Friday evening blog

Sometimes you have no inspiration to write anything, but you just want to write to keep the brain working (I suppose). I wanted to start with a photo, so chose this one which I took when walking home from the town of Solothurn along the river Aare. The white buildings on the left in the distance is the colony where I live.

It was an eventful week, the cats celebrated their birthday with Roschti, the new feline threat in the neighbourhood and since he spent the night at our place he is being carefully watched by 3 pair of cats eyes, me and Mr. Swiss, although it seems to me that the cats are getting a little bit more tolerant. Nera, my big black fat cat, even stays outside when he is in the neighbourhood.

Nera: Of course, Mrs. Human, after all who is afraid of a mangy red and white Garfield lookalike.
Tabby: Did you say something Nera? You was always first in the cat flap when he arrived. You didn't even wait to see him, as soon as his smell was in the air you was gone.
Nera: And you were not far behind me, but on our birthday he caught up with us and even got through the cat flap.
Fluffy: He slept on our cat play centre, his smell is still on the cushions.I just don't understand why you two cats hid in the back room when he was there. He just relaxed a bit. He didn't bother me when I was walking around.
Nera: Fluffy, did you actually notice that he was sleeping in the same room as you that night.
Fluffy: Not really, I though there was a different smell around but he didn't bother me. Sometimes there is an advantage when you don't see everything.
Tabby: Well I still think he is after my fur as a trophy. I don't like him.

Well I noticed that Tabby does not like Roshti, the new cat. Yesterday evening I though Tabby was being murdered outside, but Roshti just came a bit too near and Tabby ran in the wrong direction. Nothing actually happened, except for the fact that there was an excited Tabby indoors afterwards with ears pinned back almost flat to her head. It seems to me that the situation is getting a bit relaxed. Mr. Swiss told me that Roshti was walking around today and Nera was even sitting outside, although she was watching him to see what he was doing. Who knows, perhaps there might be an improvement in the situation.



I was out yesterday evening on one of my first aid evenings. We meet once a month on a Thursday evening and usually deal with a special item. Our meeting place is in the building on the right at the front of the picture. It belongs to the local school house and is usually used for various gymnastic exercises and the village kindergarten. The room we use is for music lessons amongst other things.

Yesterday we had a talk on household remedies. One of our first aid profis gave a couple of demonstrations and a talk. Actually it is all very unofficial. We all live in the two villages which are next to each other and it is quite an enjoyable evening sometimes as we know each other so well. So what did we learn.

How to keep your silver clean (if your have any). Take a glass of warm water and dissolve a layer of salt in it. Then take some aluminium foil, roll it in a ball and put it in the liquid. Take the tarnished silver and put it in the liquid touching the aluminium foil and leave it for a few minutes. When you take it out it is no longer stained. The only problem is you have to keep renewing the foil - somehow it hangs together with the ions that are released from the foil. I am sure there are a few scientist amongst you that can explain why.

We also learnt that bananas make you happy if you eat them. They have some sort of substance which affects the human substances. Probably why I don't always feel so happy - not allowed to eat bananas because they have too much sugar.

Another good one was for sweaty feet. We had an abc answer of your choice to the question what is the best remedy. We all chose the third solution, red wine and it was correct. Apparently if you have a foot bath in red wine your feet don't sweat, but it has to be wine of the best quality matured in wooden casks. And this was not even an april joke. However, seems to be a bit of an expensive remedy that one. Aspirin is supposed to be quite good for removing blood stains. So if you are going to kill someone make sure you have enough aspirin in the house (it is a blood-thinning medicine after all).

Eventually we all went home after discussions about who might be interested in first aid service at the EU 2008 football occasions. I asked if you get to see a match free, but this is not the case. We are expected to be outside the games. In the local towns screens will be organised with the matches live and we have to make sure that no-one gets overexcited and has a heart attack, or alcohol excess etc. etc. As I work, and most of the attendances was during the night until four in the morning, I declined. Now if I lived in Basel I might have the chance of working in the stadium, that would have been interesting. Had sort of visions of curing one of the profi footballers of cramp in the legs, although I don't think they would let me get that near.

This evening I have to catch up on two episodes of the East Enders, put a wash in the machine and do a little bit of accounts work for our first aid team. I also have to keep a watchful eye on the cat flap that Roshti does not make an appearance, although I think he will spend the night in his own home tonight.