EM Soccer Fever in Switzerland

My husband was on an excursion last week with the senior citizens of our village and they made a visit to the town of Murten (Morat - French). This is a smallish town situated on its own Lake just on the language borders. As you can see even in this sleepy town they are ready for the EM 2008, the shops being decorated in the proper way.

This is the lady that works on one of the tills in our local supermarket. I know her quite well, my son worked in the same supermarket for five years when he was studying at the university, on Saturdays and holidays. I asked if I could take the photo with her EM apron and she laughed and said of course. I even got permission to show it on Internet. Although she had quite a bit of stress on Saturday morning she gave me the time to take this photo. She told me they were given the aprons last week to be worn during the EM. In the supermarket itself I was astonished to see so many Swiss wearing a red t-shirts showing the white cross, baseball caps with the Swiss emblem and it seemed that the Swiss nation discovered their nationality today. Needless to say in the shop itself marketing was being applied where it could be.

If you need a candle for the table outside on the patio, or otherwise, they were there showing the countries colours and flags. The price of a flag for the car has now got cheaper and for one swiss france fifty you can have one. We still have none on our car so we just enjoy watching the flags on the other cars. Of course there were football shirts, shorts, socks being sold, in children's sizes as well as for adults. I did get a few strange looks in the shop this morning when I was taking my photos, but carried on regardless.

I met this one just as I was leaving the supermarket. He was positioned in front of the drug store and was surrounded by all sorts of medicine and ointments for his muscle aches, bruises and other football injuries. I was talking to our apprentice in the office on Friday. He is very happy as he will be going to the match Switzerland v. Turkey with his father - cost of a ticket CHF 150. I think I prefer to watch at home on the television. Of course in the office we also have a bit of football fever. One of my colleagues showed me proudly her fingernails.

And on one of the tables in a department, they had made their own decoration. End of my first report from a small country in Europe that is usually famous for its cheese, cows and watches and now we also have footballers. Would mention more than half of the Swiss team play in another country.

The Snail

Have you ever eaten snails? Well after my tour of inspection through the garden yesterday I thought I could start collecting them. We often get snails of all sorts in the garden. They are usually smallish and usually resemble something like this little group

Nothing that looks edible, I think they are known as the white banded snail. We get them all through the summer in our garden, but don't really seem to do any damage. It's the ones without houses known as slugs that really eat anything that is green and goes by the name of leaf. They are the ones I usually throw into the neighbour's garden or onto the field. No I do not pour salt over them, or drown them in beer, They have enough problems in their sluggish little life, although I suppose their mothers love them.

In the German language there is really only one word for snail "Schnecke" whether they have a house or not. They are just defined as snails with houses and snails without houses. So back to the object of this small snail monologue. I went on my usual evening inspection of the garden yesterday, examining the population sizes of ants, greenfly and yes snails and then I stopped in my tracks. I saw the snail of the year. I was so impressed that I took at least 10 photos and found the following one to be the best. I then decided to make him the centerpiece of my observation by taking all the colour out of the photo except for a couple of green leaves and giving him a frame.

I think this is a so called edible snail, known as escargot by the French and the "Weinbergschnecke" in the German language. I had only seen them up to now on a plate ready to be eaten sitting in a lake of melted herb butter. I had never actually seen one as close as this and believe me they are big, speaking in snail sizes. I do not know how he found his way into the garden. I of course took him inside the house to show my husband, who said yes it was a Weinbergschnecke and continued watching the television programme he was watching. I replaced him where I found him and hope that I had saved his life and that he would not arrive at a gala dinner. I have eaten snails but a few years ago and I did not find them any different to eating a winkle.

A winkle is the same sort of thing, but a water snail living in the sea. My mum would buy them on Sunday from the fish stall down the lane and put them on the plate in their shells. We were all give a safety pin and with a curling motion removed them from the shells at ate them. Things were not so dignified in the East End perhaps, but it was the normal way to do it.

So as grand finale here is my edible "Weinberg" snail as I found him in the garden.

A Weekend at home

It really was a week-end at home. Mr. Swiss did the shopping on Saturday morning and I stayed put and tidied things up at home. The problem was that I got up too late to go shopping and do the housework, so we split the job and I was glad. I had no. 2 son at home as well, although I don't really seem to see much more of him as when he is working in Belgium.

I was not exactly doing nothing for two days and managed to catch up a bit in the garden. My other half had made me a very nice new flower bed and I had bought some Petunias to plant as a border. Here is the final result.

I was quite pleased with the result and all the stones he pulled out I put in one pile at the end for a rockery one day. My cat Nera was especially happy as she found a nice place to sleep at the back in between the dahlias. Actually I thought my dahlias had disappeared and after a long wait they did eventually start growing.

I also spent the week-end feeding my three cats and the one next door as well as the one on the first floor. The two adoptive cats didn't say much and were just glad receivers of food and a cleaned out toilet.

There was also a football match to watch. Getting nearer to the EURO Cup the teams are practicing with friendly matches. Germany played against Serbia and won 2:1 although they were very lucky. This was only a practice match and I think the germans are saving their strength for the cup matches. I have a feeling they will win.

We watched a Bruce Willis film yesterday evening, at least I watched two thirds and gave it up, but as usual he saved everyone, got a bullet in him but still carried on - I think it was called Hostage, but everyone seemed to be a hostage in that film. I decided to read a book.

Today I was watering my newly installed lawn on the other garden, the one that my neighbour living on the top floor wanted me to have, because he did not like the way my garden was looking on that side of the house and I noticed this was growing in it.

Luckily my neighbour, Mr. Black, that lives on the top floor was once again spending the Summer months in his villa in the mountains of Switzerland, so I was spared seeing him getting out his binoculours and discovering that I had a couple of mushrooms in the lawn. I made a photo naturally, as it is not every day I have a mushroom growing in the lawn, and afterwards removed them. I hope they do not come back again.

So that was a week-end in the Swiss country, relaxed and doing only what I wanted to do. I now have to go and water the garden and will spend the evening in psychological preparations for the week ahead.