First Aid Evening with the 5 Senses

This might look like we were having a seance with food, but actually we were having a serious lesson about the five senses. Most of you know that we have five of them (perhaps someone here has a 6th one?) - hearing, smelling, touch, taste, sight. Yours truly is the elderly lady on the right at the front, the others a couple of colleagues. There was another table with some of our members. On the photo the taste sense was being tried out and I must admit up to now I had only seen something like that on a tv show.

We were blindfolded and were given a spoon full of something and had to say what it was. It is really a test to see how good your taste buds are. The first was a hazelnut dipped in honey which I did guess. They we had something very sour, but the best was the last one - an Italian amaretto biscuit. they are made with bitter almonds and taste quite good.

I did have a small mishap with the first test. That was the a bit of a combination of touch and I thought taste - that was my mistake. I had to put my hand into a bag and guess what I felt. The first was easy - that was rice. The second one I was the first to try. There was a glass dish in the bag with something more liquid in it. When I took my hand out they were covered with a white creamy sort of thing, so I thought aha, yogurt and started licking my fingers. The shock was a bit crass when I found it to be face cream, and that does not taste very good at all. The idea was to touch and smell and not to eat.

Otherwise we spent a couple of hours going through the physical side of it all. Where are the taste buds in the mouth, where do you get the sour taste, where the sweet and where the bitter on the tongue. We had a hearing test with various noises and you had to guess what you were hearing. One was the wind blowing, but it sounded to me like modern classical music with a choir singing along.

All in all an interesting evening - the idea was for us to know how to treat people that might show signs of having problems with the function of their senses and being able to diagnose what was wrong.

We also sorted out who would attend which occasion during the year. I will be spending an afternoon at a local football tournament which can be fun when all those grown men have a cramp in their muscles, although depending who it is I just give them the ointment and they can apply it themselves. With the blisters I have to go into action myself, but no problem. I will also be at the town's market festival in the afternoon. I leave the evenings to the professionals.

Here one of the photos from last year's football tournament.

Tuna Fish Wednesday again

"That was worth waiting for" said Nera as she went through her portion of tuna fish. "Wednesday is just my favourite day of the week."
"That's true Nera, when I woke up this afternoon, I just felt that Mrs. Human would be getting her tin opener out this evening to make sure that our tuna fish dinner would be served at the right time."

"I thought I saw Mr. Grey wandering around just now out of the corner of my eye" said Tabby. "I hope he doesn't think he will be getting a share of my fish."
"No worry", said Fluffy "I made sure he will steer clear of us while we are eating."
"What does that mean, Fluffy" asked Nera.
"No problem, Nera, I hunted him away."
"You did what? I think you better explain that one Fluffy".
"Oh it was quite easy Nera. Mrs. Human had just put our fish out for us and you and Tabby were not here. Mr. Grey turned up and started having a sniff of your fish, so I decided to attack - you know claws showing, spitting and a bit of growling - just like you two showed me in the training camp we had last week."
"And what did Mr. Grey do" asked Tabby.
"Mr. Grey also tried the claw showing bit and made some funny noises, but he decided I was too much for him and he ran off."
"Just a minute Fluffy" I said, "it wasn't exactly like that, but almost."
"Well, I did my best didn't I Mrs. Human."
"Fluffy you did more than your best, that is why I think it was a good thing that I was here as well."
"What happened" asked Nera and Tabby together.
So I explained that Fluffy did actually show his claws and made some threatening feline noises and then I came to look what was going on. Before a real cat fight broke out I picked up Fluffy and put him indoors and Mr. Grey ran off. I also moved the fish indoors afterwards to make sure of no repeat performance. You never know what cats get up to when your back is turned.

Mr. Grey did come back for more, but there was not very much left and by then Tabby, Nera and Fluffy were sort of lazing around outside in the garden. I think they were so worn out from eating their tuna fish that Mr. Grey could have made off with the rest and they wouldn't have noticed.

Otherwise it was a very pleasant day today. Nice and warm, but sitting in the office you don't get much of the nice weather. Our summer tyres have now been put on the car. Mr. Swiss did make a remark about having to wait at least an hour as the tyre place was full of housewives having their tyres changed. You can't have everything I suppose. This evening looks like it will be one of those reading evenings - no East Enders on the tv. I actually read a lot, but must admit I had never read anything by Ernest Hemingway, so I decided it was time to start. At the moment I am half way through "Farewell to Arms" and find it quite a good book. Mr. Hemingway keeps his sentences nice and short and you know what is going on.

