural places.
Nera: The Frenchie next door doesn’t mind. She has been all over the place with her humans. First she lived in Switzerland, then she moved down to Italy – had quite a romantic episode down there she told me. Something about a tom called Romeo.
Tabby: Nera, I think Bobinette’s love life doesn’t really interest us cats here.
Fluffy: In any case, she doesn’t mind car rides, and now she is in the mountains for a few days with her humans.
Tabby: How comes everyone knows what the neighbours cat is doing and I don’t.
Nera: That is because as soon as she puts a paw in the garden you hiss at her and tell her to clear off instead of speaking with her.
Tabby: I don’t understand her and she is not like us.
Fluffy: I am not too keen on her, but she is a lot bigger than me, so I just go out of her way.
Nera: Ok, but who killed the mouse outside when it was none of us and Bobinette is on holiday.
Fluffy: There is only one suspect left and that can be only Mr. Grey.

Tabby: I saw him in the field yesterday in the night, but he ran off when he saw me.
Nera: Now that is strange. Mr. Grey never runs away when he sees one of us. He fights with Fluffy, and chases Tabby away.
Tabby: Yes Nera, you are the only cat around here that sleeps next to him outside sometimes. Perhaps if you hadn’t been in such a hurry to get back home this morning to get the best pillow, he might have told you why he disappeared when I saw him.
Nera: Well if you must know I did see Mr. Grey as he overtook me on his way home, but we didn’t talk.
Fluffy: That’s strange – he always has a few words with you Nera.
Tabby: I know why he didn’t talk, because he had a mouse in his mouth, didn’t he Nera.
Nera: I didn’t notice it.
Tabby: Nera you never seem to notice important things like that. Now Mrs. Human is blaming us for the dead mouse outside.
Fluffy: Nera what do you say to that?
Nera: If Mrs. Human is at home, then it must be the week-end and she will be off shopping in an hour or so, meaning that she will have other things on her mind that one dead mouse. Fluffy, Tabby and I will now have our well deserved daily sleep and you can keep watch on the situation during the day.
Fluffy: You mean keep watch on Mr. Grey to make sure he doesn’t deposit any of his dead mice in our territory.
Nera: Something like that, although he will probably be having a cat nap as well today.
Tabby: I suppose poor Mr. Grey will be so tired after getting the only mouse available yesterday Hissss
Nera: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Fluffy: I think she is already sleeping Tabby
Tabby:zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Fluffy: Typical, they can be glad that I keep an eye on things during the day.

Apples

It was really an apple year this year. I have had years that have been quite good, but this year beat them all. The three bowls of apples above are only part of the harvest. We have already eaten two bowls full and I have given some to neighbours and friends (relations? - not really as I don't have any on this side of the channel and the Swiss bunch have their own apple trees).

I had a look at the tree this evening to see what was left, and found that there were still some apples to come.

What do you do with so many apples. I do have a dehydrating machine, but it takes time to peel and slice the apples and being a working woman I don't really want to spend my week ends with the apple harvest. I could make apple pies and apple tarts (a Swiss speciality), but not every day. Apple wine or cider is also a possibility, but for that I would need a distillary and probably council permission living in Switzerland (you need a permission for everything here - except for cats). I think we will just have to eat them. I was very surprised that there was very little livestock in the apples. Very few worms had found their home in the fruit and there were also practically no apples laying on the ground. It was just perfect weather this year for apples.

So while I was taking a walk around my estate this evening, I noticed that my reeds had flowered this year for the first time properly. Up to now over the last 5-6 years I was lucky to find a stray blossom somewhere hidden in the stalks, but this year there is one display of wheaty ears.

Then I took a walk into the field bordering on our estate. There are a few odd bushes which had been planted by the corporation that built the estate where we live. One of them has blue berries in Autumn, but not the edible kind, but they do look quite attractive.

So that was a quick update on the tabbynera estate in Autumn. Our cats enjoy this time of year especially. It was quite an adventure taking the photos making sure that a dead mouse wasn't lying in the way. We have had quite a dry and sunny Autumn although the temperatures are now quite low at night. And now I must go and eat an apple or two or three or maybe four.

Dirt

One of my numerous hobbies is writing. I just have fun but am certainly no great talent. However, now and again I put my hobby to the test and enter a competition featured on one of the forum sites I visit now and again. One of the choices was to write a short piece called "Dirt", so here it is. You were only allowed up to about 1,500 words.

Dirt
There was really only dirt left on planet 123. It covered everything, well everything that was left and that was almost nothing. It was an exhausted world. Once there were green fields and oceans teaming with life, but that was once. It all started somewhere in the top half of the planet, according to the scientific examinations made. Planet 123 was occupied mostly by animals with legs, arms and even brains, some brains being more developed than others. Let us call the animals with the larger brains humans. The humans used their brains to organise their life. The humans were hungry and had to eat. What did the humans eat? They ate other animals and decided that it was boring eating other animals, there were even humans that thought there was something wrong with eating other animals. It was then that the law was finally passed – eat no other animals.

What happened, you ate plants. You eat things that grow out of the ground. Then there was earth, teaming with insects, seeds waiting to sprout and minerals. So the humans started eating things growing out of the earth. The humans discovered that it was not possible to grow things everywhere. The desert had no water, so that was a large part of planet 123 that couldn’t be used for growing things. Then there were minerals such as iron and coal. What grew on those minerals? Nothing, so that part of the world was not fertile enough for growing plants. And the sea – this was no environment for growing plants. Some human races ate seaweed, but they were few and far between.

What was left – a few areas North and South of the equator on the planet. The humans started eating plants. Plants were growing everywhere and could be eaten. The food made from the plants had to be sent to the areas where no plants were growing. Vegetables and corn harvested were used to feed the world population. The vegetarian food had to be transported by lorries, planes and ships. The old animal nutrition was left to itself. The sheep population started growing, there were cows everywhere and chickens were roaming the streets. Pigs started raiding the shops for food as their normal food was being processed for humans.

The chickens picked at the plants growing in the earth, the cows were eating twice as much grass as usual and birds started eating the seeds on the growing plants. Humans were having problems with the growth of the plants, as soon as they were planted and started growing, the animals would eat the plants. The humans put more nutrition into the earth to force the growth of the plants and vegetables. After 20 years they noticed that the harvest was getting smaller. There was nothing more to send to the countries that didn’t have enough water to grow their plants. The next idea the humans had was to pump water from the sea to those countries so that they could grow their own plants. The humans were very clever I suppose, but after another 30 years they realised that the water level was sinking in the oceans of the planet. In the meanwhile the humans on planet 123 even had to pump water onto the fields in the North and South as the earth was becoming exhausted by giving so much for the growth of the plants.

One of the humans with more brain than the others decided that it should be again permitted to eat animals. This would have been a good idea, but after so many years of eating vegetation the human body was no longer able to digest meat. The humans tried, but after 20% of the human race died through the allergic reactions to eating meat, the idea had to be abandoned. In the meanwhile the actually level of humus in the earth was becoming less and less. There were even areas where no earth existed any more. It was just pure dirt. There were still some places where you could plant. In the far North of planet 123 where the temperatures were cooler, the plants grew slower and the animals went into hibernation in the Winter. At the beginning and end of the winter months fast growing plants could be harvested, but as the results were minimal, the plants could only be eaten in these areas.

A hundred years had now passed. There was not enough oxygen in the atmosphere any more, photosythesis no longer took place. The earth was becoming bare in places, the friendly brown colour of the earth was slowly changing to a deathly shade of grey. The few remaining humans living on planet 123 huddled together in the Northern regions. Earth had become a rare substance. If it was found it was hidden and kept in the hope that something may grow in it one day. The humans thought it might rain again. Rain was rare, as there was no process for making rain on planet 123 any more. Eventually the grey dirt surface covered planet 123 and all signs of life, human or otherwise, just didn’t exist any more. Planet 123 was renamed the dirty planet.

One thousand years later a spacecraft landed on planet 123. The travellers looked for life on the planet of dirt, but there was no life left The spaceship decided to leave with its crew, but before leaving threw out the waste from the space ship onto the planet. After all what difference would it make to a dead planet covered with dirt. In the waste was a worm, just a small earth worm who had lived on dirt his whole wormy life. So what do worms do surrounded by tons of dirt, they eat the dirt and multiply. As planet 123 was just one dirty planet, the worm was in paradise. The worm multiplied and his family members started eating the dirt and digesting it. The dirt was slowly transformed and started breathing. The seeds that had been laying in the dirt started growing and there was rain again on the planet.

One millionen years later planet 123 was unrecognisable. There was still dirt, but good dirt. There were plants thriving in the dirt. The worms had developed over the years and now had legs and heads and brains. They felt at home in the world of dirt. Sometimes the dirt got wet by the rain that fell, so the worms with heads, legs and arms channelled the rain into rivers that flowed together to form oceans. Other animals developed and they began to eat each other until one day a special animal with a brain, said that something is wrong somewhere. Why eat each other when we can also eat things that grow.

Do I have to tell what happened next?

Trouble in Switzerland

Our government is quite a neat thing. Seven ministers, each one responsible for his department and a sort of assistant that looks after everyone. They are from different parties and all work together. Sort of a magic formular, 2 Socialists, 2 conservative, one christian party and 2 people's party basically speaking - just a rough translation. The gentleman second from the left is the one of the ministers in the peoples party. He had a good idea so he thought. He got all his patriotic party memebers together and said lets go marching through our capital city, so they did and this was the result.

