Daily Prompt: Stroke of Midnight

Where were you last night at midnight? Would you have wanted to be somewhere else?

What an original question to ask on 1.1.2016, at least it would be if it had not already been asked on 1.1.2013 by the same Daily Prompt people. Yes it was another deja vue, one of many we have been suffering for the past year, at least I have. 

Was I in bed, was I taking a walk in the crisp New Year air, was I at a rip-roaring party for golden oldies perhaps. No, I was at home in my armchair watching the TV.

“You don’t have to wait up if you don’t want to” said Mr. Swiss, noticing my eyes having a sort of far away sleepy look. It was 11.30 and so I decided what difference will 30 minutes make. I will do it, stay up until midnight. I was even too tired to read my new book.

I had finished my Swedish crime book, in german, “Die Menschen die es nicht verdienen” (the people that do not deserve it), by Horth and Rosenfeldt, the fifth in a row of stories concerning a  police department in Sweden, particularly their criminal psychologist Sebastien Bergman. I have now read all five and enjoyed them. As far as I can see these books have not yet been translated from Swedish into English and so I have read them all in german and they are good.

I now have the choice to read something new. My decision had been made in a reading group I belong to online, Bestsellers and Literature. They are having a group read on the book “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline. Not really my sort of thing but it has been highly recommended. We are in the future world of gaming in 2041 when our world has nothing left because it is all disintegrating. I like a bit of sic fi, and so decided to try this. Mr. Swiss is absolutely not interested, not his sort of thing. I am still trying to encourage him to read something else, but he is a crime fan.

Anyhow I decided to download this book to my Kindle. My Amazon is the German group, .de, but no problem they have it all in english if you find it. Unfortunately now and again I do not find it and by error download the german version. I can read german with no problem, but if the book is originally written in English, then of course I prefer the english. I dowloaded the wrong copy, the german edition, and only discovered this error on the first page. There is no way to return, or undownload,  the book and so I was forced to download the english version as well. Now I have it in two languages and am still trying to persuade Mr. Swiss to read it on my iPad in the original german. Anyhow I have read the first 30 pages and am convinced, this is going to be a good read.

I started the book yesterday evening, but as it was now near to midnight I shifted my concentration to the TV. One of this New Year German music parties was being shown, actors and people celebrating in the studio which was probably already filmed in Summer. I often wonder how people can dance a polonaise with heatwave temperatures and the sun shining all dressed in their New Year party clothes showing laughing and happy faces and toasting with their glass of champagne.

The scene changed on the TV and we were in a Swiss town where the bells were ringing. I looked at Mr. Swiss and said

“Isn’t that Solothurn?”, which is our local town.

“Yes it is, they are bringing the New Year from Solothurn this year.”

At last something worth watching, and so we saw our local cathedral, the streets of the town live at midnight, but almost completely empty, and everything in a pink tinged mist. They took us up to the belfry in the tower of the cathedral, which was very familiar to me as I once did the death defying climb up the stairs and of course took a few photos on the way. Happy New Year everyone, and WordPress please, please do not bring this prompt again next year. After 4 years of writing daily prompts I would like to see something different and original.

Today is Asumption Day

Those that are catholic know what I am talking about, those that are not might also know what it is all about. I live in a Roman Catholic area and so we celebrate all the Roman Catholic high days and holidays and today is one of them. It is something to do with the ascension of Maria I believe. Do not ask me more as I am not an expert. We even have our own catholic cathedral, St. Urs,  which stands in the old town of Solothurn. The chief of the whole organisation is the bishop of Basel, although we are in the Kanton of Solothurn and his palace is in Solothurn: a building just along the road with all the trimmings. I do not know why he does not have his palace in Basel, but perhaps they did not have enough room to build one, or Basel was not so nice. I quite like Basel actually. The funny thing is that Basel is not a Roman catholic area, so hoards of Solothurn inhabitants are today all boarding the trains and their cars to perhaps go to Basel where the shops are open. It is just a quick jump across the border to Germany or France from Basel. Although Lörrach being the nearest town in german is also Roman Catholic, so will also be closed.

