whistlestop caboose

Slice of life: Raggedy Ann's famiy

2007-03-17T20:33:00.001+01:00

Slice of life: Raggedy Ann's famiy
Originally uploaded by ellengwallace.

Tara has three loves in life, besides her family: the Raggedy Ann family (some are far more raggedy and not in the photo - they were being loved at the time), a sorry-looking Cookie Monster and six plastic stackable ducks.

Every year another member of the Raggedy A clan arrives from America, home of these beloved dolls.

A touch of green for the Irish in Switzerland

2007-03-17T10:44:00.000+01:00

I couldn't find a shamrock so I shot a whole field of green to warm the hearts of any Irish in Switzerland today. Most of them are probably at the Versoix Chocolate Festival or on the slopes, so they are not likely to be walking the back lanes of canton Vaud!

Small fisherman, long shadow

2007-03-15T14:15:00.001+01:00

Small fisherman, long shadow
Originally uploaded by ellengwallace.

For my sister Tara on her birthday

2007-03-14T08:47:00.000+01:00

My older sister Tara used to tow me around to pick violets this time of year. I remember how she showed me that you had to shimmy your finger down far enough to get part of the stem and not just nip off the bright bit at the top. We always had them in early May in Iowa, so I'm puzzled that I'm seeing so many of them in mid-March in Switzerland!

I have been taking early morning walks because the weather is magnificent - you can see some photos of the St. Prex dock on my Tribune de Geneve blog. But the best part is seeing the violets open up. They suddenly create a carpet of rich purple as the sun stretches over Lake Geneva. The flowers are on a slope next to the waterfront. The green bench with the village's fleur-de-lys crest is a wonderful spot to sit and watch the water, violets quietly nodding their heads behind you.

Happy birthday, Tara!

Why I don't write in German even though Google wants me to

2007-03-14T08:41:00.000+01:00

I've had a lot of problems posting blogs since Blogger, owned by Google, decided I have to use a new password. It works out that I'm in Switzerland, automatically decides I'm German-speaking and everything except my own text suddenly appears in German. Since I don't speak German this is a real nuisance. Switzerland has three official languages, French, German and Italian, but Google, which has development offices in Zurich, doesn't seem to be able to get to grips with this.

Right now, abve where I'm posting, are little tabs that say html bearbeiten and verfassen and vorschau. Higher up we have dashboard (a German word, it seems), hilfe and abmelden. I thought I would try one of them a while ago and found I'd logged myself out. Now I know which one that is, but I'm not telling, ha!

The result of this headache is that I will probably very soon move this blog to another address, where logging in is easier and I can create pages that I think work better with my content. I'll put the new address here when I'm ready to move. Meanwhile, enjoy some spring photos, which I'm about to post - fingers crossed.

sailboat, Evian France and Lake Geneva

2007-03-09T14:51:00.001+01:00

sailboat, Evian France and Lake Geneva
Originally uploaded by ellengwallace.

I should have added that there was barely any wind, poor sailor! Note: for the photos from flickr that I blog here you can see the larger view just by clicking on the photo. And if you really want to zoom in you can go to "al sizes" on the flickr page and see what kind of shoes he is wearing (well, nearly).

ducks smell spring, Lake Geneva

2007-03-09T10:21:00.001+01:00

ducks smell spring, Lake Geneva
Originally uploaded by ellengwallace.

I'm itching to get out from behind the computer and into the sun and shoot more ducks! Just using the camera, of course. The sun is shining, spring really does seem to be in the air. And that blue sky is like a magnet.

Saillon Switzerland

2007-03-04T21:11:00.001+01:00

Saillon Switzerland
Originally uploaded by ellengwallace.

Yesterday my daughter, who was not feeling well, and I drifted up and down the mountains on small roads like the ones you see here. I was not pleased that the price of gas has gone up again, after a month or so of gently sliding down. But if you drive slowly enough the tank empties at a snail's pace. Tara finds car travel very soothing and we nibbled on some excellent crisp apples, usually hard to find this far past autumn.

In the Valais most of the vines belong to families - tiny patches of vineyard that provide a bit of extra income, historically. The vineyards were busy, with people using their weekend free time to prune back the vines. Bundles of branches lay between the vines, waiting to be collected.

lettuce from Fully

2007-03-03T21:52:00.001+01:00

lettuce from Fully
Originally uploaded by ellengwallace.

I had to buy a new camera, with damaged pixels on my old one. I was so excited when it arrived but the weather was not exactly ideal - gray and wet and all the landscape photos had no contrast. Nevertheless, I managed to spend a good deal of Friday and Saturday shooting Alpine villages and mountain slopes - and then came across this garden center. It is huge, with dozens of covered strips like this one, with little plants happily growing.

Shooting these, and especially the parsley photos, cheered me up enormously. It's too early to plant in the Alps, where we are only safe from frosts in early June. I can't keep things alive that long indoors for they grow leggy and stringy and weak. I have come to the conclusion that I must buy small plants, already sturdy. Here they are! I can come back in a few weeks and they will be ready to make the alpine trek to a higher altitude, just like the young cows.

Old photographers, new photographers

2007-03-01T14:33:00.000+01:00

My favourite Swiss mountain bakery is featuring a lovely winter bread it calls "pain walking," for hikers, people who like to snowshoe - anyone who needs to put a light but nourishing loaf in a backday before going off for the day. Delicious, even by good Swiss bread standards!

a little break and back to the view from the back

2007-02-26T14:35:00.000+01:00

I didn't plan to take a week-long break from here. I've been working for a while on moving my news site, GenevaLunch, from one-woman show to community service news and in the past two weeks we hit the crunch of finalizing the business plan. Last week turned out to be one of those times when there is barely time to sleep - although somehow I always manage to eat.

The business plan is now gone, in the hands of various business, legal and journalism people who will give GL's small team some feedback. For a couple days after it left I was in a daze, but work goes on and the site still needs to be fed.

By Sunday, life was nearly back to just plain busy normal, so there was time to look at the world again, make a few observations from the back of the train.

