Photographers, artists, poets: show us FRIENDS.
First of all can someone tell me that BFFs
is supposed to mean? No forget it, probably not so important, I do speak and
understand English so I suppose is self-explanatory.
I am very close to my three felines, but they have only shown me how to sleep sixteen hours a day and estimate the taste of tuna fish. My children no longer listen to what I say as they do their own thing and to be quite honest I do not always share their music taste.
That leaves me with Mr. Swiss. I never really learnt to play drums, although he did show me how to do a basic (and very basic) accompaniment using the brushes. As his taste goes more into the jazz world, I learned that Cannonball Adderly was not a secret weapon of the American CIA, but a jazz alto saxophonist from the jazz hard bop scene. I also discovered that John Coltrane was not a special type of railway car, but plays quite a good saxophone and Theolonius Monk was not a member of a religious sect, but plays piano, also to be heard together with John Coltrane. I married a jazzer and after 45 years I am probably a mini authority on a music that is not my speciality. It does sort of grow on you, and when you begin to recognise who is playing without asking Mr. Swiss, then you are getting somewhere. We have a rather large collection of jazz records, LP’s (you know the big black flat records with lots of different tunes before the CD was discovered). Today everything is on a so-called iPod although the record collection is still part of our daily life. There are a few special Miles Davis records amongst the collection. I think I could say, you name it, we have it.
There is a small corner of CD’s somewhere with some Paolo Conte, Lucia Dalla music, they are mine.
What else did I learn from Mr. Swiss – Swiss German? I am not sure about that one, it just took over and that is our home language.
We are not really soul mates; life would be boring if we were. We both have our own interests, but now and again we do share our likes. One is reading books and the world of literature. It does not matter what you read as long as you read. I grew up with the English book world and Mr. Swiss with the German book world (and some other continental influence). I even discovered when we eventually founded our joint venture as man and wife that he had some books in German and I had the same in English. I can read German books in the original language with no problem.
I think the most important lesson I learned from this complete Angloswiss mixture was that there are other countries with other customs and other ways of life in the world. I sometimes get an impression from my English family and friends that they feel sorry for me being in a place where there is no English spoken, no English food and no English way of life. They also ask me what I think of various British television actors and comedians who I have never heard of and then it seems I am pitied as an important part of my background is missing. I can only say, do not worry. I am happy where I am, have absolutely no wish to return to England and do not want to change my surroundings.
That’s that, I am a bit on the tired side this afternoon, had my weekly hour Tai Chi Course this afternoon. You might think it is all slow movements and no stress, but there is a lot of concentration required and I did not learn that from Mr. Swiss, that is all my own work.
I am very close to my three felines, but they have only shown me how to sleep sixteen hours a day and estimate the taste of tuna fish. My children no longer listen to what I say as they do their own thing and to be quite honest I do not always share their music taste.
That leaves me with Mr. Swiss. I never really learnt to play drums, although he did show me how to do a basic (and very basic) accompaniment using the brushes. As his taste goes more into the jazz world, I learned that Cannonball Adderly was not a secret weapon of the American CIA, but a jazz alto saxophonist from the jazz hard bop scene. I also discovered that John Coltrane was not a special type of railway car, but plays quite a good saxophone and Theolonius Monk was not a member of a religious sect, but plays piano, also to be heard together with John Coltrane. I married a jazzer and after 45 years I am probably a mini authority on a music that is not my speciality. It does sort of grow on you, and when you begin to recognise who is playing without asking Mr. Swiss, then you are getting somewhere. We have a rather large collection of jazz records, LP’s (you know the big black flat records with lots of different tunes before the CD was discovered). Today everything is on a so-called iPod although the record collection is still part of our daily life. There are a few special Miles Davis records amongst the collection. I think I could say, you name it, we have it.
There is a small corner of CD’s somewhere with some Paolo Conte, Lucia Dalla music, they are mine.
What else did I learn from Mr. Swiss – Swiss German? I am not sure about that one, it just took over and that is our home language.
We are not really soul mates; life would be boring if we were. We both have our own interests, but now and again we do share our likes. One is reading books and the world of literature. It does not matter what you read as long as you read. I grew up with the English book world and Mr. Swiss with the German book world (and some other continental influence). I even discovered when we eventually founded our joint venture as man and wife that he had some books in German and I had the same in English. I can read German books in the original language with no problem.
I think the most important lesson I learned from this complete Angloswiss mixture was that there are other countries with other customs and other ways of life in the world. I sometimes get an impression from my English family and friends that they feel sorry for me being in a place where there is no English spoken, no English food and no English way of life. They also ask me what I think of various British television actors and comedians who I have never heard of and then it seems I am pitied as an important part of my background is missing. I can only say, do not worry. I am happy where I am, have absolutely no wish to return to England and do not want to change my surroundings.
That’s that, I am a bit on the tired side this afternoon, had my weekly hour Tai Chi Course this afternoon. You might think it is all slow movements and no stress, but there is a lot of concentration required and I did not learn that from Mr. Swiss, that is all my own work.
As you might guess, the person closest to me (although not in geographical terms!!) is Joanne. I think we have learned quite a lot from each other in terms of our respective countries and cultures. We have several similar tastes (particularly in movies, photography and a love of nature) and several differing ones (music, for example).
ReplyDeleteI have quite an eclectic taste in music. I do like some jazz, I quite like Davis and Coltrane, but I prefer jazz-fusion, such as Soft Machine and Weather Report. You may also be surprised to know I like the blues/jazz of Oscar Peterson and Count Basie.
Looks like i am back again but only on my ipad at the moment. I also quite like weather report with the late joe zawinul
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