Stepford in Switzerland

Happy Holidays

2006-12-21T11:28:00.000+01:00

We're off to South Africa today, so I won't be posting for a few weeks, but expect lots of news in January...once the computer is fixed as well...it died last week.

Insignificant Blog Awards

2006-12-12T09:52:00.000+01:00

Not sure quite what the criteria are for winning but I've entered nonetheless.....I am guessing that as I don't get much traffic there's not much point, but may be that is the whole point...who knows?

Click the link on the right hand side to vote!

Is it Spam or Post-Modernist Literature?

2006-12-11T13:19:00.000+01:00

Just thought I'd share the most interesting piece of spam I've received in ages.....it was either that or enter it for the next orange prize, but may be I could do both? Thanks by the way to Irena Costella or kullstamwei@peachcitybeachcruise.com who ever you are for sending it to me!

"heart responded to that appeal. He could not hurry by unheeding. how her man can put up with it, but hes an awful easygoin chapjust mistake, or to have any misunderstanding with Fred, built it rightthe kind that wouldnt notice anything wrong until hed come home some
sugar I wondered again as I had so many times that day where we binocular were met by angry threats. a spring wardrobe crazy if it cruelty had not been Ahm who stole Lys.
Guided by the calls, he turned aside from his course and made his waynight and find her gone. I havent one bit of respect for her.beside their own Fred sent enough money to have a frame building putOh, now, Mrs. Smith, youre too hard on her. Shes young and pretty
seafood salt Cautiously I approached facility a beer-mug "They will conservationist kill us,
the flank of extreme the cliffs,
through the choking storm across the prairie.and likes a good time. Mrs. was giving her steel knives aup but the twins decided that logs were more romantic and cheaper. Itquick rub with ashes out of deference to the lady stoppers. Its easy
where they attack terminated in an abrupt nap said Lys. "We orthodontic may as well
escarpment as though some all value powerful hand had was a remarkable structure when they were through with it, stuck The cries came nearer, and Fred shouted in replywords of impatientenough for folks like us, waving her knife to include all present, toagainst their own house, as if by accident, and resembling in itsbe very respectable and never get ourselves talked about, for nobodys thigh broken keep on resettlement in tragic search of another refuge."
encouragement. No rescuer ever went to his work with a worse grace.askin us to go to dances or fly around with them, but with her itsirregularity the growth of a freak potato. Cables were freely used;different. Dont be hard on her She aint goin to do anything she
off a great section of gain rock and "They will be distracted by/with a sci-fi weapons system futuristic decor not
underneath set it warn upon the surface
A large, dark object loomed faintly through the driving storm.shouldnt.binder twine served as hinges on the doors and also as latches.But the ladies were loath to adopt Mrs. s point of view. All
safety roof of the earth. kill us dwarf so surely as will those others out there," the approach of night flow chart I replied.
It was now quite dark, and as lonely I crept aroundtheir lives nothing had happened, and here was a deliciously exciting "

There....I wonder what happens next?

Countdown has Begun

2006-12-10T12:07:00.000+01:00

No we're not launching a rocket or testing a missile, well we're not planning to at any rate. No, we're heading to the sun for Christmas and New Year this year and just before that we have a milestone birthday to get through too. Yes my thoroughly un grown-up husband turns 30 next week....but I happen to think, compared with previous boyfriends and male acquaintances that he happens to be handling it in a very very grown-up manner. In the past I have seen all sorts of crazy "oh shit I'm about to turn 30" behaviour manifest itself. I was once the much younger girlfriend of a 29 year old reluctant to admit that he was hanging on to his late 20's by nothing more than the skin of his teeth and the hopes that if anyone saw him with me (then 19) that they might think he just looked older than he actually was, for example.But no there is almost a calm stoicism in our household when it comes to the ageing topic...no drastic new hairstyles or comical make-overs planned here...no, just a graceful passing from youth into middle age, possibly helped by uncontrollable excitement at the prospect of going on safari for two days in January when we are in South Africa. Perhaps it helps that my Dad will be exactly double his age on the very same day?

In fact what I mean by the countdown....is the very accurate and regularly reported countdown to the day next week when aged 30,my husband will be flying to South Africa for the first time. Don't get me wrong, I'm very excited about going to see family and friends as I haven't been back in quite some time, but its not a "first" for me...oh and I'm still panicking about what to buy him for his 30th as every single person I speak to on the subject, reliably informs me that they have in fact just bought "exactly that" for him when I float my latest idea on what to buy for him.....I am so annoyed at this in fact that I have stopped getting involved in the conversation and dropped into pre-sulk mode as I prepare to be the person who gets him book vouchers while all those around me hand over exactly what he wanted!

But we should have a fantastic time once we get to South Africa, if we haven't missed the flight in the excitement of spending the book tokens in the airport shop of course! Which reminds me I still have some more Christmas shopping to do before we fly, or people will be getting duty-free gifts...which just doesn't score highly at all, not even in the "it was the thought that counted" stakes. I was so much more organised by this time last year! So much more! At this rate I'll be packing on the way out the door!

Let there be light........please?