We had a little snow, then a little more. It was not weather for lunch on the balcony. But from the balcony I could wonder why we humans like to create several stages between our indoor worlds and the outdoor ones. There is a house, then a strip of veranda, then a strip of bush, and finally, the great outdoors where snow lands.

I ventured out, over damp lawn to check on the state of the pond. It is fed by a stream so doesn't freeze but I sweep it out now and again because dirt and leaves and other remnants of nature like to gently sink there. I didn't have the heart to unsettle the water, so nicely mirroring a bulky white cloud above, which had replaced the snow clouds temporarily, and a sturdy autumn flower now starched by winter.

Snowdrops are out: could spring really be here?

2007-02-18T20:03:00.000+01:00

The middle of February is definitely too early for spring flowers in the Alps. Normally, we would expect to be under a couple feet of snow, but not this year. Monday we had a few inches of snow and by Sunday I was out in the garden in a tee-shirt, with only a few patches of snow left. The first snowdrop bloomed yesterday but I was only able to catch one quick photo before dusk fell. Today, after a night out in the cold, it was limp, but this neighbor appeared.

More worrisome are all the tulip tips happily climbing up out of the ground, thinking spring is here. I fear a blast of cold frost will do them all in. Fingers crossed this remains a gentle winter year at 1100 meters, with cold and snow at 1800 meters to make skiers happy.

Undercover ice ferret

2007-02-15T22:06:00.001+01:00

undercover
Originally uploaded by ellengwallace.

I wonder if you'll see what one of the visitors to my flickr page promptly saw - and I hadn't meant the "undercover" title to be a double entendre! I really felt like I was spying on a private world here.

alpine_snowfly

2007-02-15T16:18:00.001+01:00

alpine_snowfly
Originally uploaded by ellengwallace.

A sure sign of global warming: in mid-February, high in the Swiss Alps and with snow on the ground, I have a fly on the OUTSIDE of my window, not even in the sun! Have a nice look at him, large in flickr, for he is a brave soul, or it's even warmer than we think.

Lausanne TGV and where to next

2007-02-14T17:50:00.001+01:00

Lausanne TGV and where to next
Originally uploaded by ellengwallace.

Experimenting to see if a change I made on flickr puts photos inside this layout; fingers crossed.

Here's what you're looking at:
Nose to nose, thinking about leaving, two TGV (fast train) engines debate: Vienna, says the one on the left. No, Paris, says the one on the right, who knows that the tracks are good in that direction.

Swiss chocolates: be our valentines!

2007-02-14T17:33:00.000+01:00

Valentine's Day always seems to me like a good day to live in Switzerland. As if we needed an excuse, we get a little more chocolate than usual, to offer. And if we're lucky, someone offers us some chocolate.

So here is a Swiss chocolate valentine from Blondel Chocolat in Lausanne, to all of you from all of us in Switzerland. The day you can taste and smell it we will know the Internet has really come of age. Meanwhile, happy dreams (it is snowing outside, in the Alps).

sun's valentine 2007

2007-02-14T08:04:00.001+01:00

sun'svalentine 2007, originally uploaded by ellengwallace.

This came out of nowhere and 10 minutes later the sky is gray gray gray. But what a valentine from nature while it lasted! It was only when I looked at the image here that I realized how much it resembles my company logo, www.zidao.com. Nature imitating art: I'll have to let the designer know!

Happy Valentine's Day to you all!

hmmm, imperfect blogger

2007-02-11T22:09:00.000+01:00

Blogger has an upgrade I finally got around to using, but there seems to be a little problem when I send landscape-shape photos from flickr. Bear with me while I work out why, but not tonight!

bewitching hour: first light

2007-02-11T22:08:00.001+01:00

bewitching hour: first light, originally uploaded by ellengwallace.

bewitching hour: first light

I love that first bright streak that hits the sky in the morning - blackness to blueness and then suddenly, these splendid bits of color!

sunrise b Feb 11 207

2007-02-11T22:04:00.001+01:00

sunriseb 110207, originally uploaded by ellengwallace.

Bolder and bolder, comes the sun on a wintry morning - snow is on its way.

Swiss Alps moon setting 110207

2007-02-11T20:44:00.001+01:00

Swiss Alps moon setting 110207, originally uploaded by ellengwallace.

I was so enchanted by the reds and oranges of the sunrise that I nearly missed the violet light show in the other direction, and this pale moon trying to slip away quietly, like the shy guest at a raucous party.

Back to the desk, but first the Vatican and the weather

2007-02-11T10:58:00.000+01:00

The sunrise and moonset this morning were spectacular, and I'm blogging three of those photos here from flickr. And then it began to snow, making for a peaceful quiet kind of indoors Sunday morning. I'm pleased to have one of those, a rare day. I'm nearly recovered from an exhausting but exhilarating half-week at Lift07, a conference in Geneva, Switzerland on the impact of technology on our lives, attended by 550 people. I'll be posting interviews all week on GenevaLunch, but briefly here are some of the people and ideas who left me with much to reflect on:

The chair of the board of Wikipedia, Florence Debouard, explained how the encyclopedia works and many in the audience realized how little we knew about it. She shook the crowd up by saying that the foundation, for that's what it is, has only enough money to function for another three months. Life without wikipedia? And they operate in 250 languages, no small feat.
Sugata Mitra recounted the extraordinary story of the hole-in-the-wall computer program in India and said he is now trying to set up a laboratory to take it a step further.
Natah Eagle, research scientist at MIT, told us that 80% of the population of Kenya is now walking under GPSR and that Africa is the fastest-growing mobile phone market in the world, which gave us pause. Love the photo on his program's web site.
Sister Judith of the Vatican talked about online communities, and I had to get my head around thinking of the Catholic church in those terms. She wanted to play with the New York Yankees when she was growing up.

Best ad of 2007

2007-02-03T22:08:00.000+01:00

I have Vasta, a flickr buddy, to thank for sending me to see what he thinks is the best ad of the year so far, and I agree absolutely. Love it! I even wanted to see what the product was, for a change. You really have to hand it to them, he-he.

Drunk driving in the air

2007-02-03T22:04:00.000+01:00

It's cold, it's winter and the pilot had to get up early. He probably thought no one would notice his swerve marks in the sky.