Yes, that is the disadvantage of celebrating a catholic holiday, everything is closed.There is no possibility to go shopping for food or other necessities. I did my shopping yesterday in the local supermarket, being careful to remember everything, because today it will not be possible to buy. The locals were quite civilised in the supermarket and there was enough room to move and pursue the shopping tasks. There was no mass hysteria because today is closed. We Solothurn people are used to these days of closure, of no food buying possiblities and remain calm and cool.

Of course Mr. Swiss and I made a neat list and ticked off the items we needed for the week-end. It was only a few weeks ago when the Swiss National holiday, 1st August, fell on a Saturday, so we then had a rehearsal for today. Everything went well and we did not starve. However this time I made a mistake, almost a grave mistake. I decided too cook a veal ragout for Sunday lunch. I even told the butcher to give me three marrow bones to make a nice viscid sauce. Three bones because we are three people and it is a special Mrs. Angloswiss delicacy to eat the marrow from the bones with the meat. Everything was prepared and then I notice that I only had a thin layer of gravy powder left in the container. This is an important ingredient to my prize suspicious cooking method of veal stew. Not only the marrow bone, but the gravy powder is a crowning ingredient.

My son to the rescue. My No. 1 son decided to escape from the tranquility of Kanton Solothurn today and visit the town of Zürich, which is an hour’s train journey. Zürich is a Swiss reform church area, Ulrich Zwingli being the founder of the church, from the area around Zürich and so the Zürich people had a normal Saturday and gravy powder would be available. My son loves to make train journeys, especially on a free day. He is autistic, but has no problem is finding his way around. If he is given a quest, such as the search for a tin of gravy powder, he will find it (in between his visit to the Zürch MacDonalds and other favourite places in Zürich). He will be the rescue of the the Sunday dinner. I can rely on him.

In the meanwhile we have a quiet day at home. When I was a working lady I was glad for a religious holiday in between. Now being a golden oldie, it is not the same. I may even take a walk if the rain stays away, although come to think of it, everyone will be taking walks today. There is a danger of overcrowding on the forest paths.

As I finish writing this memorable blog I can hear the church bells ringing from the cathedral. This belongs to the day. 

Daily Post: Idyllic and Wonky

What does your ideal community look like? How is it organised, and how is community life structured? What values does the community share?

Ideal communities are boring, everyone doing what they are supposed to do within set rules. Organisation is also boring, and does not work in any case and now to structure community life. WordPress have the solution, just repeat everything when the ideas are exhausted. I was really surprised that they dared to bring such a prompt and it would be a good idea if they took a leaf out of their own book and discovered the values we want on a daily prompt. 

I was in town last week to pay a long due visit to the hairdresser. This visit was organised because I had to make an appointment. When I arrived I discovered a small community life of other victims waiting, as I, for a new look. On the way to the hairdresser I called in at the local town supermarket for a few bits and pieces and had to cross the river so naturally, armed with my camera I took a photo.

This photo shows the train bridge, the last bridge westwards in the town of Solothurn. It is the main line between Geneva at one end and Zürich at the other and you can see on the left our famous wonky tower.

This tower was finished in 1464 and was found necessary to ward off attacks from some sort of enemies which originated in France, so Wikipedia tells me. It is surprising that the tower is still standing. Did the architect drink too much mead when he designed it, or did someone push him as he was drawing the plan for the tower. There are many open questions. As I was standing on the bank of the River Aar planning my prize winning photograph a gentleman approached me, a few years younger than myself (which is not difficult today) and greeted me and said “you are taking photos” which was fairly obvious as I did have a camera in my hand.

“I am always taking photos when in town” I answered. I am a very social person and love to engage in conversations. Mr. Swiss finds I overdo this aspect of socialising some times. 

“Do you know that the tower is not actually wonky?”