2006-12-08T11:01:00.000+01:00

I know that I haven't been posting in a while but I've been busier than this time last year, and markedly less dark in my mood as well. But on the subject of darkness....we have yet to get the lighting sorted in this place. In Switzerland when you move into a place it does not come with light fittings....not even a wire with a bulb on the end. I suppose we should be grateful that there are even switches, however in two of the main rooms in this apartment they even forgot to put the wires in! So its been 6 weeks of calling the agent for the building....waiting for a "bon de commande" (a voucher) to call the electrician with and then getting through to him only to be told...."oh yeah well...we decided when we moved the wall not to bother reconnecting the cable run...you'll have to take it up with the agent."

So take it up with the agent I have, in my best sarcastic french reserved for tongue in cheek letters to swiss bureaucrats....and now we wait again. The light fittings are starting to meld with the carpet in bedroom, but I don't want to go down to see the agent and drag him up to demonstrate how dark the rooms get on a gloomy afternoon with just a couple of lamps to brighten them as I've done a thoroughly naughty thing and painted a wall in our bedroom a non-authorised colour (not white) but I'd had enough of the austere uniformity of the apartment and besides I've always liked this shade of cornflower blue!

We might get lights in the ceilings before Christmas, but at the moment I think the chances of Snow in the Sahara on Christmas Day are higher.

Blog and it comes true.....well nearly

2006-09-21T16:59:00.000+02:00

No I was wittering on about the driving licence, and what should arrive in the post today but my new swiss licence, although as that bloody woman interfered with my form, I now haven't a single piece of ID in my married name.....but I can continue to drive so she'd better watch out when she's crossing!

I've emptied Ikea and I'm being slowly driven round the bend

2006-09-21T01:14:00.000+02:00

Well the apartment is very nearly in order, Ikea have made a small fortune, and no manner of money off for my birthday coupons is going to redress the balance....see that's how well they know us now, they even know my birthday! So now I get to try and battle the last few bits of admin that we need to get sorted to make us fully "legal" as it were.

So job one was driving licences. If you plan to stay for a period of time, you have to within the first year of being in the country, surrender your driving licence in favour of a swiss one...why is not made clear, just that you must. I have given up trying to fight them on the issue, and so went to the police station to pick up the relevant form, which I have to admit was a bit of a doddle to fill out, and which I then sent off to the cantonal authority with the 3 forms of ID and crappy passport pictures. Only, the policeman had supplied the wrong form, so within a week the form was sent back to me, with the new and appropriate one included, but none of my photocopies in the envelope (someone somewhere must collect photocopies of wedding certificates.)

This new and improved form was a little more complicated and needed far more input than the previuos one, including a testament to my eyesight from a suitably state approved optician, and a signature to testifiy that the muppets in the local council office agree that it is me signing and sending in my UK licence. Well I filled out said form, taking care to make it clear that although my residency card is in my maiden name, my drivers licence is in my married. Drove around one morning getting the rest of the signatures I needed, and then rocked up to get the local council to sign the form. Well the poor woman (how she got the job I have no idea - she's not swiss) decided that Née was not the same as Epousé and corrected my perfectly legibile and understandable form with some gummed up tippex and a ball point pen, and not even black ink at that! So I'm expecting to recieve the whole lot back in a few days, and then to have to go through the painful process again....just so long as they don't make me take a driving test at the end of it I don't mind. You only get 3 goes at it here, after that you can kiss goodbye to the open road unless it's as a passenger.

The mad landlady from the previuos appartment is meanwhile trying to make us cough up for some ridiculously expensive carpet cleaning service that charge both your arms and a leg to clean a square inch of her manky "tibetan" carpet, that my contract cleaners wouldn't touch for fear of it disintegrating between their fingers......a new rug would not only be more hygenic but far more economical and aesthetically pleasing! But hey ho, she still thinks she lives in Swaziland.

Pay it Forward

2006-08-15T11:26:00.000+02:00

And no I don't mean the schmaltzy yet touching film starring Haley Joel Osment, I mean instead the guy who has restored my faith in human nature. You see we were unable to get a van to move our stuff from "stupid landlady's" to "great new place" and so having run out of options I resorted to the English language radio station here in an effort to find a "man with a van" to help us move what was an unconscionably large amount of stuff to have accumulated in less than a year. Well the radio station took pity on me and made an announcement to the effect that I was pathetic and needed help.....in less than 5 minutes I had a call from a guy who said he could help....... So the following evening he turned up at the appointed time to help shift all our stuff and it turned out he had in fact been at work all day, had shot home and picked up his wife's people carrier, removed the seats and dashed to help us! Now in this day and age you just don't expect that, and he would take no more than a few beers bought after the moving and lugging in exchange for his help.....the catch being that I now have to "pay it forward" (see the link now.)

But yes we have finally moved out of the lunatic appartment to one that came with fresh clean paint, an oven that works and laundry system that indeed functions. Not that it was without hiccups....or is entirely complete in all senses yet...we have another load of more "stuff" (we must get a handle on our stuff addiction) coming over at the end of the month, and then yet more soon after. In the meanwhile we have begun to buy shelves for all this "stuff" and I may even consider becoming adept at using ebay to shift some of the stuff!

Thankfully the radio station that made the appeal for me has not made any appeals recently that I felt I could do justice, but as soon as all this "stuff" (even you are getting tired of it now) is dealt with and packed away I shall be looking to restore someone else's faith in human nature.....

Black Hawk Down or Paris in the Springtime.