The straits of February

2007-02-01T19:49:00.000+01:00

It's here again, one of the more worrisome days of the year. February 1 surprises me every year. I think it should still be January, a month that starts slowly and some of us never quite get up to speed as the month progresses.

In fact, almost everyone I know is completely awash in work, household chores and the other things that don't qualify as making life worth living.

My problem with the start of February is linked to my childhood. It arrived with a lot of odd things that you were supposed to remember and pay attention to. One of them was the old groundhog business - will he pop his head out of his hole or won't he? Now we have to worry if anyone has mentioned global warming to him.

And I was never very sure what groundhogs looked like. In Iowa, we had gophers and chipmunks and squirrels and they all seemed related. Did they live underground when they weren't digging trenches under the lawn or flying around in treetops? I still don't know.

Then there was St. Blaise, who has gone out of fashion, I think, but early in February we'd trudge in through the cold damp Iowa streets and into the classroom where wool mittens steamed and cooked on radiators - and someone would make us bundle up and march out again. We walked over to the nearby church and filed in, first thing in the morning, to get two candles crossed against our throats and pray to St. Blaise, the patron saint of, hmm, saint of? At this point I would get worried again. Why would you have a saint to protect you from sore throats, tonsillitis and strep? He didn't get a very interesting job on the saintly ladder, it seemed to me. He was also not good at it. My throat acted as a kind of sink to every bug going around. I thought he needed better tools than long white candles.

February was something that came between Christmas and kite-flying, a March ritual. Teachers expected you to pay attention in school. Pencils were sharpened and resharpened, but February did not seem to go any faster.

The straits of February were a place where you sailed slowly. Meanwhile, down in New Orleans, that wild place, they got to dress up and go crazy.

We had sleds but not skis. We had St. Blaise, but not Mardi Gras. We had plenty of time for dreaming about where we might go when we grew up. Chicago sounded pretty good.

Secret life of lavendar

2007-01-27T23:44:00.000+01:00

Secret life of lavendar
Originally uploaded by ellengwallace.

I snipped a bit and brought it indoors. I can't decide if I like this or the garden rosemary better. They both carry the scent of summer in their perfume, a real treasure.

French Alps suspended over Lake Geneva

2007-01-27T09:16:00.000+01:00

French Alps suspended over Lake Geneva
Originally uploaded by ellengwallace.

I was on my way to the Swiss Alps and was not far from the lake front when I was so distracted by this view off to my right that I thought I should get off the busy road and just look at it. So I took a detour down to the lakefront in St. Prex, where the boats shivered in the darkening air but the French Alps just grew more magical in the last light of day. Tthese are above Evian, of water fame, which you can just make out in the large version on flickr - click on photo or my name to get to it.

And then, suddenly, the mountains faded away.

sky unstitched

2007-01-27T09:12:00.000+01:00

sky unstitched
Originally uploaded by ellengwallace.

Winter sky moving, winter fields at rest. I hardly have time to sleep at the moment because I'm working on a big job due early next week, but there is always time for photos! More writing here soon.

Lake Geneva cruising bird

2007-01-25T18:14:00.000+01:00

Lake Geneva cruising bird
Originally uploaded by ellengwallace.

What a lovely fellow he was! He finally skidded down a wave and along the top of the water.

Lake Geneva icy waves

2007-01-25T18:12:00.000+01:00

Lake Geneva icy waves
Originally uploaded by ellengwallace.

We're having wild winds and below freezing temperatures so the lake and shoreline along Lake Geneva have turned wild. I put on a hat but forgot about gloves and had to warm my hands around a hot mug for a verrrrrrry long time when I came in!

An Iowa Garden: Pristine Snow

2007-01-23T22:00:00.000+01:00

An Iowa Garden: Pristine Snow

I was just feeling good about our snowflakes and then I saw this and remembered the piles and piles of Iowa snow I grew up with. But as a kid I never noticed that I was making a mess of it and I guess the animals don't, either. I kind of like the idea they've all had a good time out there when we weren't looking.

Swiss snow arrives!

2007-01-23T19:53:00.000+01:00

We have lovely snow coming down, right down to Lake Geneva. Magic, at last!

Hope for the over 60 don't-get-it blogging crowd

2007-01-23T15:45:00.000+01:00

The Huffington Post is a powerful news and blogging center in American politics, for those who haven't tripped over it. I've been chuckling over a story told by its founder, Arianna Huffington, which Bruno Giussani shares on his Lunch over IP blog. When she asked Arthur Schlesinger to contribute a blog he first said he didn't really know what a blog was and secondly, he didn't have a computer.

Not a problem, she said. He started faxing his texts.

So you don't have to know what a blog is, to write one.

The edges of clouds

2007-01-22T05:09:00.000+01:00

On my listof things to learn: where do clouds begin and end and why?

Physics spaghetti

2007-01-18T20:08:00.000+01:00

A closeup of some of the wiring being put in place on one piece that will be part of the CMS at Cern in Geneva, Switzerland. These bits and bobs will help us learn why particles have mass and what the 96% of the universe that is unexplored is made up of. Some bowl of spaghetti! (Click to see it larger)

One of the best things about being over 50, or 40 if you're smart or 30 if you're really smart, is that you can suddenly find things passionately interesting that you thought were unbelievably boring when you were younger.

I would put physics right up there. Today I visited Cern in Geneva, the world's largest particle physics lab, and by the time I left I was ready to become a nuclear physicist because it was so interesting! Unfortunately, I never even studied physics in high school, which seemed a blessing at the time.

I will have to settle for trying to write some articles that let other people see why a 27-kilometer circular tunnel 100-150 meters under the ground can be interesting. Meanwhile, I had a great time taking pictures of the view from the top waaaaaay down to the inside of an accelerator now being built. I will post those later on Flickr, as you need to see them big to make sense of them.

And it was equally fun to take closeups of some of the parts, tiny bits and pieces that all put together should help us better understand our universe.