I answered “It looks very wonky to me.” and I was now ready for the explanation. The man was glad to have found someone showing interest in the history of Solothurn’s wonky tower and as he was a senior citizen as I am, probably had nothing better to do with his time.

“No it is not wonky” he continued “the middle point of the tower was put in the wrong place and when the side faces of the tower were completed it was noticed that the tower gave an overall impression of being out of proportion.”

There we have it, the baroque town of Solothurn has a wonky tower, known as “Chrummturm” in the local dialect and it was just a proportional mistake. I must admit it has been standing for many years, a local landmark, and unfortunately never reached the fame of the leaning tower of Pisa. I say unfortunately, as if it did, Solothurn would become famous. It would be a question in the general knowledge books “Which town has a wonky/leaning tower”, answer being Solothurn, Switzerland overtaking Pisa in its fame.

It seems that the ground plot of the tower shows an irregular pentagon based on a square area and the reason for the wonkyness is to be found due to the fact that four sides of the five sides of the tower are scalene triangles and thus it looks wonky. If you understand that, it is perfect, but I translated it myself from a German text and the word “scalene” is completely new in my vocabulary.

Anyhow it filled a boring prompt for today and if you want to make it suit the prompt, it shows that our community is wonky, but we talk to each other about it, especially if you are taking a photo.

I am now off to the River Aar, hoping to take a few photos of the high water levels we have after a week of Swiss monsoon rain. If I am not here tomorrow, I fell in. 

Carnival in Switzerland, Solothurn

Today was “shmutzige Donnschtig” (dirty Thursday) and the first day of our carnival season in Solothurn (Fassnacht) which ends next week on Wednesday. Solothurn is the town just down the road. It begins at 6.00 in the morning, so the people in our village have to depart at 5.00 in the morning to arrive in Solothurn in time. It is a very special sort of thing. Those taking part this morning have to wear a long white nightdress with a red necktie and a white nightcap preferably with a tassle. They carry anything with them that makes noise and they really make noise. This morning there were 6,000 people on the procession through the town. It is all very organised with the chief Chesslete man leading the procession and everyone following.

After the procession everyone visits the local restaurants, if there is still room, and eat flour soup and warm cheese cakes. It is all in the name of tradition. Me, as english person, had never known carnival. I am not a friend of it, too much noise and too much excitement, but those that grow up with it have it in their system. Anyhow here is a YouTube film of this morning’s procession with all the trimmings. You will not understand very much as it is all in Swiss German, but I am sure the pictures will be something completely different.

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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WordPress Daily Prompt: Hear no Evil

Tell us about a conversation you couldn’t help but overhear and wish you hadn’t. 

Photographers, artists, poets: show us SECRET.

On 29^th March 2011 I was on my way home after a visit in town to the dentist. I could smell the smoke and had to go through the main street. There is an advantage when you always have a camera with you, so I fitted in amongst the others, all busy with their mobile phones taking photos of the event.

“Looks like the fire started in the roof” said one man who had probably just left his desk in a nearby office, clicking away with his phone camera.

“Shame” said an elderly lady “those buildings are under monument protection.”

“That will cost a pretty penny to renovate” said another.

“Please get back, you are all in the way. We are putting out a fire. It could get dangerous” said a fireman who was organising a barrier.

I continued to click away with the others, hoping that the local newspaper might show a financial interest in my action photos. I only had my “normal” camera with me but saw out of the corner of my eye a very professional looking Canon camera with a long lens, so decided my photos would probably be classed as an amateur attempt.

I decided my work was done and made my way to the train stop.

“Where do you think you are going” said a fireman.”

.“To the train stop”

“Not this way Madam, this street is closed. We cannot have people walking around disturbing our work. This is not a public spectacle.”

I suppose he was right, it is not every day that we have a famous fire in the market town of Solothurn.

“You can take the back street.”

I did a detour of a few minutes along the cobbled streets. Being accident prone, I was not so keen on this as those cobbles can be a dangerous occupation walking over. I reached my station and looked back to the town to see a column of smoke still appearing over the centre of the town.