2006-07-02T21:08:00.000+02:00

I know its a little out of date order but this trip was a bit stressful to say the least and I'm still in the process of writing my letter of complaint! But we managed to get tickets to the Champions League Final in Paris, so it was a good start....we had cheap flights booked and great plans to meet up with my brother-in-law and friend before the game for a leisurely late lunch and amble around before making our way out to the stadium. Well best laid plans and all that....

But lets begin at the beginning, I was organised, thoroughly organised so we had a great deal on a little hotel all booked and paid for well in advance and a good deal on flights too so it was all supposed to go to plan. Well we touched down in Paris and all was still going well.....but the machines for the metro tickets were all blessed with thoroughly serpentine queues and were no longer accepting cards from outside of France, nor notes and as I hadn't enough change for 4 tickets we had to risk our lives by getting a cab into the centre of town with a driver who took road rage to a whole new level!

He finally dropped us at the hotel having dropped off the other half of the party at their nearby hotel as by the time they'd booked their room, our hotel had filled up, and well that's what we thought at this stage. On entering the establishment I had booked we were faced with what can only be described as a building site and hotel manager who kindly informed me that he had rejected our booking and as a result we were now in Paris on the busiest night of the year and no hotel room! Super! Just Peachy!

So we trekked off to find a bar to sit down and start calling around (bear in mind we're on swiss mobiles and now roaming in France this was beginning to cost a fortune) so we also managed to purchase a phone card, with which I made the call to the booking company who then repeatedly failed to call me back. At one point I got stuck in the phone box with the suitcase for five minutes until my Husband came to my rescue. Finally out of sheer desperation having called the UK and enlisted help from my Dad - yes I admit I am still Daddy's little girl - we got a call from the french arm of the business and I managed to get them to agree that if we found a room, at no matter what cost they would fund the difference......but soon we were called back to say they'd found us a hotel room in a 5star centrally located hotel....so we hailed a cab and made our way across town again (better driver this time.)

But on arrival all was not as we expected - lovely hotel - but they were expecting me to pay the difference.......so another call to the UK office ensued and finally the hotel management were provided with the company's credit card details and we could check in. Now the hotel room we got had quite a strange set-up you walked in to find a living room and guest toilet and upstairs a bedroom and bathroom on a mezzanine....fantastic - well yes it would have been if we'd been able to check in 4 hours previously and had that long awaited lunch in Montmartre followed by a leisurely amble. So instead it was a rushed shower and another taxi dash to meet up with my brother-in-law and then a cramped, hot and sticky metro out to St.Denis and the stadium, where we managed to grab a quick kebab (yeah the height of french cuisine indeed) and made it to our seats for what I have to describe as the most upsetting arsenal game I have ever seen.

We finally managed to grab dinner at 3am on the terrace of a great bar and then grab yet another cab back to the hotel. Next morning faced by the choices for breakfast - remember this was a spa hotel - we opted to eat out, well so would you if the only choices were muesli or a vitamin rich breakfast. But not before spotting the hotel's helpful cocktail suggestion list that came with the mini bar! Amongst my favourites were the "Vodka cooler"- one miniature of vodka and a Perrier water, the "Beer Buster" - one beer and one miniature of whisky but by far the best on the list was the "Black Hawk"- one miniature of gin and another of whisky....probably best drunk as a shot which would make it the "Black Hawk Down."

Decisions, decisions, decisions.......

2006-07-02T20:21:00.000+02:00

Tomorrow is the day we find out whether we're staying in what is at the moment ridiculously sunny switzerland or leaving at the end of August. So thankfully we've had the world cup to distract us from thinking about it all too much! I'd like to make some clever football-related quip here but my mind is just not in gear after the tequila's last night watching France trounce Brazil.

But anyway if we do stay we have found a fantastic appartment with great views and acres of space...just finished and with the most fanastic views of both the Alps and the Jura. Just a minute, I have to send the BBC an email to complain on behalf of my husband about their insensitive advertising of BBC3 and BBC4 when we only get 1 & 2 here on cable! Back to the appartment, its just great...and I have always wanted mable worktops in my kitchen - get in! Sadly it will make my garden hose a little redundant as we'd be on the second floor.

All we need now is to know whether we can stay......

Mr Fibs

2006-07-02T20:15:00.000+02:00

My husband has decided to blog too now, as an outlet for his nonsensical and sometimes rather left-field comments and tall tales....so please go read them! There is a link to them on the right handside which is aptly called Mr Fibs.

I'm back!

2006-06-19T14:50:00.000+02:00

Not that I've actually been away, just hibernating except for the odd city break and the regular smuggling missions over the border. But its nice to know that at least one person bothered to miss my rants and raves about life here. There is a chance now though though that we might actually be staying on here for a couple more years - and shock horror it was actually my choice! I've finally started to settle into the much slower pace of life (which basically means that I have stopped excpecting things to happen at London pace.)

And strangely enough the in last couple of weeks, with the confirmation that summer has arrived and a couple of local festivals to celebrate, I've realised that actually the swiss will use any "official" celebration to let down their hair with an almost pagan abandon.......There was a spring fair which heralded drinking, raucous street performers and dancing around various stalls offering local fruit and veg....and then this week a whole cow was sacrificed to the bellies of the local community as the climax of a three day music festival in town.