The courage to make a book list

2007-01-17T15:43:00.000+01:00

I am filled with admiration for Overlalune after visiting her blog just now. She posted a comment here which reminded me that I have been recalcitrant in visiting her online "house" so I dropped in but didn't leave a calling card. That's because I was awestruck by her courage in making an online list of books that she has read or is reading. She's in the book business and is an ardent bookcrosser (visit her to find out more about that or read this bit in GenevaLunch). Even so, I love to read but I would probably panic if I started a list here of my books.

I love the idea but I think the list of not completed but still trying would depress me. As it is the unfinished books next to my bed cause an accident at least once a week because the pile is too high. I'm not yet up to page 200 of Katherine Graham's autobiography despite enjoying it thoroughly. I've been reading about 2 pages a day for weeks of Green Gold, the history of tea. I was given three wonderful looking police novels by Chinese-American writer Qiu Xioalong which I haven't been able to touch because the rat who gave them to me stole them back to read. In fairness, I was the one who decided where to hange the artwork I gave him.

The Art of the Tale, an anthology of international short stories edited by Daniel Halpern is so wonderful that I'm treating it like Ricola sweets and taking ages to swallow it.

And then there is the story of the color mauve which I take in small drops now and again and Robert Kaplan's Mediterranean Winter which I enjoy but have to read slowly because I've never visited North Africa.

Now I shall rush to finish these so I can read some of the ones on her list, almost all of which I would happily put on my shelf.

A Whistlestop visit to the land of home cooking!

2007-01-17T06:59:00.000+01:00

Started work very early today - I have the English version of a magazine to complete by the end of January for EPFL, the polytechnic institute in Lausanne, Switzerland (thus, my relative silence here). I had a lovely surprise visit from the good folks at the Whistlestop Café who are writing a blog these days and who were kind enough to say they feel right at home here!

I have never been to the café itself, not an oversight but just a fact of life: my wanderings around the globe have never landed me in Alabama. I'm beginning to think I should head that way. I paid the café's web site a visit back when I set up this blog in 2005, to make sure there wouldn't be a problem with the name I was using. It seemed our businesses were different enough - international journalism versus good home cookin' - that it would not be a problem.

Now, looking at those delicious recipes and the food I'm thinking I'd better offer to be their European distributor - special deal on all food for me, of course! Sandi, maybe you would like me to become one of your pie bakers? Over on Flickr I have a pie fan club of sorts - if you go to my Flickr page and search for pie you'll find about 50 photos.

And, I'm yet another redhead, to boot (well, it's a bit gray these days). Apparently Sandi and Bill are redheads.

If any of the rest of you are still scratching your heads and wondering why their cafe name sounds familiar, you should consider reading Fannie Flagg's book, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe. The 1991 movie by Jon Avnet is fun, too.

And now, a confession: when I was in Phoenix in September I bought a box of onion ring batter mix at the last minute, in a rush at the supermarket, and got home to Switzerland with it before I realized it was THE onion rings from Whistlestop Cafe. Mmmmm, lucky me.

Just about time for a pecan roll here; wonder if the café has any they could ship over, real fast. The coffee's already on here.

Hotel Terminus: soup course

2007-01-15T20:52:00.000+01:00

Hotel Terminus: soup course
Originally uploaded by ellengwallace.

For those of you who were around 20 years ago for a wedding in Switzerland, here is the continuation of the party. Read the whole story and get the photos here: http://www.genevalunch.com/node/2721

Please do visit, as we'd like to share our party with you!

sunrays

2007-01-11T11:42:00.000+01:00

sunrays
Originally uploaded by *Ariel*.

I probably shoud not encourage the image of quaint, cute little Switzerland with toy box towns, but this photo, by one of my favorite photographers on Flickr, is a wonderful image. It evokes early mornings on Swiss Intercity trains, running from Lausanne to Bern and seeing little hamlets and towns in the mist. It's worth a visit to the original on Flickr to click on "all sizes" and see it large - you'll spy out another whole layer of life at the top of the photo.

My Swiss chimney sweep

2007-01-10T15:11:00.000+01:00

For those of you who don't make it over to GenevaLunch (where something is always cooking), here is one of the photos from a little story about a Swiss tradition, not to mention legal obligation: the annual visit from the chimney sweep. Follow the link above for the rest of the story.

Yeeeeah, I can fly! said the big orange fella

2007-01-10T15:03:00.000+01:00

...said the big orange fella to the little gray guys who were trying to hold him back.

And off he went! Go for it, buddy.

raindrop

2007-01-09T12:17:00.000+01:00

raindrop
Originally uploaded by ellengwallace.

A very soggy winter's tale here in Switzerland. Click to see it enlarged, or visit the original on Flickr. There are two other raindrop photos on Flickr, if your life is not gray enough (grumble, grumble).

Places to go, back to work

2007-01-07T21:33:00.000+01:00

The lights began to come on down in the valley, then at mid-mountain, but up in the sky travellers - so many of them on this last day of vacation! - grabbed the light of day and kept flying with it. Unless they were going to Russia, as one plane appeared to be doing. The jet streams tonight didn't die away rapidly but faded into fat comfortable drifting bits, much like our memories of vacations just ending.

May you fly safely, those of you still in the skies! And to borrow an old Irish travellers phrase, may the wind be always at your back.

Moonpine in Switzerland

2007-01-05T07:28:00.000+01:00

The full moon is setting behind Farmer Bernard's barn and the pine trees that lead up to the top of the mountain. The cows (and Bernard) are up early, milking to the sound of classical music on the radio, which is turned up loud so they all catch it. Later in the day they'll listen to a talk show.

The moon, the mountain, the barn, the swing, and a moon shadow on the snow.

Gone snowshoeing (a kind of Swiss dance)

2007-01-03T13:02:00.000+01:00

Nearly. Getting ready. Lacing my shoes. Here's why:

But before I go, here are some of the ways we measure snowfall in the Swiss Alps.

By the single swingful -

By the double swingful -

Or by the snow on the rocks above the pond, where the indifferent waterfall carries on working -

Off I go. I can hear that snowy music calling me! It's got a kind of swish-swish beat alternating with whoooooosh that might have to do with all the skiers and sledders on the mountainside today.