I arrived home.

“Guess what” I said to Mr. Swiss “there was a fire in town.”

“Were you hurt, did anything happen?” He always seems to think the worst.

“No, nothing happened, but I took a few photos.”

“That is in the main street, looks like the fire started in the roof” was his comment.

That evening it was even in the news on the television. Switzerland is a small country and sometimes they are glad to have something Swiss to report. The local newspapers and internet were full of photos, so I realised I had again been cheated out of a prize winning photo.

The reconstruction work on the buildings damaged is now completed, everything being restored to how it used to be.

I had a look in Internet to see if there was still some news around. It was interesting what I found and here is my translation from the original German into English.

“At the large fire in the old town, damage amounting to 5,31 milion swiss francs arose. Five attics were partially damaged. According to research, a technical defect in the electrical installation was the cause of the fire. There were no injuries to living persons.”

It seems that five ajoining buildings were affected. I also read somewhere that when the fire broke out it lasted thirty minutes until the fire brigade was called out.

“The alarm was called out by a person in a side street. This person was alone in the street and had no reason to know whether someone else had called the fire brigade.”

Apparently there were so many people taking photos and filming the event that no-one thought about calling the fire brigade. You see how cool and relaxed we Swiss are, even in the face of danger.

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Creative Challenge 244: Attention to detail

The clock had struck eleven some time ago. The tourist was visiting the town of Solothurn in Switzerland for the first time. She decided to have lunch at twelve. It was a sensible time, but she had a problem. The clock does not strike twelve in Solothurn.

A strange town. There is no midday and no midnight. Does the day have one hour less?

If you ever visit Solothurn, do not arrange to meet you friends at 12 o’clock. The will probably not arrive. Better to arrange to meet them in another town.

They just do not pay attention to such trivial details in the town of Solothurn. Or perhaps the clock manufacturer did not have enough golden numbers in “1” and “2” for the dial. After all gold is expensive.

On the other hand, they just might have spaced out the hours with a different system. Yes, of course, twelve hours were fit into eleven. Oh the genius of the Solothurn population.

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WordPress Daily Prompt: No thanks

Is there a place in the world you never want to visit? Where and why not?

No, how could there be? If I have never been there, I could not judge it. Believing newspapers, television and reports from others, is not my thing. I like to see it for myself and make my own judgement. So much is distorted in the news we receive.

I have travelled enough myself, seen other countries, and they all have their own charm. Even the boring street photo above from our local town of Solothurn is not so boring as it seems. On the left a wall belonging to the seat of the French Ambassador to Switzerland some time in the 16^th/17^th century. Over the years renovated and improved and now a restaurant with outside garden. Further down the street on the right, the back entrace to our theatre. You cannot just look at the surface, but you have to scratch a bit to find the details. Oh, and part of the road surface was renewed with cobbles to match the town origins. One of the oldest towns in Switzerland, founded by the Romans.

So the word “never” does not exist for me. Try it out first and if it does not suit you, then move on.

Lumbago??

Was this the reason why my back decided to divide into two halves since the week-end. I ascended the steps to our cathedral to get a better photo of the main street on market day. Holding onto the stone railings I managed to descend again. 


Now I have problems. Mr. Swiss said it is lumbago, in german the translation would be the witch's shot. It's not the first time I have had it an I know it takes a couple of days, about a week, to go away. I am ok when in action, but sitting down and standing up again is a problem. At the moment I feel like this bloke on the statue in front of the cathedral. And he does not look happy at all.

Saturday Morning Autumn Market in Solothurn, Switzerland

I am not really a market person, too many people and too much noise, but I do enjoy visiting our local market town of Solothurn in Autumn on Saturday morning. I had wanted to go since the beginning of October, but the weather was not so friendly, too much rain. Now the sun was even peeping through so I decided now or never. It is a colourful market, full of the products of the surrounding farmlands and a wonderful reward for my camera. I left home with the local train and five minutes later I was ready for action. 

