Topic Generator: Troubled Estate

Not that i was in a troubled state of mind when I was ascending the steps to the top of the slope on the way home from one of those marathon afternoon walks. I was just glad to b able to do it at my golden oldie age. I do not know how many steps there are, when your joints creak and you are reminded of extremities that had been forgotten over the years, you are just glad that you can still do it. Mr. Swiss was ahead, as usual and I saw him armed with his mobile telephone pointing at everything, except me.

“You could take a photo of me showing how fit I am for a golden oldie.”

“Ok, then smile and look at me.”

This was easier said than one because I did not feel like smiling and if I had to stand still, there was a possibility that I would definitely lose my balance and perhaps arrive at the bottom of the steps with a few broken limbs and bruises. I gripped the wooden support and smiled for the camera hoping that it would all be done with in a few minutes.

I had been one of those “let’s walk along the river” afternoons where I was taking photos and Mr. Swiss was walking on heedless of me.

Now that would be a good shot, a field of leaves which had left the trees, but there was a problem. I really did not want a photo collection including a figure of Mr. Swiss on all of them. He was always walking ahead and so I had to wait until he had turned a corner and was out of sight. In the meanwhile I was overtaken by a cyclist and two runners, which prolonged the wait. Eventually I continued.

I turned the corner and discovered a waiting Mr. Swiss I decided that the next photo would be across the river so I did not have to tell Mr. Swiss to move out of the picture. By this time he had found a comfortable place on a bench, so I joined him.

I think the only trouble on this estate of river landscapes was myself  that noticed the golden sun had decided to sink a little further in the West and we should make our way home. Even the ducks ad swans had disappeared.

We climbed up the many steps for the homeward run/walk (my first photo). I then cast a glance in the distance and what did I see? If the air is clear you cannot escape them. They remain where they are, a Swiss photographer’s delight, yes, the Bernese Alps towards the South.

And now it was really the path towards home. It was then I heard a noise, a loud noise, something was approaching over the path. It then appeared. Yes, is was Mr. Flury, the village factotum doing his rounds to ensure that the cows and sheep were safe and that the grass stalks were all in their rightful place and there were no lonesome hikers that had lost themselves stopping to take photos on the way. Mr. Flury is a very important person in our village. He is ever present when taking a walk and everyone knows him.

I cast a look at our destination, perched on top of the hilly banks of the river. It would not be far now. I could already visualise my nice comfortable armchair, my slippers and my home dress waiting for my tired and weary body to relax. Mr. Swiss was naturally already home as I approached our front door. Yes, the troubled estate of my body, feet and other weary parts would soon be laid to rest. No, not quite. I would have to upload my numerous photographic trophies from my walk onto the computer. 

Daily Prompt: Childhood Revisited - No Forget it, I went for a walk

Sure, you turned out pretty good, but is there anything you wish had been different about your childhood? If you have kids, is there anything you wish were different for them?

Oooh No, if I have done this prompt once, I have done it 10 times, so let’s leave it to the newbies to tell us all about their childhoods. I would just add that next Monday my son No. 2 is getting married (for the first time). It will be the first wedding in the family so I will ask him in twenty years to perhaps write this prompt and let’s see what he has to say. In the meanwhile I rest my case, I have other things to do.

In the meanwhile the weather has brightened up in our country and it seems that the monsoon season has passed onto somewhere else (India?). T-shirts with short sleeves, and perhaps even sleeveless are now sufficient and even the sweat pours from my brow as I cut my path through nature, using my machete. The grass is high and all sorts of different flowers are now showing.The grass is being mowed down or the cows have been turned into the fields to eat what they can find.

“Makes a change from that dry hay stuff” Bluebell told me as she was munching away in the field. 

Even the milk now tastes different, but I didn’t tell her. She never did forgive the humans for drinking the milk actually reserved for her babies.

I saw that the opium harvest is progressing. Yes, the poppies are showing their luminous flowers in the gardens and the local population will be looking forward to a nice opium harvest in Autumn. “What did you say” it is not allowed, it would be dealing?. I naturally meant this in a figurative sense of the word, we Swiss have enough to do with laundering our money. No, of course not. The poppy heads are dried and used for decoration. In the meanwhile the flowers in the gardens can be admired and photographed. I think I might plant some poppies myself this year, although I first of all have to harvest my hemp plants which take up quite a lot of space when they grow tall and strong. Yes, there is nothing like having your own herbs in the garden.

I noticed a new horse in the meadow that I had never seen before. Mr. Swiss told me it was a stallion. What a clever man he is, for me it was just a horse. Even the horse was participating in devouring the grass. Yes it is a combined effort in the Swiss countryside, all the animals and doing their best to help the farmer keep the meadows tidy.

It also seems that the Swiss Alps are creeping closer. I, of course, took a few pictures of these Alps, you never know if they might disappear some time. Most of them are already hollow, being used by the Swiss army as storage places for ammunition and tanks etc. If Switzerland is attacked by the others (for example Liechtenstein) we have places to hide. After all the mountains are there for something. It was only a few years ago when the Swiss army were having a practice to see if their weapons were still in working order and by mistake set fire to a few fields over the Swiss border in Liechtenstein, so who knows they might be working out a plan of revenge.

Anyhow here is my prize suspicious photo of the Swiss Alps taken on my walk from a field somewhere in the state of Solothurn. As the crow flies they would be about 150-200 Kilometers away, not counting climbing up and down.

The Cows are here again

Yesterday my partner in crime, Mr. Swiss, invited me to a walk. He found I had been cooped up long enough inside curing my cold and now it was warmer so it was time to do it again. He said even the cows were now let out of the sheds and are roaming the prairies of Switzerland. I decided to risk the fresh air and when such a good looking young man sends you an invite you have to accept, especially when you are compared t a cow.

I dragged myself into three-quarter length trousers and a t-shirt with seven mile shoes and we were on our way. It was a carefully planned route, not too far, as Mr. Swiss was also feeling some symptoms of age (so he said) and there they were. At a distance but the cows were in the field. I could hear them from the path.

“Look Bluebell, fresh grass and even some daisies in between. This is the real thing. None of that hay stuff.”

“Then don’t drop your recycling process on the fresh grass Buttercup if we are going to munch it. That really spoils my appetite.”

“Then go and eat some grass in another place. I drop my digested remains where I want to. Look the first flies are laying their eggs in it, how sweet.”

“Yuck, and I am supposed to eat it. You are spoiling my first day out. Look Mrs. Angloswiss is on the path with Mr. Swiss and she has a camera. Smile Buttercup, we might make it on a Daily Prompt.”

“You think so, they are not interested in nature, just making profits on their web site. On the other hand it will show all those nice friendly daily prompters that we have survived another snowy and cold Winter and are ready to go.”

And after taking a few photos we moved on to the cemetery. If you want quiet surroundings a cemetery is always a good place to sit and rest. I did see two other visitors, otherwise we had the whole place to ourselves which was quite good as we had no disturbances when taking photos. Time flies when you are visiting fun places and we decided to take the long walk home eventually. It would have been faster to branch onto the sidewalk on the main road, but we do not like this way. Too much noise and traffic and no cows or other livestock. We returned through the cemetery and then we saw Buttercup and Bluebell on their way home. Actually the complete herd was on its way home accompanied by its Chief Drover who had a remarkable likeness to a bloke known as Gil Favour from the old Rawhide series on the television.

Perhaps the cows were not going home, but were on their way to better pastures on the other side of Switzerland. On the other hand it seems that Switzerland has so many cows, they were better staying where they were.

Cows are very obedient animals and they filed in a neat row back to the ranch, one after the other. Of course I could not resist another photo. I spoke to the ranger in charge, and he told me that the next time he would let the cows graze in a field nearer to my camera, for some closeups. Here they are going home.

WordPress Daily Feline Prompt: Doing it the Feline Way

Write about anything you’d like, but make sure the post includes this sentence:

“I thought we’d never come back from that one.”

“Remember that walk Tabby.”

“I will never forget it. Mr. Human says let’s go places so I thought a good idea.”

“True Tabby, I suppose he meant it well. I don’t get out much these days being blind it seems. Must remember to ask what that means. In any case he put on my lead and then we were off. I thought it would be a mouse hunt somewhere in the fields, but he decided we would do one of those human exercise paths.”

“I just came along for the ride Fluffy, but I would have been better off taking a trip to Nirvana in one of my sleeping cycles. No that was definitely not fun.”

“It was all over wooden planks going up and down. Even Mr. Swiss tripped on a piece of metal. He wasn’t happy about that and said a few profanities.”

“Humans always say profanities if something happens they don’t like. Glad that they do not exist in meow”

“But Tabby you sometimes say “dog”.”

“I know that is just a slip of the tail for want of something expressive to say.  You must admit when I say “dog” you pick up your ears.”

“Of course, dogs are not my favourite. On that mystery walk with Mr. Human there was a dog that crossed our path. Mr. Human got quite worried when I wanted to go back home. After the encounter of the canine kind things went quite smoothly until you shot off to chase a mouse and I wanted to follow. It was then that the lead got tangled in Mr. Human’s legs and he fell in the mud. He was not happy.”

“It was quite funny. Shame we felines do not know how to laugh. Did you see all that mud on his clothes.”

“I remember when we arrive back to our place. Mrs. Human was not happy and asked where he had been. He said he had gone for a walk with the felines and he added “I thought I would never come back from that one”.”

“I remember her shaking her head wondering how you get covered in mud by going for a walk with two nice felines like us. I think that was the last time he took us out for a walk. Building sites are not the places for felines, that is more canine. We have more refined tastes, strolling in the paths of nature.”

“And digesting nature’s rewards.”

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I went for a walk

Going for walks is not really something out of the ordinary. Basically it is supposed to be healthy, only to be quite honest health has not meant well with me over the last month or so. After having a sort of collapse, breakdown, burnout, whatever modern science calls it, I have really been only fit to sit at the computer and do some writing or other such things, but lively actions were put onto one side.

Of course the daily shopping was done, but mainly with Mr. Swiss. I just felt a bit overwhelmed in the shops with the people and the action. I also stopped taking the car as felt quite giddy now and again. Gradually I am getting back on my feet. Prompted by an appointment at the dentists which I had to keep yesterday and walking into town and back again, I seem to be gradually finding the ground under my feet once again.

So what did we do today. Well I sent Mr. Swiss into town this morning to get the daily survival rations whilst I cleaned the kitchen. It was raining all morning, but this afternoon cleared up a bit so out of boredom we decided to go for a walk, the three cats all being in cat nirvana.

The castle Waldegg is just around the corner from where we live on a hill so we walked in that direction. Naturally I was armed with my camera, but had to keep telling Mr. Swiss to move over as I did not want 20 photos of Mr. Swiss with the scenery in the background.

We took the path threw the country roads and made our way to the frog pond.

Looks a bit like a pea soup at the moment. The frogs have had their fun in Spring and have now moved out. There might be some spawn under the surface but as I was sinking slowly but surely into the surrounding mud I decided not to tempt fate and just made a couple of photos.

On the way back we crossed paths with the two riders. There is a riding school and stables near to where we live so is a common sight in this area.

When I had a look at the photos I realised that one of the horses was probably a stallion. Just don't look at those things when I take a photo. In the background is the building belonging to the riding school.

This is the side path leading to the castle. The trees must be at least one hundred years old.

We eventually got back to the village and passed this garden of hollyhocks which I just had to take a photo of. I have some as well in my garden, but not such a variety of colours as here.

Eventually we arrived home tired but happy (well I was tired and someone else was probably happy). I was just glad to get my shoes off, dress in something relaxing and take it easy. Mr. Swiss found it did me good to get out a bit so I suppose he is right. My cats were still in Nirvana when I got back home. Here is another view of the castle close-up.

A Wonderful Sunny Day

Well this year's crocus have arrived. They have been blossoming all week, but as I am a working woman I didn't see them properly until today. Although it is not exactly Spring temperatures, we had full sun all day and blue skies. After spending the morning doing housewify things, like cleaning windows, hoovering and cooking I decided to go into town this afternoon. Before I went I noticed that my cats were out in the garden enjoying the sunny weather. Fluffy was sitting on the lawn making the most of the weather.

I decided to walk into town. It was the first time this year and I was wondering why each year I need longer to get there, after all it is only a kilometer. I naturally had my camera with me, you never know what might turn up. This photo shows one of the narrow alleys on the way called the Grimmengasse.

and this is our local senior citizens home, just across the road. Might be useful one of these days.

There were not many people in town and I did not really have to get anything special, although my other half asked me to get one of our National newspapers, the Saturday edition, as they always have the coloured supplement which is usually quite interesting.

There wasn't really anything interesting to photograph in town except for this pigeon. He saw me coming with the camera and decided to hop on this stone (probably a remainder of a roman wall somewhere in town, or just an ornament for pigeons to relax on) and when the pigeon looked at me with that smile on his face I decided to take his photo.

After getting some money out of the money machine I took a slow stroll back home. I was wondering whether to go via the local castle for a few photos of the alps, but I was feeling a bit worn out and it would mean going uphill, so decided on the straight road home. I suppose I should now feel fit and healthy and glad that I went out this afternoon. In a way yes, but I was glad to arrive home. The sun was still shining and I noticed our first wasp or something that looked like one buzzing around the flowers in the garden, so I suppose Spring is just around the corner, although in Switzerland you never know. It wouldn't surprise me if we had a few inches of snow at the end of next week, so I am making the most of it while I can.

And by this time Fluffy had decided to relax and really make the most of the day