Daily Prompt: Climate Control

The idea that the weather and people’s moods are connected is quite old. Do you agree? If yes, how does the weather affect your mood?

As far as this subject is concerned, I said almost everything to be said the last time ion 31st May 2014 and as I am not a person of few words, I said so much that I cannot be bothered to repeat it all but here you can read it all again: Climate Control - the first time

Since writing my last memorable piece of literature things have not really changed. Mr. Swiss is still weather prone, his aches and pains developing according to the direction the wind is blowing and he is also now older, and so are the aches and pains. He still has not been engaged by the Swiss meteorological central office, but probably due to age and definitely not due to his knowledge about how the weather is, or should, develop. 

And so we both ventured into town this afternoon. I had an appointment at the hairdressers and Mr. Swiss had an appointment at the supermarket to buy the bird food I had forgotten in the morning. As you can see from the photo, we have Chinese weather conditions at the moment, although I heard today in the news that due to a wind blowing in China vision has improved and you can now see the other side of the street. It seems that this wind had changed its direction towards Switzerland, hitting the town of Solothurn, although our area is subject to heavy mists probably due to the River Aar. We drove through this low visibility until we reached our destination. It was then that Mr. Swiss realised he had never used the fog lamps on our car and realised that he did not actually know where they were. 

There was a problem parking the car in Solothurn, due to the Christmas market, but Mr. Swiss pushed me out of the car and drove on to the supermarket. I made my way to Heidi, my hairdresser, where she was still putting finishing touches to her Christmas tree in her saloon. Heidi had a naked Christmas tree and is telling her customers to bring a Christmas tree decoration when they arrive for their appointment. I thought that was a good idea and slowly the tree is showing its various ornaments. Here we have Heidi adding to the tree.

Mr. Swiss had still not arrived when Heidi was finished with my haircut, so armed with my iPhone and camera I decided to see how the Christmas market was developing in the misty day. There were many visitors, it seemed to be the event of the week, although I was only there for the photos.

I managed to get a shot of these two guys, known as “Schmutzli” and “Sämi Chlaus” in our country. They were having a 10 second break before the next customer arrived to express her/his Christmas wishes. I felt sorry for them. There must have been at least 20 children dutifully waiting in a line with their mothers to ensure that they received the presents they wanted at Christmas. I had a flashback to my childhood when my mum took me to see Santa Claus. I was even allowed to sit on his lap, which is something now considered not correct. 

“What would you like for Christmas?”

“A baby brother”

Yes, well, mum was a little embarrassed when Father Christmas looked at my mum to choose his next words, but he then told me I would have to wait until next year. I waited and waited and waited, but remained the one and only, It was then that I stopped believing in Father Christmas.

The mist was not getting better, and now the darkness joined in. I felt sorry for all those Chinese children that were almost permanently surrounded by invisibility. At the moment there seems to be a big conference about the condition of the atmosphere in the world, they are having these conferences permanently. At least they are talking about it, although they do not seem to be doing very much about it.

I then decided to visit the book store where their Christmas cards were a little better than the others, although Switzerland is not a country for fantastic breathtaking Christmas cards.It was there that Mr. Swiss made contact on my mobile phone to say he had arrived in town and a few minutes later we were re-united in the book shop just like a scene in a Hollywood film. Afterwards we made our way through the mist to the car, where Mr. Swiss took my photo in town.

He found it was one of my better photos. It was taken in the main street in town where we have a few Christmas lights hanging around. The fog had thickened on the drive home Luckily neither Mr. Swiss nor I have pains arising from fog, although we were both tired. My legs were aching and he had a backache. So is the life of two golden oldies.

WordPress Daily Prompt: Climate Control

The idea that the weather and people’s moods are connected is quite old. Do you agree? If yes, how does the weather affect your mood?

Everything has a purpose in life, even the climate. We live in a nicely organised regular climate controlled area. We have spring where the nature awakes and begins to shoot, accompanied with rain, wind and clouds, sometimes grey in grey and now and again sprinkled with spots of sun.

Then Summer arrives which we all long for: hot sun beating down, nature exploding, bees buzzing, stinging nettles stinging and the whole nature show. We clad sparely, sweat running down our brow and are often glad to escape into the shade with a cool drink or plunge into a swimming pool. One day in August we have had enough of this constant hot house and long for a cooling down period. If we are lucky it begins end of August with rose bushes losing their roses, mice hunting for a warm place to settle and when October arrives they are glad they found it.

The climate cools down, the leaf soldiers leave the trees (my felines call them leaf soldiers as they fight an eternal war with them when they drop to the earth sailing on the autumn winds) and gradually the luscious lawns transform themselves into muddy earth sludge, with some sparse tufts of grass poking through. This weather turmoil has not yet finished with us, Winter arrives with its cold icy breath, freezing rain into hanging icicles and eventually snow might will probably begin to fall. This is the year according to Switzerland and most of Europe, give or take a few extreme situations. Now that was a poetic flowery description – Pulitzer/Nobel are you reading me?

If you live in India or Africa, you will probably have hot sun, monsoons, and perhaps no rain. Not even having spent longer as a two week holiday on those continents, I will leave my brothers in blog to tell of their experiences.

Now we arrive at the tough part, does this affect your moods? Of course not, whether sun, rain, snow, hot or cold you adapt, at least I do. I can blog in any temperature. If it is a favourable day I sit outside on the porch. If it is winter, I sit inside shifting my computer to a favourable place, generally where I have peace and quiet and no jazz music in the background. Mr. Swiss and I are flexible and we change our direction according to whether we begin to annoy each other or not. I have absolutely no problem with the climate, sometimes I sweat and so I wear a t-shirt. If I am cold I wear a jacket, one of those old knitted memories of the days gone by where the woollen threads are frayed at the edge and smelling of kitchen memories, cosy and homely.

That is me, but now we have the Mr. Swiss case. He is weather-prone. We have a strong wind in Switzerland known as the “bise” which flows through the valleys, sweeps over the plains and even might err into the streets. It causes a nervous excitement so they say, at least for the people that are weather-prone. We should feel sorry for people that suffer under the “bise”. However, this is not a permanent condition. The next day the “bise” has disappeared and we are confronted with the “föhn”.

“Föhn” is another German word, which is also used for a hair dryer, so there we have it. A dry warm wind, which can, under circumstances for certain people, cause headaches, pains in the joints and a general “not feeling well” syndrome. Mr. Swiss suffers from this, as soon as the “bise” has disappeared, the “föhn” arrives and we are again steeped in gloom and doom. At least it is not my fault with my constant talking and loud voice; it is the “föhn”. I do my best to appease the suffering by perhaps trying to ignore the weather situation, although this is not easy. We hope for better days and an improvement in the weather.

Summer arrives and we have the so-called “dog-days”. I am now almost permanently on the porch with the shades down, still blogging and now and again taking a sip of water and wiping the sweat from my brow. Mr. Swiss is inside. The Swiss have discovered a super system for shielding the brain from these days of temperatures soaring to heights not suitable for weather sensitive people. The blinds are closed and you live in a nocturnal condition, an owl would be happy. Of course to accompany this, the windows are kept permanently shut, no waft of hot air is allowed to penetrate the human living quarters. As I have already fled to the porch, this is no problem for me. I would probably be in a claustrophobic state of mind if I did not have my porch. Mr. Swiss is happy; he is in his own darkened, airless world. Thank goodness for iPads, they have their own built in illumination.

Of course we have a daily weather forecast on the TV. This is followed closely in our home. Every word that the meteorologist utters is weighed in gold. Silence is observed during these precious fifteen minutes of the weather situation. If their prediction does not arrive the next day, it is obvious that they have chosen the wrong job, and are not suitable to be released on mankind. They tell us we will be having cirrostrata clouds and they develop into heavy headache causing storm clouds with strong gusts of wind. It is then clear that their calling in life is not meteorologist, but more a fortune teller: sometimes you guess right, but mostly you are mistaken. This is the Mr. Swiss verdict, and he is very rarely wrong.

In the meanwhile we have three felines. During the hot days, they are usually to be found curled up somewhere sleeping. When temperatures drop they will be relaxing on the stones on the porch, again sleeping. In Winter: we have floor heating, no problem. They are again sleeping each in their own area. Perhaps high on a cupboard, on a comfortable cushion or curled up on a bathroom carpet. They do not have moods, they adapt.

Mr. Swiss cannot adapt, so he bears the trials of the weather. Today we have sun, with a cool breeze. This seems to be the ideal Mr. Swiss climate. He has taken a walk along the county paths. This morning he was shopping but discovered that although the sun was shining it was colder than he thought and should have dressed warmer.

And me? I carry on despite the weather moods. Do not forget, I am originally British and we survive through everything. And if it really rains too much you might be lucky and a bloke with a long grey beard will begin building a large boat, known as ark, in your back yard. If this bloke resembles Russel Crowe and known as Noah, you have hit the jackpot. Just make sure that he lets you enter his boat and you no longer have weather problems. 

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