The stalls on the market are usually in the same place and you get to know where everything is. The reason for this photo is because the two ladies are friends of mine. The lady on the left is the boss. She has a farm and most of the products she sells are from the farm. She was also the president of our village first aid group, of which I was a member for some years. There is not very much she does not know about helping if there is an accident. She is also a member of the cathedral choir. Her pumpkin soup is famous amongst members of the first aid group, as she always supplies a home made soup for our annual Christmas get together. Of course the pumpkins were a product of her farm. On the right is one of her daughters who is a fereral policewoman when not busy serving on the market. This daughter is also one of my neighbours and I know her very well. It is usually a family business on Saturday morning and her son or daughters are usually assisting.

As I was walking past the stall I asked if a photo would be OK and she said yes, but just take an action photo, nothing posed, so I did. The stall holders are always to be found in the same place, it is all organised with council permission. There is a lot of work involved on having a stall on the market place. Most Friday evenings and through the night the fruit and vegetables to be sold are prepared, as well as making sure that the hens have produced enough eggs I suppose and early on Saturday morning the complete stall is loaded into their vans and taken to Solothurn, where it is built up and ready for customers. The market is probably from about 7-8 in the morning until lunchtime. At lunchtime everything has to be removed and put into storage for another week. Some of the stallholders are also on the Wednesday morning market as well. At lunchtime the street cleaners come into action and by the afternoon there is no trace left of the market.

The market is guided by the season, which is one of the reasons I like the Autumn market so much, because of the colourful show of Winter vegetables. My personal favourites are the marrows, squash, courgettes or whatever you call them.




Of course there is also a stall specialising in different types of mushroom. These are call bolets in English it seems.


A market would not be a market without flowers, and at this time of the year heather is quite in season. I usually plant some in the garden, which stays through the Winter for a colourful show until Spring.



It is also custom to have roasted chestnuts in Autumn. We do have a kiosk in Solothurn. Year after year the same family come to Solothurn in Winter from the Ticino, the Italian part of Switzerland and stay, selling the chestnuts, which are actually a special sort known as "Marroni" to the Swiss and are not the same sort you see on the horse chestnut trees that grow in the local woods. Those are for animal consumption. I found some on the market. They are encased in a prickly coat, and are the only ones edible for humans.



After an hour I decided it was time to go home. I had a dinner to cook, although there was no rush. I walked home as I just missed the train and decided a half hour walk would not be too exhausting. 

I took a lot of photos, but it was worth it. Did I say sunflowers are quite in at the moment, so here is a photo of what the market had to offer.

Hotel Krone Solothurn, Switzerland

As you enter the Swiss market town of Solothurn through one of the gates on the  East side the first view of the town is the Hotel Krone on the Solothurn market place. According to what I found on Internet it has been in Solothurn as a guest house since 1418, a long time. I do know that even Napoleon booked for a meal on 2nd March, 1798, but it seems that the towns of Bern and Solothurn did not appreciate his visit and he only stayed for a glass of water. He received an invoice for the preparations made for his visit, but it seems he never payed.

The hotel has now been in the possession of a family, but confronted with the high renovation costs the hotel could not be maintained. It has now been bought by the town and Kanton of Solothurn for the price of nine million Swiss francs and will be modernised. It remains closed until Autumn 2014. 

I know the building well. As a working woman in a Swiss tool manufacturing company, responsible for export, I attended many tutorials and workshops in the large rooms which were available for the purpose. The buiding is very old, but the rooms had a nostalgic feeling, solid and the walls decorated with old pictures and portraits. Now and again I had a meal there and the food was always good. The hotel always had a good reputation, not cheap, but priceworthy. During the Summer you could sit outside and take a drink and watch the world go bye. I took this photo about a month ago.