So now that I am looking forward to a swiss summer of consistant sunshine, and temperatures in the high twenties and early thirties, it makes the prospect of spending a couple of winters out here really not all that unbearable. It is after all despite the rules and regulations a fantastically beautiful country and they don't make you fill out forms to admire the view at least!

Besides if we left we wouldn't be able to take guests to the local resturant for ritual humiliation at the hands of the owner and the chef, who without fail produce great food and comedy to equal the menu! And I would definitely lose any reason I might have for driving a 4 x 4. And the really handy thing about Switzerland is that it is quite easy to get anywhere else, so we've maanged to take in a trip to Paris (I'll write about that drama another time) and a weekend in Florence, and even another week back in London last month.

As it is, I have muffins to bake and washing to do...oh and socks to pair!

London, Lunches and Losers

2006-01-23T14:02:00.000+01:00

Finally my copy of Urban Junkies is going to come in handy next week, as I get to go home and hang out in a city where people make eye-contact (unless you're on the tube), the most exciting thing to happen all year is not a slanging match between two dog walkers, curries get delivered and bacon sandwiches are derigeur. I can't wait! I may also manage conversations that are more meaningful than the drivel dished out at the stepford lunch on Friday.

The lunch was really nothing to write home about, but sod it I have to get this off my chest. I had been mentally prepared for the grieving one, the moving one and the over-bearing one, but they had sadly not been prepared for the "caustic I hate this country one." As each and every one of them proceeded to tell me that they hated it too, had only recently stopped hating it, or were leaving soon....well great that was just what I needed, lunch with a bunch of women who confirmed for me that you need to be here for a significantly long period of time (like long enough to forget anywhere else) to be happy here. Added to this the rest of the conversation was banal diary checking and shopping tips, believe you me none of them is likely to become brain of anywhere in any great hurry. Plus if company later on is anything to go by they are all far too practiced in the art of back-stabbing to survive long as they must all be haemorraghing at an alarming rate from the stab wounds. Will I go along again? I don't think so I really can't be bothered to be a target for bored housewives to hurl daggers at the moment I leave the room.

More bad news was that we're staying in this god-forsaken cultural desert for another six months! I am not holding out much hope of remaining a sane or balanced person by the end of the stint, at least not without regular trips back to the UK and I mean far more regular than once every 3 to 4 months! My mother, bless her, suggested that I should do a course while I'm here in something that I couldn't do anywhere else.....perhaps the making of cuckoo clocks? or holey cheese? nah...think I can cope without those skills! They should perhaps even be classed as non-life skills.

Happily though the Swiss government decided the other day (after about 5 years of deliberation) that it is an acceptable behaviour to resort to beating army recruits as a way to vent one's frustration at the Swiss state...now, where did I see them hanging out?

The only fairly decent thing about staying is we get to move from this appartment to another one, which if I have anything to do with it is going to have to meet with a few basic requirements...a tv that has working scart sockets, and the clever little button that allows you to watch some swiss television in English, a washing machine that is not only located inside the apartment, but that functions at all hours of the day, oh and an oven that works too! At least the smug and stupid landlady has finally admitted that "swiss" is not another word for efficent.

Right well I'm off to start planning my assualt on the capital to ensure maximum enjoyment and the greatest number of bacon sandwiches.

Birdflu.....Migratory Goose etc

2006-01-04T16:05:00.000+01:00

No I don't mean the "avian" strain HN51, I mean the not "man-flu" variety which actually warrants a stay in bed for three days that those of us who don't have a faulty chromosome get. Well that's the one I've had for the last few days, hence not quite up to date on the washing, shopping, ironing, cleaning or cooking after the xmas break.

So to fill you in as quickly as possible and get back up to speed.....Hmmmm..well there was the goose that had to migrate to an oven down the road on Christmas day to ensure that we could all eat it with developing "botchulism." Bet you didn't know that a goose could migrate even after stuffing!

Santa did still arrive despite the apparent confusion between Switzerland and Swaziland, and we thankfully didn't get a goat as that would just have confirmed the whole geographical confusion currently sufferred by our landlady. Although I think she may have ordered the engineer to attend to an oven in the wrong place as that is still on the blink.

Milan was a great city break between Xmas and NYE and was well worth the lengthy train journey just to hang out in the snow and eat food that I hadn't had to fight 10 rounds with the oven in order to produce. In fact the food in Milan was fantastic and the three squares around the actual cathedral were beautiful don't get me wrong, but my god it has nothing on Florence!

New Year's eve was a quiet one, family all having departed a couple of days before and the flu slowly sneaking up on me to pounce as soon as I was chilled out...and there we go a quick recap on the last two weeks. I am going to have to get some washing done tomorrow though or we are going to have to start using the bedroom door and exiting the house through the hedge, but the flipping "concierge" decided to be unconcierge-like and disappear on holiday without even the briefest note to let those of us dependent on the stupid washing machine cards completely stranded!

My Incredibly Stupid Swiss Landlady

2005-12-21T10:19:00.000+01:00

Can you believe it she thinks that in Switzerland if you have an electric oven it is liable to lose power if other people in the apartment block are using electricity.......ummm hello! wake up and smell the coffee...it's not a third world country here...you are talking out of your arse woman. It's Switzerland not Swaziland.

I think I need a stiff drink and a punchbag and its not even 11am.....these people!