Much to the disappointment of the lady 4th from the left in the white blouse who is a member of the socialist party and at the moment our President. We choose a new president every year from the selection as shown above. This year it was her turn. She is a grandmother and sometimes has some funny ideas.

I was just watching a political programme on tv about what happened and it wasn't very pretty. The people's party who are quite right wing went on their march through Bern singing their Swiss patriotic songs, waving their flags and some dressed up in patiotic colours of red and white. They even had a small goat leading the way. Their politician also marched with them.



At the same time a branch of another party decided to do a contra meeting. They called themselves the Black sheep as this word was used by the people's party to describe the people in Switzerland who according to their ideas, should not be there. They even had a bandstand with a pop music group.

The police got ready, armed with their shields, but unfortunately not with very much common sense. They probably thought it would be a good idea to see what was going on. It all started quite peacefully until a third group, with hoods and masked of course, decided to bring some life into the party. From what I heard from the interviews with them on the tv they were probably not exactly the best at being clever. However, what they could do was collect bricks and throw them at the people's party or at anyone that got in the way. The people's party then altered the route of their march and eventually ended up on the square in front of our parliament building, where a fight broke out. Unfortunately the police didn't know the route had been changed so they were waiting somewhere else. Now the action really got going and eventually the police did arrive and arrested about 50 people and the injured were cared for, luckily no fatal injuries and this in a country with seven million inhabitants.

Our president was naturally shocked. She was interviewed this evening on the tv and said that the whole thing gives a false picture of Switzerland in the world. I believe the New York Times brought full coverage on the front page. I am not very political and just watch from a distance, but it did disturb me a bit. Our farmers sometimes get worked up usuall about the prices they are paid for their produce, so they spread manure and straw in front of the parliament building once and then they all went home, but they didn't have a go at anyone with pitchforks.

So that was my report from a quiet week-end in Bern.

Part two of the Quest for a new identity card

It was a misty morning, as usual in my part of the country. We have a river nearby, the River Aare and on Autumn mornings it shows its presence. Today was the day of going to the local council office to apply for my identity card. I went to work at seven in the morning as usual and arranged to come home at nine so that me and hubby could go to the local town hall. We don't really live in a town but a small country village, and we don't have a hall but just borrow the school house if you need a big room. We walked from our place to the local offices - just five minutes. Our council office is now at the back of the local village restaurant, sort of a larger sized living room. I was very impressed, as there was even a toilet there.

Hubby and I were greeted by name as if we were old friends. The lady in charge is naturally also from the village. She had everything ready for us and just needed photos and my signature on the document. She was very friendly and it was more like a village get together than an official act. She even told us why they had such a modern toilet. When they fitted out the office, the toilet was supposed to have been somewhere on the first floor. This meant that the person in the office (there is very rarely more than one person on duty) would have to leave the office to accompany visitors if wanting to visit the toilet, so she said it should be in the same office as she worked. That is village logistic. Otherwise everything went well, I paid my seventy francs and my hubby and I were informed that we should receive our identity cards in about a week. She was almost apologetic that they might not arrive together. I mentioned that I thought it would take longer but she said when they developed the new card (which is fifty swiss francs dearer that the last one) it did take six weeks at the beginning, but now it goes much quicker. They probably had to practice a bit to get into the routine.

I walked back home with hubby and afterwards drove back to work. Oh, and here is a photo of our council office entrance. No long corridors, just a small room inside. Looks like the postman had left something outside the "office".

A new identity card and its problems

Time for a new Swiss identity card. I will be off to London in a months time and my Swiss identity card gave up two years ago. I only realised this a week before I went to London last year, but last year organised a new British Euro passport so travelled with that to and fro. I find if you have two nationalities, then you might as well use them. Out of Switzerland with the Swiss idientity and into England with the British passport and vice versa. Last year I was out and in with just the British one and that worked ok. That was probably why hubby said why are you bothering to get a Swiss one when the British one works both ways. I actually didn’t have a clever answer so just left it as an open question.

In any case the first part of swiss identity card adventure took place this morning. I checked on the Internet where I have to get my card and there was a site from our local Kanton showing where in the nearby town of Solothurn the office was for applying. I thought it had been moved – we have had such a building boom in Solothurn lately, it becoming the largest bulding site in Europe now that Berlin has been finished, it had naturally shifted and was now in the part of town where the county police used to be.

The building is very large and is shaped like a “U”. I found the sign showing where everything was, so walked in the door and found myself confronted with a very long corridor. I walked along the corridor and found each one of the many doors had a sign from “senior citizen problems” to “come in and sit down and talk about it”, but no passport office. I then asked a gentleman passing through but he told me he was only a workman coming to repair something so I went to the next office and asked. “On the first floor” was the answer. So I went up two flights of stairs and found – guess what – another three corridors. Eventually I found in small letters “Passbüro” which was exactly what I was looking for. There was a glass screen and in the corner behind the screen there was a gentleman typing away on his typewriter (or was it a computer). In any case he gave a friendly nod and said someone was coming. He then called his assistant who was in another office hidden behind the one at the front. I explained I wanted a new identity card and she said I would have to apply at my local council office. “Big deal” was my thought, but this being untranslatable in Swiss German, I asked what she meant. She told me that all such things are now dealt with locally and no longer centrally, unless of course I actually lived in Solothurn. I told her that I got my last identity card in Solothurn, but she told me that is no longer possible. Because of the danger of terrorists and other such things, it has all be decentralised.

The man who was typing then came to the window and told me it was no longer possible to get my card here. Needless to stay I was slightly (actually more than) irritated as I had taken an hour off work to organise the whole business. Not being able to win against the wheels of civil servantude I left. When I got back to the office I phoned up hubby – the man who said why bother – and he said he will go along to the local office in our village (which is actually only open 3 hours a day) and get the form for me. He phoned me back 30 minutes later to say I have to put a personal appearance in, which means tomorrow morning. In the meanwhile hubby – who said why bother – had decided to go to the local photographer and get a photo done for a new identity card and would come with me tomorrow as he decided he also needed a new identity card - again I didn't have a clever answer. He was told at the local council office for passports etc. that the card would cost seventy Swiss Francs and if you combined it with a passport it would be 120 Swiss francs, which is quite cheap – sort of Swiss special offer. They also mentioned that if you want a Swiss passport then you have to go to Bern for it they were now Bio something or the other and you just can’t apply anywhere (just 40 kilometers down the motorway from where we live). When I think of what I went through two years ago to get a British passport in Switzerland, then it seems to me it is much more difficult to get a Swiss passport in Switzerland. Part two follows tomorrow.

See the corridor - one of these days I will probably get arrested for being a sort of camera junkie or anglo-swiss paparazzi

Roasted Chestnuts - The "Cheschtele Muni"

Before maize and potatoes became the normal daily food in the southern valleys of the alps at the beginning of the 20^th century, chestnuts was one of the basic foods. Historical documents show that chestnut flour could already be bought at the markets of Locarno and Bellinzona in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland. In an official document dated 1378 the chestnut was mentioned as being interest-bearing.

In the last century the inhabitants of the Tessin and Bergell found the chestnuts to be one of nature’s gifts. Their fruit was a substitute for the expensive grain and insured survival throughout the Winter. The harvest of three trees was enough to feed one person.

That was just a small introduction to show how important chestnuts actually were for the Swiss living in the poorer areas. Today Locarno, Lugano and other Italian parts of Switzerland, known as the Kanton of Ticino, are well known as holiday places and it seems that the inhabitants have made a good living from the tourist attractions. In the last century things were different. The people were poor and were glad to be able to earn a living from the area where they lived. As you can see, the chestnuts shown in the illustration are perhaps different to the ones growing on the local horse chestnut trees you may have in your area. They are the edible chestnuts. I have spent Autumn holidays a few times in the Italian part of Switzerland when the kids were smaller, and on walks through the local woods we often gathered chestnuts that had fallen from the trees and roasted them in the evening.

The Roasted Chesnut Man (known locally as the "Cheschtele Muni") is a well known site in most Swiss town when Autumn arrives. Our local chestnut man has his own small "house" in the middle of our market place and returns each year. As most of the chestnut sellers, he comes from the Italian speaking part of Switzerland and he and his family return each year to the same town. He has a second home in the town of Solothurn. The house where he sells the roasted chestnuts is looked after by our town, and it was given to him by a local organisation.

I have been living in Solothurn for nearly 40 years and I remember the parents of the "young" man that is now in charge. Of course, he is no longer so young, but neither am I. He is known as having the best chestnuts, and as a side line he also has peanuts.

This is the back door to the hut where he has the large roasting ovens for the chestnuts. I remember as a kid also having roasted chestnuts in London, although imported, and also peanuts. It seemed to me that the taste of the peanuts today is not so good as when I was younger, but the peanuts that our chestnut man sells as the best I have eaten for years. When I am in town during the Winter months I usually buy a bag of peanuts from him - they just bring back memories.

Our "Cheschtele Muni" is quite an important person in the town and has his own area behind the house for keeping all his provisions. A few years back I remember it was carnival time in town and as a "joke" one of the carnival organisations painted his house in a vivid pink colour overnight. Although it made the headlines in the local paper, the chestnut man and his family were not very happy about it, and a month later it was repainted in its normal red.

He is naturally very popular with the children and it can happen that you have to wait a few minutes until it is your turn in the queue buying your chestnuts.