Swiss Alps in the snow

2007-01-02T20:48:00.000+01:00

Oooooh, we have snow and more snow and it is beautiful! As dusk began to fall people abandoned their cars and went home to cozy fireplaces and warm kitchens.

Clementine is not an old song

2006-12-31T20:48:00.000+01:00

Oh Clemen- hand over the mouth, please, I sang that song WAY too many times when I was about 10 years old, probably off key and definitely very loudly.

I always thought Clementine was a common girl's name in Kentucky and I was grateful not to have been born there, a place where girls' feet apparently grew very large (if you don't know the song, try this).

And then I moved to Paris, the one in France, and discovered that clementine is the name of a wonderful sweet little fruit that everyone eats from November to February, with the early ones on the market coming from Spain. The French claim that a Father Clément created the fruit in Algeria at the start of the 20th century, but rumblings from China hint it had its start there, much earlier.

It garnishes every Christmas shop and New Year's tabletop in France and Switzerland. Clementine is now for me a harbinger of cold weather and good cheer. In France it has virtually replaced the once-popular mandarins.

In Switzerland we buy dozens and dozens and eat them as fast and furiously as we can. Some family members stuff ski jacket pockets with them, others nibble and dribble them (aaaaaaaagh) in the car.

Even the sun sleeps in late these days and when it finally wakes up and stretches lazily but brightly into our kitchen, we all ooh and aah as it reaches out for the wooden tray holding the clementines. And then we eat a few more of them.

Candle House in Old Town with luminarias

2006-12-28T09:44:00.000+01:00

Candle House in Old Town with luminarias
Originally uploaded by JoelDeluxe.

This is the Old Town in Albuquerque, New Mexico, one of a series by Joel on Flickr, which show a magical town at Christmas! I suggest you visit the collection.

I lingered over these because they reminded me of two bits of family Christmas history. When my oldest son was 12 I thought the time had come to import to Switzerland a tradition from Dubuque, Iowa, where I grew up. I hunted everywhere for brown paper bags, not a household item in Switzerland, I found small votive candles easily, but they were smaller than what I had in mind - never mind, I thought, they'll work. I found sand for sandboxes, not particularly cheap because it has to be clean enough for children to accidentally eat, but the only other sand is the kind we put on roads, and it comes in extremely large bags.

On a wild, blustery, snowy December evening my son and I trudged out to the front of the house, a relatively steep slope in the middle of the Swiss Alps, and we tried to plant brown bags with sand and candles. They threatened to blow away - some did - so we dug holes for them. By the time we lit one or two, previously lit ones had gone out. One bag caught fire and another melted the snow around it, immediately creating an icy waxy mess on the slope which was still there in April. My son, who was too old to wear gloves, he said, began to complain bitterly of the storm.

That was the end of our alpine luminus. But I still remember the beautiful old street we lived on in Dubuque, down a hill, with a turnaround area at the end, Plymouth Court. All the neighbors would get together and fill hundreds of bags with sand and candles, then light the candles and party.

Pure magic.

Time immemorial

2006-12-24T20:57:00.000+01:00

Sierre, Valais, Switzerland

The Romans had a temple where there is now a little chapel, among the vineyards. The temple was here 2300 years ago.

Granges, Valais, Switzerland

Across the Rhone, in the little town of Granges, sits a hill, older than the Roman temple or the vines that produce beautiful wine. The cross is relatively recent, probably only a few centuries old.

Lives come and go, people fight and make peace, each small life is filled with dramas that often seem all-important. The land bears witness to it all, and is, in the end, the repository of human sorrows, but also joys and loves that settle down and grow into something solid and firm and rich. If we are very quiet, and listen carefully, we can learn from it.

Merry Christmas to all!

A lonely soul tonight

2006-12-24T20:52:00.000+01:00

For weeks this soul in Geneva has had a steady stream of company, but on Christmas Eve, as people head indoors to more convivial corners, this is likely to be one lonely creature, so let's all say hello and Merry Christmas!

We three king pines of Orient are

2006-12-24T07:33:00.000+01:00

Field and fountain, moor and mountain, travelling ...

May your spirits soar during these holidays!

thin-skinned thinker

2006-12-21T21:23:00.000+01:00

I walked across the bridge in Geneva, Switzerland tonight, with bustling crowds and lights twinkling on the waterfront. The quietest soul around was this thinker by the water's edge, a man of deep sensitivity, clearly very thin-skinned. We passers-by were all gentle with him.

Vertiginous

2006-12-20T22:22:00.000+01:00

It's cold outside and warm inside, so beetles, including our fair ladybugs, find happy nooks. This one spent a morning inching her way down the thread of the shades. Outside: blue sky, white clouds and the mountain view she knows well from her perches on trees and bushes and roses.

Winter wonders

2006-12-19T21:16:00.000+01:00

Leaning over next to a window, watering houseplants this afternoon, I suddenly realized that my neighbor has geraniums blooming in a flowerbox in front of her window. If you live in a warm climate this might sound normal, but this is Switzerland and it's December!

It's been unseasonably warm lately but we've had an icy blast called the bise wind blowing all day. It is one of the few things I don't like about this part of the world because when it blows it cuts into your every personal nook and cranny no matter how warmly you dress.

The people who built this village about 700 years ago were extremely smart. We live on a little point of land that sticks out into Lake Geneva and all of the streets bend slightly. It confuses visitors to the town unless they walk along the 10 or so streets with a map.

The reason for the not-quite-straight streets is that the layout keeps the wind out. I went out for a walk this evening and was nearly blown away by the lake, so I sensibly headed for the little streets on the inside of the old part of the village, walking along the Grande rue and staying cozy and nearly warm as I walked along the street whose name means Lost Time.

Brrrrrr, Polar bear dipping

2006-12-19T21:07:00.000+01:00

The news in from Vancouver is that this is the season for Polar bear dipping, taking a run into the Pacific and staying there for four seconds of icy swimming. If they can grow fur, I think these bears will be happier next time around.