Of course it was also a popular place for wedding feasts, christenings, birthdays and all sorts of celebrations. The opera ball belonging to Solothurn's Open Air Opera Festival was also held in this hotel. The house opposite the hotel is known as a place where Casanova once stayed the night, being friendly with Lady von Roll, one of our past nobler families. Even Casanova had taste. The town was also visit by the Polish general Kociusko, who even lived and died in Solothurn, and I am sure he was one of the visitors for a meal in the Krone in the past, although that bit was added by me.

Interesting is the fate of the inventary of the hotel: the tables, chairs, cutlery and crockery, as well as some of the paintings and electric installations. The owner of the hotel was approached by a Chinese businessman who bought all the interior fittings and is transporting them to China. In China he wants to build a replica of the hotel, either in his home town, or perhaps in Shanghai, and furnish it with the original items. At the moment the goods in question are being packed in cases ready for their transport.




Here you can see one of the chandeliers ready for its journey overseas, being packed in its case, surrounded by Sagex polster.

The actual building will remain in Solothurn, but the hotel will be modernised to meet today's requirements. 

Solothurn is one of the oldest towns in Switzerland, the Romans discovered it and a lot of the town is under monument conservation. Each time building work starts on something new, it has to be stopped because they find a few Roman remains, even a few skeletons. 

So just a little bit of our local news, which I am sure will never reach one of the international newspapers.

Market Day in Solothurn again

What a way to start a blog! A picture of me. Last Saturday morning Mr. Swiss and I walked into town to the market, like all good retired people that have nothing better to do. The highlight of the week. Then Mr. Swiss decided to use his iPhone for a few photos of me, so I decided ok, let's do it. Now you have to suffer with a photo of a grey haired elderly lady with the West Ham United t-shirt. I asked Mr. Swiss if I should take a photo of him (with my iPhone of course) and the answer was clearly negative, so you have to put up with me.

It was a nice sunny morning and we found our way through vases of mega sunflowers and biologically grown vegetables. We had to thread our way through the other golden oldies on the market place (seems to be a senior hobby) and found a free table at a restaurant. Here is the view from the restaurant on the Friedhofplatz (Cemetery Square - used to be one there many years ago. Always finding skeletons there if they start digging). Sorry for the poor quality of the photo, but the sun was shining in the wrong place.

Then out of the corner of my eye, while I was sipping on my ice tea, I saw one of our resident street musicians. Now this is not just a busker, but a genuine German minstrel singer. He likes to dress up in the gear and sings ok, in the style of a strangled falsetto voice, but he takes it very seriously. He is part of the scenery on Saturday morning and can get very annoyed if something does not suit him. Anyhow I managed to hide my iPhone from his view and snapped a photo.


It seemed to be a day for street performers, as when we left the café to make our way to the train (old people walk one way and ride home), we saw a group of singers from another country. I would tip on the West Indies, but it could be Africa. Anyhow they were quite good, very rhythmical so we stayed a while. Here is the photo.


This Saturday morning market excursion seems to start becoming a habit with us, but you only live once. Anyhow Darby and Joan then made their way home on the train, tired but happy.

My new blog site on blogger/Blogspot: http://anglo-swiss.blogspot.ch/

A Misty Morning

When I drove off this morning to work I thought I was back in London in the 50's when we had our smog. The mist was so thick that visibility was really bad. Half of my journey is on roads where only 30 kilometers per hour is allowed, through the villages but I do not think I would have risked driving faster this morning. I passed a bloke who was taking his dog for an early morning walk up the castle road and was glad he was wearing one of those jackets with the reflectors on it. When I arrived at work I took the photo on the left. You could just about see our illuminated sign through the mist. On the right I took the photo at lunch time. The mist had gone and was replaced by a nice warm sunny Autumn day.

After cooking lunch and taking my midday sleep I decided to take a walk into town as I had something I wanted to get. I thought walking would do me good, and since the train fare has gone up and I don't have a permit for half price, I decided to do something for my financial situation as well. I have two roads to town. One is a path along the river and the other the main road. I decided to take the river path, so armed with my camera I started on my way. Suddenly I was confronted by two swans near the river bank. I think I must have taken about six photos of them, but it was a perfect day for shooting, no wind and very clear.

