Another Day in Switzerland

I was not very happy when I got up this morning as it was time again to clean the kitchen. I usually do a thorough clean up once a week, preferably in the morning to get it behind me. This morning it was Thursday and the day I programmed for the task. Luckily my other half had to go to the hairdresser this morning so he was out of the way. I then spent an hour cleaning down cupboards and all the surfaces and doing my housewifely hobbies which I do not enjoy so much. The main advantage is that I have no-one looking on (except for 3 cats) and putting me under stress to finish the job. I managed my task in an hour and five minutes later Mr. Swiss walked in.

At least I thought it was Mr. Swiss. Admittedly the hairdresser does no longer need a lot of time to cut what is still there, but Mr. Swiss decided today was the day for a radical haircut. Now I am married to a sort of Bruce Willis, but I must say I quite like it. Very short, well what is there is very short - I am sure he will be discovered for the next Hollywood film based in Switzerland.

So what did we do afterwards. We decided to go into town for our shopping trip instead of the usual supermarket in the village sort of thing. Mr. Swiss accompanied me to the supermarket in town, but then had to go to another part of town to buy a metronome (the things drummers need). I was quite happy as I wanted to go to the book store so we parted company arranging to meet at a near bye restaurant.

At the moment I am in the middle of reading "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco. Actually I wanted to read it in English, but we only have the German version. I heard that the English translation is not so good, so started reading the German edition and must say a really good book. Of course I have seen the film at least twice and each time William de Baskerville appears in the book I think of Sean Connery, although in the book it is someone with blond hair. The things that film producers have to change. Anyhow, where was I, ah yes in the book shop. I decided that I would try and get a copy of The Foucault Pendulum also by Umberto Eco and they had one in German again. I prefer books in the original language, but my Italian just is not good enough for an original Umberto Eco, so I took the one they had. I still have some book tokens given to me at Christmas, so money no object, although I nearly always buy the paperback.

Of course I could not resist taking a few photos in town. The picture above shows our "bicycle" bridge, officially the Kreuzacker Brücke, but as only bikes are allowed on it, it has been named as such by the locals. I then stopped at the edge of the bridge to take a photo of the banks of the river showing the town of Solothurn.

On the extreme right, the white building used to be the winter house of the French Ambassador to Switzerland in the middle ages, but is now a restaurant where you can sit outside in Summer on the bank of the River Aar. The large building on the left is our conference hall, exhibition hall and lecturing hall, you name it if it has to be big it is used.

This is the view looking in the other direction. The first building on the left are appartements and the long low building third from left used to be the slaughter house. It was laying empty for many years until it was turned into the most popular bar and outdoor restaurant in Solothurn. In the background our ever present St. Urs cathedral and the hills you can see are the first chain of the Jura mountains.

I met Bruce Willis (sorry Mr. Swiss) at the restaurant and we had a drink before returning tired but happy to our home. Needless to say after lunch we old folk had a midday 40 winks, although I am usually outside on the easy chair for mine. Before I go, below a photo looking down the main road in our town this morning towards our Bieltor (gate of Biel).