Spot the difference?

Impending Doom........

2005-12-21T06:58:00.000+01:00

Or how I can be awake at 5.25 and having to get up as I've already run through all the nightmare scenarios that I can cope with for one morning! Let's see the oven isn't working properly and in my nightmare version of events the best case scenario is that the engineer doesn't turn up to fix it as the landlady is swiss and therefore ineffectual, and so the whole family has to eat out on Christmas day, which means McDonalds as nothing else is open...worst case, we're all suffering from e-coli/salmonella on boxing day because I trusted the oven to cook the goose and it failed me, despite trying its best for over 6 hours....

I just know that something is going to go dreadfully wrong, I considered demarcating a line on the kitchen floor this morning and setting the "don't cross the line" rule early so as to avoid a banshee like response when someone gets in my way once to often when retrieving themselves a beer from the fridge.

The only really decent restaurant in this hellhole is shut on Christmas Eve, so now it looks like another battle with the oven and potential botulism or should that be "botchulism" or a trek into Geneva taking in mass there instead of in the strangely pyramid-like structure that passes for a catholic church in Nyon. (One can only think that faced with a plot of land between a chateau and a roman ampitheatre the architect thought - "Aha! I know...I'm going to do something Egyptian..It'll fit perfectly!")

I've lost all sense of Christmas cheer this year and would happily run away somewhere, only knowing my luck it'd be shut! Instead I am plotting how to give the best impression of being a domestic godess without ending up a gibbering wreck in the corner....hence the cunning plan of baking biscuits (pre-mixed dough and no need for rolling pins, just chuck a little flour about the place for effect) before I pick them up from the airport. Perhaps the "do not cross" line isn't the best approach if this is my goal??

My lists are no longer a source of comfort to me, instead they travel through my mind in the early hours of the morning, suggesting disaster, after catastophe, after major emergency.....some involving medical attention, others just on the scale of a diplomatic incident. And to add insult to injury my bloody christmas crackers haven't arrived yet, prompting images of a new christmas tradition having to be created just to get shot of the tat I was going to put in them, maybe a table based basket-ball themed game? Points for hitting the bin and not each other?

Or may be I should just admit defeat early, not clean the house, ignore the ironing, cancel the washing, and in so doing, confirm to myself that hosting Christmas was the worst idea and possibly most stupid idea I have ever had. Why didn't we just book flights home and if need be eat two dinners in one day to avoid any preferential treatment of either set of parents?
There is no simple answer. The only things worth bearing in mind at this late date is that rain is Jesus's wee-wee and that snowman you made won't go walking in the air with you because you're a stupid benny.

There is hope...a nice person in Switzerland!!!

2005-12-04T17:31:00.000+01:00

I know I didn't think it was possible, and in a way I am loathed to admit it, but it seemed only fair to publicise the fact that contrary to popular belief and all my experiences here......there is actually a nice and perfectly reasonable person, who even made eye-contact.....

But just so that you don't think that this is me going mad, I promise that this person is really the only nice person so far and I am not just becoming inured to their anti-social and bureaucratic ways.

Saturday afternoon saw us venturing into Geneva to laugh at the locals who seem to think that it is "fun" to spend a cold afternoon running up and down a hill in Geneva in a competitive fashion to commemerate some important battle or other that took place hundreds of years ago, and which for some reason now lost to the mists of time needs to culminate in the smashing of chocolate cauldrons....yeah quite, don't ask, I don't know why someone thought that would be an appropriate way to celebrate a military victory.

Anyway in order that we might laugh at the locals we had to secure a parking place in the world's most expensive car-park, how difficult can that be eh?? Well this car-park does benfit from a clever little system of lights and pressure points that mean that above each occupied space is a red light and yes you guessed it above each vacant space a green one. But in true swiss fashion this "efficient" system doesn't account for the way that the swiss drive, or park for that matter and so what may look to the untrained eye like a green light winking at you after 10mins of cruising the parking garage is not actually a space, but a large mercedes parked over two spaces and cleverly avoiding any of the pressure pads!

Much swearing at locals and laughing at the rest we set off towards the airport to start our own battle with baggage handling. British Airways having managed to wrench the handle clean off a rather handy and expensive suitbag on Tuesday night. Anyway we turn up at the airport, parking in the arrivals car park as we were expecting this to take some time and a great many forms. However once ushered through to the bit between customs and passport control, where you have to feel that you really shouldn't be as you aren't arriving off a flight we get to the office of the baggage handlers, which to all intents and purposes is empty....not a soul there. I was about to exclaim how useful this was, much like the banks being shut at lunchtime to make it impossible for you to nip in during your lunch hour...when there he was (al though we weren't at this stage aware of his status) the only nice person in Switzerland!!!!

I proceeded to hand over the broken bag explaining I had called Berne and Bremen on Wednesday and had been told we had to come and file a report...he looks at the bag and disappears into the back office from whence he came, and a short while later reemerges with another bag. I thought he was confused and thought we'd lost a bag, although quite why I'd show him a bag to explain this, only God knows. But no, in fact he was very reasonably and most unexpectedly offering to give us a brand new bag, of the same make and in fact of quite possibly twice the value, and no it was not one that they had stolen from an unsuspecting traveller!

Not only this but he only asked for a few personal details, required no forms to be filled in and no signatures or ID to be shown! The man is waging a war against red-tape and it would seem that he is winning, or it was his first day and may be his last? Which reminds me the swiss don't use the word "unemployed," no if you haven't got a job here then officially you are in fact "unemployable."

Bah Humbug!

2005-12-02T14:36:00.000+01:00

I really do wish that it wasn't December. I mean apart from the cold (we finally had some snow) and the Christmas shopping to do (I can thankfully stick two fingers up at Swiss airlines now as I have found someone brave enough to ship crackers to me here) it also means that my next door neighbour now feels compelled to change the decorations in the hallway....How do I know this given that I haven't been out yet today? Well the banging about in the hallway was just too much to ignore and so I had to spy through the hole in the door. Now, I haven't seen the finished product from the full-frontal aspect yet, but just from the small glimpse I got through the door, its ugly....its very silver (think an international tinsel incident) and very tacky. It is also rather distracting as it appears that she may realise that I don't appreciate her interior design skills and is therefore securing it with 9,000 nails!! Or should that be 9 inch nails?

But hey ho at least some skiing may get done soon as the snow is making its way down the mountains. In the meanwhile well there's freezing rain and slushy roads to enjoy. Oh and the disturbed kid two doors up who seems convinced that free-styling a snowman is the way forward, hence blair-witchesque style offerings on the back lawn.

There is a theme here I think....swiss people and twisted ideas on decor? They just start from a very early age here I guess, bad taste in the blood may be? Does anyone from anywhere else in the world marry a swiss person? Or is that why this whole thing came about? A long history of inbreeding producing a nation of the completely tasteless and aesthetically stunted? As a theory I don't think its a particularly bad one - the only famous swiss artists I have managed to find are Giacometti and Klee and neither of them stayed in Switzerland so may be that's why they managed to achieve what they did?

Anyway going to go and take some pictures of the monstrosity outside the front door, I suppose at least we should be thankful for small mercies...tinsel burns rather well and very easily......
Don't page down if you are of a nervous disposition!

Up a mountain....

2005-11-22T15:44:00.000+01:00

There is a bit of background to this trip....when we first took delivery of the hairdryer on wheels that was the last rental car my husband (who'd obviously not been swatting up on his highway code) suggested a drive one rainy, cold, misty and thoroughly foul evening and off we set. Now when we came to a major junction, I demurred to his alleged superior knowledge of the local landscape and went straight on towards a mountain.....well the road started to go straight on and then very soon decided it would snake up the mountain in sharp hairpin bends....particularly unfortunate due to the hairdryer's size making the windscreen seem far too small in the inclement conditions. Eventually we reached a place to turn around and we began the descent again....at which point I asked why he'd chosen that route...? A confusion over the colours of motorway and main road signs it turned out and not one he has made since, thankfully.

Anyway this weekend in the sunshine we made the same trip up the mountain, the added power of this car and the fact that the visibilty was far far better making it slightly less of an exercise in controlled breathing and trying not to allow the height and the fact that I have an inexplicable fear of hill starts affect me. Eventually we reached the village at the top, where we stopped for a late lunch in a bistro type place, resplendent with cow bells. I opted for a fruits of the forest tagiatelle, which given the time of year I (stupidly) assumed might come with a nice selection of wild mushrooms, I mean you can buy in the supermarkets surely they'd use them in a restaurant....but no there was the very perceptible hint of vinegar to every mouthful that included one of the mushrooms....is this an altitudinal or attidudinal thing??

One thing that was proven to be universal..teenagers are annoying wherever in the world they are, particularly when they are hanging out, sharing one beer between four of them, all chatting on their mobiles as well as to each other at the table next to you when you are trying to enjoy a sedate and nearly grown-up lunch. Needless to say I was beginning to understand why everyone who went to the whingeing female teen's house went to sleep as soon as they arrived...her conversation was stultifyingly dull.

Anyway this wasn't supposed to be a long blog, just a way to avoid the dreaded ironing mountain that is fast competing with Mont Blanc for title of tallest mountain in Europe. On a related note it would appear that there is still better ski-ing at the milton keynes snow-dome than there is in Switzerland and there may by the weekend be better ski-ing in Milton Keynes town centre itself, nevermind the snow-dome. I am being cheated by the very thing that encouraged me to move out here rather than stay on in London....the snow!

Right, maybe if I get back to the ironing the shift in air pressure from all the steam might make a difference, or may be not, may be it'll just be like ironing always is......very very boring and so what a natural choice of past time in such a desperately bland cultural vacuum like this place.

Why so many opticians???

2005-11-14T15:47:00.000+01:00

I've decided that I have to get a pair of glasses...the blindness thing is really not very useful and particularly not if I'm required to drive a husband who is "running-late" to work in the morning, as this requires me to prise open my eyes and force a pair of lenses into them or face not being able to see the colour of the lights as I approach traffic lights or to spot other vehicles on roundabouts...which is generally less than ideal - particularly given the way the bloody swiss drive over here.

Okay - so now you'd think this would be an easy thing to do...well it would be if i didn't have the choice of about 30,000 opticians in the area...now how on earth am I supposed to choose one? Well yes I exaggerate a little perhaps, but there are in this small town alone no less than 12 yes 12 opticians...all I can deduce is that in order to be able to support so many of them there must be some seriously bad eye-sight in Nyon. I think most likely brought on by staying up late in poor light (the lights are all out so early round here they must be using torches to do this) counting their big piles of money. Even Alain Affelou the famous French optician lives in Switzerland these days, for god's sake! This is God's Country for the optician!

As an aside - I have also noticed that the only other major company to site its HQ in Nyon is "Tupperware" how more Stepford can this town get???

Talking of Stepford though I have succumbed slightly and found myself pickling pears and bottling them in spices for Christmas......hmmmm, I think I may need some fresh air and a stiff drink. I have also tried to break the news that as far as I'm concerned mis-matched wrapping paper is just thoroughly unacceptable to my aesthetic vision of Christmas in Stepford-ville and that I will be providing paper, ribbons, tape and a quiet space in which to wrap to all of those who are planning on giving this year...I'd quite like him to broach that with his Mother though, I'm not sure that she'd take me seriously. Swiss have already said "NO" to christmas crackers in their luggage...even if completely sealed on the basis that they are explosives....see kill-joys the lot of them, although now it does make sense why you can't fly with a gilette venus razor in your hand luggage - I mean if you can't carry crackers.....No I still don't understand actually - answers on a postcard? I now have to keep myself busy enough to prevent myself making my own. (Crackers that is - fear not Gilette!)

Anyway the Pickled Pear Recipe....(just in case)

Preparation time less than 30 mins
Cooking time 10 to 30 mins

Ingredients

1.5kg/3lb 5oz pears (they need to be firm and unbruised)
10 allspice berries
6 whole cloves
1 cinnamon stick snapped in half
1 unwaxed lemon, zest only, peeled into large strips
a small piece of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
425ml/15fl oz white wine vinegar
225g/8oz granulated sugar

Method
1. Peel the pears, halve and remove the cores. Place in a saucepan with just enough water to cover them. Bring to boil and then let them simmer gently for 5-6 minutes.

2. Remove the pears with a slotted spoon and set aside on a plate.

3. Measure the remaining liquid in the pan and add enough water to make it up to a pint.

4. Bring the pan up to a boil again and add the allspice berries, cloves, cinnamon, lemon zest and ginger. Add the vinegar and sugar and then stir until the sugar has dissolved. Cook for a few minutes.

5. Add the pears back to the pan and poach in the liquid until they are soft but still hold their shape.

6. Take off the heat and transfer the pears to sterilised jars and pour over the liquid with the spices to submerge them. Seal and store in a dark cupboard or pantry for 3-4 weeks before using.

These pickled pears are excellent served with left-over turkey and cold meats.

Christmas in Switzerland

2005-11-04T12:38:00.000+01:00

Do they all go away for Christmas? Let's hope so! But seriously...is there an official time that we have to eat dinner? Can I get some Christmas crackers brought over? Am I allowed to run the dishwasher on the day? Will I manage to smuggle the goose over the border?

Now that question is really keeping me up at nights...am I better buying it all in France in one go and hoping I don't get stopped on the way over the border on the basis that I run the risk of losing the whole dinner?....or do I make several trips over a few days and possibly draw attention to my forays to Carrefour? I mean I really don't want a criminal record for Christmas!

Add to this the stress of cooking dinner for my in-laws....I mean my mother-in-law has 36 years of experience in cooking xmas dinners.... I have....oh let's see.....ummmm...one or two?( and they were with lots of help!) I mean it's not the same as the year I cooked dinner for 50 people, but then I was part of a 6 man team....and hell I didn't know the people I was cooking for, I never even had to meet them.....this is something wholly different! And I haven't the benefit of M&S nearly foolproof and failsafe ready to go meals…..my nearest M&S is I think perhaps Folkstone (?) and there is no way I can get that all back under the radar of the Swiss! And neither do I have time between now and xmas to set-up an M&S Franchise in Nyon.

Anyway all that aside given the weather this year so far not even we are guaranteed a white xmas here in Switzerland, its just too mild for words....and more importantly for snow and ski-ing!

Children of the corn

2005-11-01T12:18:00.000+01:00

This is the "lovely" objet outside the front door, which is best approached with your eyes downcast if not closed, a shame the ikea delivery guys didn't damage it when they delivered the sofa the other day! It is also set-off so well by the current display outside the block which is a mind blowing collection of pumpkins, corn and dried things....

I know that it has been Halloween (small children did knock on the door but looked like something out of ET so we didn't answer.I also am not too keen on sharing my sweets at the best of times, and you have to think of their teeth too don't you!)

But this collection has been up for weeks, and looks set to stay, added to the collection of sub-tropical looking palms that have recently appeared behind the postboxes....I'm not really sure what to make of it - except that I can only blame the neighbour opposite as none of the other blocks here seem to be dogged by this demostration of appaling taste!

Back in the town without a horse..........it left ages ago for the bright lights and the big city!

2005-09-27T16:39:00.000+02:00

Been back in this town for a little over a week now, and nothing has happened……absolutely nothing!
I haven’t even been to Ikea in nearly two weeks, but then again as the flat no longer really resembles what we moved into in terms of décor may be I don’t need to pop down there for a while..although I’m not 100% sure on that – may have to make my task for tomorrow morning a thorough review of the catalogue. (That’s an hour knocked off my day)

So let’s see the highlight of the last week… sharing a rotisserie chicken with my husband with a beer that he had bought from the garage just a five minute walk away (false dawn there – no way would the Swiss so openly condone drink-driving, and yes my husband needs more French lessons, sans alcool, means just that no-alcohol!!) But to be fair the chicken was amazingly good and a treat to have so much meat in one meal….and hey isn’t it good not to get a hangover after sharing a case of beer??