This is Lilac, daughter of Lily, daughter of Lea

2006-12-09T23:32:00.000+01:00

We were invited up to farmer Bernard's barn today for an Advent aperitif (more on that tomorrow) . We trudged through the snow, up the narrow farm path where Bernard's tractor or jeep had already packed down the snow, wet and muddy. We stood with the neighbors outside in the snow at noon, sharing wine that Jean-Pierre had made, a rosé, and the dried meat that several of the men had made together. We stomped and rubbed hands and shared the good cheer of the first snowfall, then we went inside to visit the cows.

They were wonderfully quiet, just a lowing sound now and again, with all the cows sitting down and contented in their sweet-smelling hay-filled barn. The calves were the great attraction, a group of nine of them that are a month old. These are Val d'Herens fighting cows, wonderful creatures, very intelligent, who live in the barn in winter and climb high in the alps in the summer.

My favorite was Lilac, who hasn't yet worked out that even with constant pushing, her head will not fit through two bars. Her mother, Lily, was a few feet away. And Grandma Lea, at the end of the barn and now nine years old, is the queen cow, the one that leads them all up to the good pastures.

Red swing with snow

2006-12-09T23:27:00.000+01:00

The snow drifted down and down and down over the Swiss Alps. It covered bushes and trees and driveways and most of Tara's red swing, hanging from the 75-year-old apple tree. The apple tree at the front is a century old and has seen many snowstorms, and winters soft as well as wild.

A Swiss winter breakfast

2006-12-09T23:06:00.000+01:00

Most of the time we have a very sensible Swiss breakfast of orange juice, strong tea and muesli. On weekends we tend to replace the muesli with toast and jam, since the cellar holds so many jars of jam from our garden fruit.

But we are now in panatone season, and for 3-4 weeks we gorge ourselves with the treat from over the Alps in Italy. A friend who is married to an Italian shakes her head at our happiness with the supermarket variety, inexpensive and a household favorite. True, just once we ate some of the upper class panatone at her house and agreed that it was 1,000 times better. But the price was triple our supermarket staple one, and in this quality versus quantity debate, quantity has won out, in my home.

We are not alone: the supermarkets in Vaud and Valais have to move several shelves to make room for their popular panatone mountains.

Swiss Alpine start to winter

2006-12-09T22:40:00.000+01:00

Winter arrived last night. It started as heavy rain on the plains, around the edges of Lake Geneva and the low, flat length of the Rhone River. The autoroute was crowded with drivers anxious to believe weather forecasts that the rain would turn to snow. Streams of headlights and taillights colored the lowlands, blurred by the heavy rainfall.

Eventually, almost everyone driving along the valley floor climbs the zigzagging roads that weave their way up the alps. At 1,000 meters the rain thickened into snow. I put on the kettle for tea in the chalet and pulled out my camera. The first snowfall had begun. I photographed the snow falling in front of me and the red lights on my neighbor's bush across the road. If you look carefully you'll see another neighbor's amber, cozy kitchen light on the left.

It has been so warm that the grass is green, as are many plants. The snow looked like a sprinkling of powdered sugar.

The snow carried on until morning in that eery calm that soft wet snows bring with it.

Here is what I saw when I opened the wooden shutters this morning:

We have had snow off and an all day. This evening I drove up to Montana, the resort town near us, and Belgian and French cars without snow tires were fishtailing up the streets, struggling to reach the shops.

Winter has arrived.

Rainbow or snowbow

2006-12-04T17:21:00.000+01:00

On the lower end it's a rainbow but on the upper end it's a snowbow, just barely. This is for Jul, who wrote a comment on the walnut post saying she wants snow. Today it snowed, at about 2,000 meters. The sun came out, briefly, so we had a bow of whatever. For once I wanted the sun to disappear quickly so the too-thin and fragile layer of snow up there would stay.

Fresh snow above the towers of Aminona, near Crans-Montana, Switzerland

From Miege, Valais, up and nearly over the peaks that lie wild and open, between Crans-Montana and Loeche-les-bains, in Switzerland.

Drying the walnuts

2006-12-02T21:14:00.001+01:00

No snow, days continue unseasonably warm, and we are drying out the walnuts in the sun on the veranda. Everyone complains about the lack of snow, but there is a bright side to the situation. The nuts come from a neighbor's tree, down the road. We gathered them off the ground, buried in their black outer skins, hiding under fallen leaves that no one rakes. The skins fall off and we dry them on these racks, from France and used to dry plums for prunes for packaging and taking to market. The racks let the air get underneath, to avoid mold developing.

I simply like sitting and admiring the wood and shell and sky and peak: the textures and tones of the world. The walnuts are lovely to eat, all winter long.

For thirsty people

2006-11-30T20:44:00.000+01:00

I was visiting shops to start a Christmas shopping list for GenevaLunch, and had great fun taking pictures. The owner of Le T in Gland, a little town on Lake Geneva, offered me tea, too, so it was a relaxing shopping trip.

A snowy Vancouver-Ghana connection

2006-11-27T21:02:00.000+01:00

The world appears to me to be made of invisible threads that cross and crisscross the planet. You could describe the web that way but I think there is another set of threads that some of us travel along, same places and similar goals, at different times.

Hunting for Vancouver photos I came across one I loved, tried to blog it here, but the system failed - time for me to upgrade to the new Blogger.

Meanwhile, I went to the photographer's page, had a look at Doug Murray's many wonderful photos, discovered he's moving to Ghana, a place my family and I are fond of and have spent time in, so I went to his blog and discovered he's a journalist, about to move to Ghana to work as media trainer.

Winter here, winter there (anywhere?)

2006-11-27T20:14:00.000+01:00

Here is what winter in Switzerland looks like right now:

This is Féchy, a wine village near Lake Geneva, or rather the fields around the village. The French Alps in the distance have little snow on them and the same is true in the Swiss Alps. We had a weekend of wild foehn winds, the kind that bang shutters open and closed almost as fast as you can relatch them. Roof tiles rattle and trees bend as far as they can then jump back. I find myself wondering if they can suffer from whiplash.

The foehn is a warm wind and it was 12-16 degrees C this weekend, 52-60 F or so. What snow was on the peaks started to melt.

Meanwhile, over there, half a world away in Vancouver, Canada, we have an excited lad who went snowboarding at Blackrock, near Whistler mountain, where they have had nearly 4 m of snow.

Jen, a blogger in Vancouver, who loves Switzerland, wrote about the snow coming, but judging by her photos the big storm had not yet hit. She's just finished a photo course, so her images are great to view, snow or not. I went hunting for other photos of Vancouver in the snow and came across this one, four years old but really beautiful, so I hope the city looks this lovely again.

I decided to roam around Flickr looking for Vancouver+snow and came up with so many lovely photos! I'm getting homesick for snow.

Warm up to the World Championship Pie Eating contest!

2006-11-23T13:59:00.000+01:00

Here, in case you haven't yet eaten one, is the start to a pumpkin pie, in honor of the US Thanksgiving celebration (Canadians had theirs in October). The pumpkin is from the garden, has a wonderfully nutty taste and was steamed for 30 minutes. Later today it will serve as the heart of the pie.

And here, if you can face it after your Thanksgiving feast, is a story about the new rules for the World Championship Pie Eating contest. You have a month to prepare yourself, and I suspect today's main meal might be just the start you need. Good luck, all future contestants. I'd go for pumpkin pie.

The world as seen 336 year ago

2006-11-22T21:20:00.000+01:00

I visted the Alexis Forel Museum 10 minutes down the road from me. It was renovated earlier this year and the entire house, built in 1670, can be visited. On a damp, getting-colder November day the deep rich colors and dark wood inside feel warm while the golden light of the courtyard and its stone walls brighten the world.

For those who had the luxury of living in homes like this November must have been a month of some appeal.

Natural wood frame for Evian

2006-11-18T21:35:00.000+01:00

I like the way the newly trimmed plane tree frames the lakescape. In summer I never notice the bark on these trees and when they get their dramatic winter haircuts I suddenly want to touch the smoothness and admire the strange colors and tones. That's Evian, France, on the other side of the lake. The trees are in my village, St. Prex, Switzerland. The leaves are actually part of the mass of branches on the ground after the village gardeners chopped them off the trees. It takes a day for them to pick up and haul away all the leaves, which are then ground into compost and used on the flower beds around town.

A little nibble to keep us going

2006-11-17T22:08:00.000+01:00

I went to a food fair called Gastronomia a few days ago, where people in the French and Swiss food, hotel, catering and related businesses come together. I was working but felt a bit like an undercover agent since I was there as a journalist rather than official nibbler. Nevertheless, I was polite and sampled some of the things on offer.

This is not an old Kodacolor shot

2006-11-15T17:30:00.000+01:00

What makes this look like a 1959 Kodacolor shot? I remember the photos we used to take in the 1950s and 1960s, the way the colors looked. They seemed very true to life at the time, and then color printing improved. Those old pictures have blue oceans and lakes and skies of a particular hue, and the greens also have a strange falseness today.

I took several photos of the plane trees being cut back for the winter, in my town of St. Prex, and then turned in the other direction to take a photo of these leaves congregating and floating out to the middle of the lake. I was very surprised by the old-fashioned colors. I played with the image in Photoshop, increasing and decreasing contrast and lighting and so on, but it still looked like an old photo. I think we have November humidity to blame, but I'm not sure.

Does the US have dollars?

2006-11-13T23:26:00.000+01:00

An odd thing happened today, the kind of thing that makes it hard to explain the US to the rest of the world, as if that were possible. I received a check from a bank - a banker's check, mind you - in the US, closing out an account. I took it to a Swiss bank, which sounds terribly exotic unless you live in Switzerland and that means your local bank and forget the silly nonsense of numbered accounts, a kind of James Bond myth. The man studied and studied the check and finally asked what currency I thought it was in. Dollars, of course, I said. It's a US bank. But it doesn't say dollars, he pointed out. It doeesn't give any currency.

Sure enough. Several minutes and some phone call later we all agreed that it must be a check in dollars, but the bank staff drew round to see this odd specimen, a check drawn on - no currency at all. "I've never seen that before, " said the young man, and bankers in Switzerland routinely see money from several countries. "As if they didn't know there are other currencies," someone else said.

The cows and the raspberries

2006-11-13T23:10:00.000+01:00

I can barely sit in front of the computer today, thanks to forking back aches. Translation: I used a pitchfork for too long yesterday to put some order into the summer party gone on too long that is our raspberry patch. In the spring the patch looked like it was enjoying itself and we fretted slightly, but like most parents felt it reflected badly on us to complain. The berries were rich and red and made great jam. We attempted to keep the weeds under control, but most days it was an either/or: pick the berries or pull the weeds.

Guess which one we did and how we are now paying the price. The weeds are well entrenched, the raspberry babies shooting up on the slope below the patch are out of control, and there are just too many stalks. The garden books show lovely images of the old stalks, which you cut, versus the new, which you leave for next year's berries. In my garden they are hrd to distinguish and anyway I'm sure we have 3 or 4 generations a year, not just 2.

So I took the pitchfork to the patch and it looks tidier. The raspberries are laughing at me now, though.

I nearly forgot the cows! All of a sudden two days ago our place stank of cow poo. Odd because it normally doesn't even though we're next to a barn. But for three days last week the cows did a terrific job of chomping down the grass in the fields around us, which they do just once a year. And then, November cold hits and the cows go into the barn for the winter. And their poo flows out. For two days we have a potent combination of fresh grass + cow pies not left in fields but gathered indoors and shunted to the poo pile. Pong! After that, they eat hay and the smell and the cows settle down to a long, cold but cozy winter in the barn.

Meanwhile, I have to admire the neatly chomped-down field next door. And while I fight raspberry roots the cows, just a few metres away in their barn, low gently as the afternoon turns into evening. It is a contented sound.

Crayola and the virgin's colors

2006-11-06T20:31:00.000+01:00

Crayola was a company that could do no wrong when I was little. They were responsible for the box of 64 magnificent crayons that was perhaps the best present my parents ever gave me. They gave each one oohlala names like cornflower, burnt sienna and magenta.

They missed the mark on one key pair of colors, but I have to admit I feel a little wobbly on this point as it would not be very PC to give colors religious names. I routinely drew pictures with flowing pink and blue robes which I would have lovingly labeled bvm blue and bvm pink. If you are scratching your head, chances are you didn't go to Catholic schools as a child. I did, and tales of the BVM, short for Blessed Virgin Mary, were intertwined with art lessons where I could use my favorite colors, and princess tales from library books and angel paintings that floated around the ceilings of the church and other places we frequented.

Now I fret slightly about the impressionable minds of the young and how religions like to impress their world views upon such little minds. I thought about this earlier today as I followed the saga of evangelist Haggard, founder of a mega-church and last week when the anti-devil antics of evangelist churches at Halloween were in the news (you might have worked out by now that I'm not a fan of evangelism).

The one thing that works in the favor of at least some children, allowing them to grow into sensible adults, is that they take all the interesting bits adults hand them and weave them together in a way that suits them.

I took Crayolas and the BVM stories and perhaps a bit of Greek mythology and science lessons about weather and clouds, and I stirred them around.

To this day when I see wispy day-end clouds like these I can't help but see the swirling skirts of the BVM as she swishes along the streets of heaven, an efficient way to clean house for that son of hers who was always out talking to people. I itch to rummage around in the crayon box and pull out magenta and cornflower.

The BVM and angels and even the color names are now far in my past, but they've left a trace in the sky that I'm always happy to see.

I'm up, you're down

2006-11-05T20:33:00.000+01:00

Which place would you rather be in, with leaves falling and crunching underfoot in the Swiss Alps? I'm in the vineyards above Sierre, in Valais. The Val d'Anniviers lies across from us.

The point at which the Swiss Alps touch Burgundy

2006-11-05T12:43:00.000+01:00

Evelyn Ralph, potter from Glasgow and Geneva, calls Burgundy, France home. She made this lovely vase, part of her blue collection. Saturday night a full moon rose behind it.

This week it is welcoming grasses and herbs from the Swiss Alps, drying for winter bouquests. We had our first frosts, not hard, but enough to wilt all the flowers. The grasses and herbs carry on standing straight and tall, but now is the time to bring in bunches of them. The rosemary, sorrel and oregano leave a wonderful scent drifting through the house.

This morning a clear mountain sky lit up behind it as the sun prepared to rise.

Meanwhile, I managed to snip off the very little, very short-stemmed mums that remained hidden while the taller flowers were hit by frost. I put them in a pretty little bucket for another week of color since they were too short and perky for any of the vases.

Now we wait for winter.

How to smoke a skull

2006-11-02T18:37:00.000+01:00

On a fancy street in Geneva, Switzerland, wedged between one of the world's top private bankers to the rich and oriental carpets of dimensions and prices that make you dizzy, I spotted this little window display in a tiny shop. They sell things to do with smoking. Put a few cigarettes around one of these and you'd really have a smoking skull. An honest approach.

Blog 1st anniversary: swans fall from sky and other oddities

2006-11-02T13:49:00.000+01:00

I just wrote a blog on the Tribune de Geneve saying that it is the first anniversary of my first blog, which was right here ("What's it all about, Alfie"). I had planned to write a series of posts this week about the blogging business, the do's and don'ts, the fun and less fun sides of it and so on. However, I had such a strange, strange day yesterday that I wrote about some of it there. I wrote about a swan falling out of the sky next to me and the ambulance driver saving it and the fire department rescuing it.

And on my blog for GenevaLunch I wrote about the oddity of seeing an old steam train come toodling into Morges station, on the extremely busy high-speed train line that connects Switzerland's major cities. I have no idea what it was doing there and can find no information on it!

The day was odd from beginning to end, but the end included this lovely moment. I had just met a woman I've been talking with about sharing some of the GenevaLunch work. We'd had a wonderful cup of tea in a teashop owned by two Dutch women who serve great cake and have hundreds of books, many in English lying around. I don't know how they get anyone to leave.

But we did leave at 5pm when they closed. We walked past a flower truck about to unload and I shot a photo. "Come in!" they shouted, so I climbed up the ladder and into the flower truck, heavy with roses and freesias and other scents that the first cold November evening didn't carry outside. It was a small but rich moment of magic.

An odd day all around.

Damp around the edges

2006-10-31T18:44:00.000+01:00

The Swiss Alps have had a wonderfully long, toasty autumn, the warmest since 1843, only occasionally damp around the edges. We had one of those edgy mornings Monday.

Jan Vermeer's apples

2006-10-31T09:05:00.000+01:00

Dawn light in the Swiss Alps reaches the basket of freshly picked apples.

(You can view the really large size on Flickr.)

Don't cry for me Argentina

2006-10-31T08:58:00.000+01:00

. . . just because you are heading joyfully into Spring while I bow my head as winter draws near.

These are not tears, but the last touches of autumn dew, sparkling with the first rays of dawn in the Swiss Alps.

(You can view the really large closeup on Flickr.)

Perfect apple pie for 70th wedding anniversary

2006-10-27T00:56:00.000+02:00

Hard to believe that my mother can remember her wedding day 70 years ago! I have just posted a series of photos on Flickr, on baking the perfect apple pie - tomorrow I will post the recipe and instructions. Meanwhile, here is the completed and ready to eat pie, on one of the dishes my mother received as a wedding present, American fostoria dinnerware that she treasured.

International car rally roars around mountain

2006-10-26T19:32:00.000+02:00

This was an unusually noisy day in the Alps, with the Rallye international du Valais (read that: Valais int. car rally), starting its first day under my nose. The starting point was precisely in front of my house, with 100 cars gunning their engines, drivers pulling down helmets and rolling up windows, and then roaring off. Rallies are noisy beasts.

I've posted a series of photos on GenevaLunch, with a short news report. To give you a flavor, here is one.

I pulled weeds while the racers lined up, since it was too noisy to work. In addition to car engines being revved, helicopters flew very low, right over us. We have the rally here every year although most of the time it finishes a little bit above us rather than starting here, and I see coughing cars and sweat-soaked teams whipping off their helmets.

This year I had more time to observe the spectators. There are more, far more, men than women. