WordPress Daily Prompt: Favourite Mistake

Is there a mistake you’ve made that turned out to be a blessing — or otherwise changed your life for the better? Tell us all about it.




We have a tribe of crows that live where I live, not exactly. I live in an apartment and they inhabit the trees. Now and again the chief crow says “let’s go for a flight” and all the other crows say “Yes, what fun” and they fly altogether in a formation over the area where I live.  The chief crow squawks “Everyone to the left” and they all fly to the left. Then he says “time for a break” which seems to mean fly two circles and land on the nearest tree branch. It is really a shame he does not say “Hey, she is standing in the garden with the camera, everyone hold it in the air over her head, smile and give her the chance for the Pulitzer prize photo”, so they just fly on.

This week the chief crow took pity on me. He said to one of his tribe, “land in a tree near the lady with the camera once and stay there until she has had a chance to take her prize winning photo” and that was how this photo came into existence. The chief crow is now a little annoyed with this member of the tribe. I distinctly hear him sqawk,  “I said once and not every evening” as it seems this crow decided he wanted to make sure his photo would appear at least on my blog, and now he regularly sits on the tree branch waiting for me to take a photo. I now have at least ten photos of this crow in my collection. The crow made a mistake by disobeying his chief, but he has now become famous and I have been able to practice with crow photos.

I have absolutely nothing to offer on this theme. I do not make mistakes, unless I make them on purpose. It is logical, if you do something and do it wrong, and do not like doing it, the chances are that you will not be asked again – female logic. Basically I am perfect, although Mr. Swiss is a better driver than I am, can speak better Swiss German and plays drums better than I can, although I can play piano better than he can. He also makes a very good apricot flan – her it is, there still some left (see yesterday’s daily prompt).




At the moment Mr. Swiss is occupied with television. This evening Switzerland plays their first World Cup soccer game again Ecuador and he will be cheering them on to win. Let us hope they make no mistakes and only create blessings.

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WordPress Daily Prompt: Right to brag

Tell us about something you (or a person close to you) have done recently (or not so recently) that has made you really, unabashedly proud.

I was quite proud of this photo of one of my Sweet William flowers. It came out well, but I am also proud of the actual flower on the photo. I love doing things myself from the beginning and one day I decided they would look good in the garden. I visited the local supermarket and bought a paket of seeds. Believe me, these seeds are not large, they are tiny, and sewing tiny seeds is an effort for a golden oldie. If you just distribute them in the seed tray, they begin to grow hugging each other and fighting for space. This means that eventually you have to space them out in nice organised rows so that they have room to spread their roots and breathe.

I did all this a few years ago and eventually, despite backache, tired legs from squatting and not being very good at standing again, I did it. I planted them in my garden. I now have a bed of Sweet William that blossom every year in June, colours ranging from pink to deep red with some crimson in the middle. Unfortunately some wandering grass seeds decided to interrupt the bed of flowers, meaning more backbreaking work to remove them, but undaunted, year for year the grass is pulled out.

There is another proud moment. Not all of my photos are perfect, it is more luck than judgement, but I believe this photo was a success. I am not an Ansel Adams rival, he specialised in black and white photos, but nothing and no-one is safe from me and my camera. It accompanies me everywhere.

Admittedly Mr. Swiss sometimes gets slightly annoyed when we take a walk together and he finds that together is quite a distance behind on the path taking a photo of a grasshopper, a mushroom or just a bunch of weeds. It can also become embarrassing when shopping and he is deciding what to buy, and I am taking photos of the goods on display. I explain that the photo might be useful to illustrate a blog, one of my prize suspicious contributions to the WordPress world. He shake his head in sympathy.

Of course I am unabashedly proud that Mr. Swiss has remained by my side for so many years. I even annoy myself now and again, but he remains, undaunted, despite my rather loud voice. Most people hear me before they actually see me. This afternoon he has made me proud. He decided to bake a Swiss style apricot flan. He lined the baking tin with pastry and arranged the halved apricots in a pretty pattern on the pastry (of course he professionally removed the stones first of all). Cornflour, eggs, sugar and a mixture of milk and cream were whipped together in the kitchen mixer. The oven was already set to the correct temperature, he poured the mixture over the apricots and put the whole creation to bake at the right temperature. All this was happening whilst I was writing this fantastic blog about how good and proud I am of myself. As I sit on the porch, I smell the scent of a apricot flan baking à la Mr. Swiss.

I am also quite proud of my dad. He is now 98 years old, had a pacemaker fitted about a month ago and lives alone in London in sheltered housing. He has his own apartment and has a carer that makes sure he is OK. I spoke to him on the phone today and asked how the pacemaker is going. Despite my loud vocal organ, I have to repeat the question a few times as he no longer never heard very well. He said “fine, no problem, I forget that I have one.” He has now understood the intricacies of a micro wave oven, which he never wanted. He now walks with the aid of a zimmer frame, which he never wanted. He is now glad for his television, which never really bothered him, but it is now regularly switched on at eight in the evening when the World Cup Soccer matches are shown from Brasil.

Just a fleeting thought. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a proud moment about the world, that we would have no disagreements with each other. I live in such a lovely country, it is small, picture book similar, and although we have 4 national languages and two basic religions we have no fights, women and men, French, german, Italian and romantsch speaking citizens live side by side, even the food pakets in the supermarkets are printed in three languages. There is so much suffering in the world that I sometimes feel a little guilty.

And now to prepare the evening meal: the apricot flan is a success, Mr. Swiss is satisfied and I can take over the kitchen again.

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