I was browsing the local paper the other morning (yes another attempt to put off the pile of ironing that I have now moved into the living room in an attempt to goad myself into switching the iron on) when I spotted a job advertisement that blew me away.

There is a small property firm in Geneva on the look out for a bi-lingual secretary…not all that exciting you may be thinking, and then I read on, they want a very particular type of person to apply for the job. And guess what she must be between the ages of 40 and 50 – you’d never get away with that in the UK now would you? What about all those bi-lingual men with great audio typing skills who are just desperate to work in and estate agency in Geneva and who just happen to have turned 52 last birthday?

Probably not committing Hari-Kari with a swiss army knife it would seem….a helpful site all about swiss army knives specifically points out that you shouldn’t “use Swiss Army Knives to hurt people. It’s illegal and highly antisocial to do so and the blade would probably break too.” So there you go perhaps why the Swiss decided not to get involved in conflicts…armed with knives that break when you try to hurt someone with them, would you?

If there's red meat on the menu, don't think twice, just eat it!!

2005-09-15T12:08:00.000+02:00

There is something strange going on here.....I haven't seen a cow in a field once since arriving in switzerland. Where are the purple milka cows? And are they the cause of the cost of red meat being so high? Are they high maintenance cows? Does the cost of their feed really have to be passed on to the poor unsuspecting consumer?

I write this looking at a recent supermarket receipt, bear in mind that the exchange rate means you get approximatley 2 Swiss Francs to the Pound, but since when did a small (and I mean really small) steak cost you £5 ?? My receipt clearly states that a steak cost me just that a whole SFr 10.75!

And then whilst we're on the subject - you know those baby sweetcorn things that are so popular in stir-fries and thai curries, well you'd not pay more than £2 a pack in the UK - but then I don't believe that Tesco import them from Thailand as my local supermarket in Switzerland feel it necessary to do!

Oh and this country so hyped up on its ability to recycle just about anything has the cheek to make you pay for easy to recycle paper bags, but you can have as many of the plastic enviroment choking ones as you like free of charge....please who makes up the policies??

But back to meat.....its ludicrous that in this day and age that meat should be such a rare treat! And thinking on this some more, I now know why the restaurant we went to at the weekend keep back half of your meal and serve it to you as a second helping - its portion and cost control gone mad, conditioning you to think that you're getting a lot of red meat - but you're not! They're busy trying to pull the wool over the consumers eyes again! Where's Anne Robinson when you need her?

Oh yes I know...she's on the Weakest Link on BBC Prime - but they only bought one weeks worth of programming - I know all the answers to that week now that I have seen it twice!
But I'm sure she'd have something to say about the diminutive chickens and dwarf lamb chops that are display in the supermarkets here! How can a nation be so diametrically opposed to its neighbour France, where vegetarianism is regarded with deep scepticism and vegetables served up, tied in neat meat-secured bundles?

Can someone send me steak parcels? I'm ok I take multi-vitamins so that should ensure that I don't become too pale and Swiss looking, and my husband was sent to work with the line ..."whatever you do if there is red meat on the menu, don't think twice, just eat it!" ringing in his ears.

Life-lag it's a bit like jet lag......

2005-09-14T15:13:00.000+02:00

Geneva’s suburbs are a million miles from London – well I know that’s not technically correct but believe you me it’s a really really long way.

This country of cuckoo clocks and holey cheese, ski-slopes and picture postcard views hides an underbelly of vicious, strangling red-tape….

Did you know that it’s impossible to put on a load of washing before 12.30? That you can’t put your rubbish out even a few hours early without a letter through the door? (Oh yes and they’ll have photocopied anything that proves it is your rubbish and include that in the letter.)
You can sit in your garden on a Sunday, but you aren’t allowed to tackle that weed that is taunting you from the flowerbed, and please don’t think you can run the washing machine on a Sunday…oh no it just won’t turn on at all!

The Swiss are not efficient….they have just settled into a routine and daren’t question it or rock the boat, no one ever complains about the lack of customer service, so in fact I think they have sat still so long they wouldn’t know how to rock the boat.

The house we live in convinces me that they may even be suffering from second world war envy – they have buildings that make the post-war building in the east end look attractive and they don’t have the excuse of town planning by Goering!

I’m not so much suffering from Jet-lag this past week as Life-lag, I am missing my life in London and failing to appreciate the “swiss-way” at all, their never ending bureaucracy drives me mad…..oh and my next door neighbours have no taste or sense of decency – the thing they have put up in the hallway is a form of aesthetic torture, lurking out there in the hallway collecting dust on its fake flowers and little ducks….it must contravene some Swiss law…I must look into it!

We’ve moved here from London, and I have given up my job in order to live here…..and its not the easiest move I’ve ever made, so I’m going Stepford in Switzerland, the land of expensive red meat – can anyone tell me if the Swiss suffer a higher rate of anaemia than other countries in western Europe?