So cats you have had your tuna fish and now you can go and take a nice long walk, but be quiet when you get back and don't make a noise as it will probably be long past midnight. "And tomorrow you can tell me all about the training camp Fluffy."

To Blog or not to Blog

There are just some days where nothing really spectacular happens. You get up got to work, do your job, go shopping and in the evening come home, so what do we blog about. My other half says I am never lost for words, so I suppose I will always find something.

Just take the photo for example. In a quiet 5 minutes at work I noticed how the dandelions were flowering in a nearby field so decided to see what I could do with a field of dandelions. I played around with it a bit in one of the various photo programmes I seem to have collected and there we have the result. I am not exactly the Ansel Adams of the photographic world (he did black and white anyhow), but I do have fun playing with all this stuff.

At the moment I am sitting out on the porch being annoyed by a strange flying insect while I am trying to type this blog. My neighbour next door is spraying his garden and the cats have disappeared into the unknown, probably to return some time around midnight without telling me where they have been.

I have a new playground on the computer. It is called Facebook, although I think I should be 40 years younger to take part on that one. My son has a site there, he too is at the age border, so I thought I would go into it as well. I have already met a few forum colleagues from one of my favourite forum sites Bestsellers & Literature so I feel quite at home there already and my son has now become my friend. I actually always swore I would never become a MySpace fan, but there I am now in Facebook.

Otherwise my other half has planned to get the summer tyres put on our car tomorrow. He actually wanted to go last Friday which was a sort of half holiday where we live. Unfortunately all the other motorists that hadn't yet had their tyres changed came to the same decision as Mr. Swiss, so my husband came home as he did not want to wait for two hours. It is something we have to do in Switzerland as the road conditions are completely different in Winter and Summer. If you drive around with winter tyres on your car in Summer it can be a bit heavy going. If you drive around on the roads with Summer tyres in Winter, you can have a very nasty accident and no insurance company would pay out under those circumstances.

So and now I am off to water the garden as it looks a bit dry after the sunny weather we had today. I had one positive thing that happened to me today. I bought some clothes and they fitted me. It is so depressing when you want to get something new and you just cannot get into the stuff how hard you try. Even jeans in 40 different sizes don't seem to have my size, but today was my day. The lady even told me she would put everything I bought on one side until Thursday as on that day they are giving 30% reduction off all women's clothes and it would be a shame if I bought them today and not be able to save.

It seems that the god of protection for elderly ladies whose figure is going a bit towards the Southern side of things was looking down on me today with kindness and sympathy.

And now to sit outside with a good book for a half hour, before going indoors to watch the East Enders. There are even people that don't like the East Enders programme, dan't understand that really. I had been waiting for at least ten years that I could actually receive the programme on my Swiss tv. And for a closing photo, here is the train that goes past where I work. Our company is built on the side of the main line from Zürich to Geneva.

Back to Normal?

"Cats, can you tell me what you are doing at the window" I asked them today when I got home. All three were just sitting there as if something was going to happen.
"Mrs. Human, we were just watching your overgrown kitten going away" said Nera.
"How often to I have to say he is not an overgrown kitten, but my son, and he has now gone back to where he lives." I explained.
"Well it was about time as well" said Tabby "he was really using up all the spare room we had in our room".
"It is not your room, how often do I have to say that".
"Mrs. Human, when we cats sleep somewhere it is ours, our wonderful scent is everywhere, and your overgrown ... sorry son, just does not smell the same as us cats".
"Well I thought you were growing to like him at one time."
"Now what makes you think that Mrs. Human" said Nera.
"My son said that when he was sitting at the computer you started licking his hand as a friendly sign. He was very impressed."
"Mrs Human, did he tell you what happened afterwards?" asked Tabby.
"Yes he did Tabby, that was why I said I thought you were growing to like him. It seemed that Tabby scratched him."
"Well it was like this Mrs. Human. Nera had a lick to see what he tasted like and found he wasn't as good as a tin of tuna fish, but it was ok."
"And after I had finished having a lick I told Tabby it was her turn"
"Sorry I don't quite get this" I said.
Tabby looked at me with a perplexed expression. "Mrs. Human Nera was the taster. When she gave the ok, I sat on the settee next to your son and let him stroke me."
"Yes, I know Tabby my son told me but then he told me what happened afterwards".
"Mrs. Human I only let him stroke me to give him a sense of security and to let him relax"
"I was watching all the time Mrs. Human to see what I could learn from those two clever cats" piped up Fluffy.
"Fluffy, I don't know whether it is a good idea to learn things from Tabby and Nera."
"Mrs. Human I am their apprentice. They gave me the job a couple of weeks ago as they said when they are sleeping I can keep watch in case anything of feline interest would happen".
"This sounds like a cat mafia at home to me. My son said that Tabby scratched his hand. I even saw the scratch and it was not very nice. Tabby what do you have to say to that?"
"Well that was the idea. Nera had a taste, gave the ok and I had a scratch."
"And I was watching" said Fluffy, "it was a most interesting lesson."
"My son was not very happy with you three"
"Then it seems that Nera and Tabby's plan worked."
"What worked?"
Nera looked at me with her yellow eyes and Tabby did a couple of annoyance meows. "Mrs. Human" said Nera, "you will never learn will you, the moral of the story is that overgrown human kitten packed his bags today and left and we have our room again."
"So cats, I do not want to disappoint you but he left because he has to go back to work tomorrow and has a plane to catch this evening. And before you start rejoicing that he left because of your crafty ideas, he will be back at the end of the month for a few days again."
"Looks like the trick didn't work boss" said Fluffy.
I then watched as Nera climbed down from her pole position on the table and called Tabby and Fluffy to her. They had their noses together, but I could not hear what was being said. They then went back to their cushions on top of the cupboard for a sleep leaving Fluffy alone with me.
"OK Fluffy, if you want your normal portion of tuna you will have to tell me what sort of feline revenge that Nera is planning."
"But promise you won't tell them, I am having such fun being their apprentice".
"I won't tell them, but I expect a bit of information from time to time Fluffy. Is that a deal?"
Even I seem to be developing some feline characteristics, after all if you can't beat them, then you have to join them to stay ahead.
"Nera just told us that if Tabby and I came up with a good idea to keep the overgrown kitten out of our room the next time he arrives, she will catch us a mouse each as a reward and if I have a really good idea, I won't be an apprentice any more but a mercenary which means I will get paid for the job."

At this point I told Fluffy to go and curl up somewhere and have a sleep. I seem to have a cat mafia developing in my home.

Football in Switzerland

Switzerland is not really a country as well known for football as for example England, but nevertheless the EURO 2008 will be held in Switzerland and Austria this year and excitement is gradually building up. One of the stadiums that will be used in the tournament is that in Basel. The owner of the Basel team is a lady who is not exactly poor as she married a millionaire who has his money from the chemical company Hoffmann-La Roche in Basel. She is very devoted to this team and has invested a lot of money into the stadium and infrastructure and is always to be seen at the matches.

I was a bit spoilt for football last week as after seeing Manchester play Barcelona and Chelsea play Liverpool in two brilliant professional matches, I had the pleasure of watching Basel play Zürich on Friday evening on our tv. It was not a cup match but one of the deciding matches to who would win the Swiss league championship in Switzerland this year. At the same time Xamax in Neuchatel were playing Bern Young boys. Xamax won which in my eyes was to be expected as they are and have always been a good team. If my younger son went to a match when he lived at home he would rather travel an hour on the road to Neuchatel than see Solothurn our home team, which would be a half hours walk away.

So we were left with Basel and Zürich. Basel people do not like Zürich people - this is a fact. A couple of years ago when Basel met Zürich in Zürich the Basel spectators started throwing fireworks at the Zürich people, so what more could be expected this time.

The video shows what happened. People had to leave their seats panicking and running from the flaming fireworks that were raining down on them from the Zürich supporters sitting in the stands above. The match was stopped for a while until things were organised and part of the seating eventually had to be abandoned. At the price of about 100 francs per ticket, this was definitely not funny. I just wonder why people do this. A father might go to a match with his son, or a couple of colleagues go together looking forward to the evenings football entertainment and because of a few "hooligans" the match is stopped and they may even be injured.

I hear so much about the ICF (Inter City Firm), the supporter hooligan organisation that criminalised football in england but it seems that we Swiss are not much better.

And the match - well as I said I had just been spoilt last week. Basel won 4:1. Of course they were the better team, but not exactly impressive. The Zürich team seemed to have been ordered to be there but not picked up. They sort of stood around and watched the Basel team play with the ball. I just hope the national team play a bit better in th Euro 2008. Most of the players play abroad in other teams so they might be a bit more professional than the bunch I saw on Friday.