WordPress Daily Prompt: A Tale of Two Cities

If you could split your time evenly between two places, and two places only, which would these be?




Now that is really a difficult question. Would it be Facebook, or WordPress? Yes I have my foot in both places as well as my computer and my brilliant ideas on life, the world and blog. What do I hear? They are not places; they just exist in the cyber world? You cannot live there, spend time there. I spend a lot of time there, sometimes too much according to Mr. Swiss, although I am quite happy there. My neighbours are friendly and I can even ignore them or in Facebook cancel them when they are too trying, so what could possibly be better. Now and again I get a like and a comment. I never get likes in the place where I live, and probably also not in another town, but that does not seem to be the point of this exercise. I must choose two places, towns, in the world and split my time with them.

I did not fetch my wonderful photo of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, just to be admired by all fellow bloggers; it is there for a purpose. Although I would add that my mum would never have approved this choice of one of my cities. Her opinion of the French was very negative. She found they eat garlic and horse meat and they do not like the English, so the English do not like the French. The must have put my basket in front of the wrong door when mum found it, although she did say there was a little crown attached to the handles. However, my blanket did not have a fleur-de-lis pattern, just dog-tooth check I believe.

I admit I very much like garlic, to the extent that Mr. Swiss told me to go easy on the garlic in the salad sauce, as he could not taste the salad so well. I also like horse meat. It is quite tender. Mr. Swiss is not so keen, so I only cook it now and again, perhaps once a year. My mum made one visit to France before the war on a day trip by boat across the English channel. Did she tell me about those good looking French blokes, about the wonderful architecture, the great food? No, the only memory she seemed to have was that she was stung by a hornet, so this might have been the reason that she did not like the French and she was sure the French told the hornet to sting her on purpose, because she was English.

I have been to Paris a few times and I love it. They have many wonderful cemeteries. Père LaChaise, Monmartre and Montparnasse were the three I was lucky enough to visit. I always have to find a comfortable cemetery so that Mr. Swiss can rest on a bench in the sun whilst I am dodging from grave to grave with my camera. Did I mention I am a cemetery tourist? My first visit to Paris was when I was 19 years old, fresh out of school with a female friend. I had then not discovered the cemeteries, but was busy discovering other things of interest. I remember a visit to the Follies Bergère, just to say I had been there and seen it. It no longer exists.

With Mr. Swiss I discovered the more modern part of Paris, known as Défense. He had discovered this on a few business trips to the city. We had a wonderful meal in a little restaurant in Montparnasse. I remember potatoes were served with the dish and the waiter, who was probably a descendent of Henri Landru, a French serial killer, had to fetch the potatoes from the cellar – descending the stone steps and arriving with the steaming vegetables piled on a plate. I was glad the meat was prepared in the restaurant where you could see it. There was also entertainment, and an aging guitar player arrived and serenaded us with flamenco music. Luckily we had arrived at the desert when he began to play, and could make a quick getaway.

But this is only one town; the other town is of course Solothurn, Switzerland. I do not have a choice, I live nearby in a small village where the fox and hedgehog say goodnight to each other. Mr. Swiss grew up in this part of Switzerland and my felines do not want to move. I love the surrounding countryside and the Rive Aar which flows just down the path to where I live. I also have my money in the local bank, a Swiss bank, and I am the receiver of a Swiss pension, so why should I move. We also have two cemeteries near where we live, yes two, and they even found three skeletons when they were building near our apartment, so what could possibly go wrong. Apparently it was once the site for a chopping block in our village.

In the meanwhile I will visit the town of WordPress to discover what other interesting blogs have been written today and combine this with a tour of the world. Afterwards Facebook will be waiting where I crosspost my fantastic words of wisdom, and scan the status reports and walls to see what imperative information has appeared. We must not forget, perhaps we have been mentioned somewhere on this fantastic social site of information


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