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Something funny happened while I was taking the photos, three dogs arrived on the scene. They were not on the line and were running around and got a bit too near to the swans. I did not know that swans can make so much noise. It sounded like our cats when something annoys them. Anyhow the dogs got a bit nervous and left the swans on their own.

I eventually arrived in town and made the usual photos of the river. This time I achieved something I wanted for a long time. On certain days according to how clear the air is, you can take a photo along the river bank and get the reflections of the buildings in the river. Today was the day.

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I then walked through the town, taking a photo of one of the streets running parallel to the river known as the Landhausquai. The Landhaus is the big white building in the photo and the street runs behind it.

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Eventually I was on the home stretch on the main road to our village. By the time I arrived home I was feeling a bit tired, but happy. Since being at home half day I have found I walk much better, so I supposed there must be some benefit in taking walks now and again.

As I was loading the photos onto the computer I found there was one of my big black fat cat Nera in the camera, so here she is.

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Saturday in Town

As some may know I managed to get my first (and probably my only) book published last week. Today I noticed that two copies had been sold. I know a colleague of mine had bought a copy, but have no idea who bought the other copy. I was told to take my book along to the local bookshop and see what they would do. I decided they could only say "no" so I went along. As I wanted to buy a book (I still have book tokens) I decided to combine both. The lady in the bookshop was very pleased and enthusiastic. She said one copy was already on order and if I could leave two copies they would put them in the english book section and I could go along in January to see what had happened in the meanwhile. If they get sold they would naturally refund the money. I thought fair enough so let us see what happens. I wonder if J.K. Rowling had such problems with her Harry Potter, probably not.

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I was naturally armed with my camera as usual and took once again a photo of our St. Urs cathedral - I think that is the most photographed object in our town. It was a warm sunny Autumn afternoon and I noticed about 4 or our town hostesses (yes, we have them as well) were showing groups of tourists, foreign and otherwise around our town. I had to do a little bit of shopping but not very much, so made my way home. It is a twenty minute walk into town and again back. The doctor told me it was important that I get more exercise (it seems sitting at the computer is not the solution) and the price of a one way ticket on the local street train being three swiss francs, I did not need a lot of persuasion. It was really a wonderful day.

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Walking past the entrance to the town cemetery I noticed there were some nicely coloured trees in Autumn colours. I had to cross to the other side of the road. The train lines are on that side of the road and one of the local stations. Behind the station there is a field used for horses. Today they were all out grazing in the sun so I took a couple of photos before arriving home.

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I am an author

Well sort of. I always seem to be writing things lately so I decided to get them published. Today my book arrived.

I never really thought that at the age of 62 I would ever have anything in print, but nothing ventured, nothing gained and here it is. Mr. Swiss even said he found it in Amazon by just putting my name in. Up to now the newspaper reporters have not been phoning for more information and also the television stations have not invited me for an interview, but I am not disappointed. I very much doubt if anyone will ever buy it. Most of the stories are known by those who now and again stumble on my stories in this place. Since it has been published I have written a couple more stories, but I don't know whether I will do it again.

So enough public relations on my behalf. What did we do today? It was time to visit my hairdresser again so I was in town this afternoon. I walked home and as usual took a few photos on the way. It was a very grey day in town and the view of our river Aare was looking like something from a mystery film.

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I decided to walk home along the river side as it was not raining, although very windy. We have a statue in our town called "Fat Berta" and she has been shifted twice up to now, but now she is on the river side so I could not resist taken her photo. I actually did a blog about her once. If you want to read it click here.

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After leaving Berta I walked along the banks of the river on a country path. I then crossed our bridge with the intention of taking some photos of some swans I saw.

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It was then a straight walk home and I was glad to get indoors. Here is a view of the river from the bridge in the direction where I live.

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It's Autumn

So what did we do today? It started with a morning's work in the office. I am still on half days according to the doctor and probably will be for some time. I start work at around 07.15 in the morning until 11.30. Then it's shopping and I cook lunch. After a little midday sleep (it is terrible as you get older, just can't keep awake after lunch) the afternoon is mine.

Mr. Swiss, my other half or whatever had to go into town this afternoon. He has a bit of a problem with his neck and is at the moment visiting a lady therapist. I told him he could drop me off on the way at the local Autumn Fair. It takes place once a year in Solothurn and all the local shops and companies can exhibit their goods. I am not so keen on large collections of people, but decided Thursday afternoon is fairly quiet. I took a walk around the exhibition and met a few people I knew and then went to the grounds outside, which is the real reason why I was there.

Arn't they beautiful. If you don't know what they are then I can tell you they are Alpacas, a sort of South American mini-lama. I only know that their fur is very expensive, but I had never seen one before. The lady who brought them to the exhibition made quite an impression in Solothurn as she walked with them through the town to the exhibition place just outside.

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I found them to be so sweet and wonderful I took quite a few photos of them. I had never seen them before in "real life". I think I would have liked to take one home with me. They were all wearing a muzzle and I think like most llama similar animals they like to spit quite a bit.

There were also some ducks there

The pigs seemed to be a bit sleepy and spent most of the time relaxing. The animals are actually there for the children, but today there were not many children there as it was a normal school afternoon.

Of course being in Switzerland the cows had to make their appearance, but there were only calves there.

And here a couple of goats for good measure.

I eventually decided it was time to go home. As it was only just down the road I decided to walk the fifteen minutes as my local train had already gone. If anyone would like to see all the photos I took you can find them either in

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A Visit to the Armoury/Arsenal in Solothurn

Yesterday my other half, the Swiss one, had to go into town in the afternoon. I decided to go along as I had to make an important appointment (with my hairdresser). Mr. Swiss was busy so I had an hour to spare and decided to do something I had not done for at least fifteen years. I visited our local armoury.

It is the large building in the middle back of the photo. It has the largest collection of armour in Switzerland ranging from the olden days to the last world war, showing what the Swiss were wearing at the time. I seemed to be the only visitor except for a French bloke that was taking photos the same as me so I could get on with things. The first thing you see when you enter is this.

He is known as the "Zeughaus (armoury) Joggeli" and just belongs there. I remember when I went with the kids when they were younger. If you stand too near you get a spurt of water out of his mouth. He is well known all over our town of Solothurn. The armour seems quite small, but I think people were smaller in those days.

On the ground floor it is mostly canons and such like, but this seems to be something they used for bringing food supplies to the front in one of the wars the Swiss took part in.

The Swiss were involved in a few wars in their past history. Although they are known today as being neutral, in the olden days they had quite a few invaders from the surroundings, the Austrians, Prussians and I don't know who else, but there were many.

This scene shows part of Swiss history. The bloke in grey is Niklaus von der Flue, the patron saint of Switzerland. Now I am not all into the Swiss history, but he was a farmer, got married, had 10 kids then moved on to become a hermit. Perhaps the kids were too much, I don't know. Anyhow he was very much loved by the Swiss and he was the mayor in the town where he moved to. Eventually he seemed to be good at smoothing over conflicts and I think this scene shows how he managed it in front of the soldiers and the church. Anyone who knows better may correct me. I just found it a nice photo.

Here is a selection of the armour on show. There is so much to see and I did take about fifty photos of everything. Although Switzerland is known as being a neutral country, they always had to guard their borders. I know my father-in-law was away during the war years on the Swiss-French border and there were some more "modern" uniforms being shown.

I was quite enjoying my time in the armoury, but my mobile suddenly rang and it was Mr. Swiss telling me he had finished his business and was waiting for me on the bridge (how romantic). I was planning a visit for another fifteen minutes, but when the voice calls you have to go. Anyhow if anyone is interested that can look at the photos either on

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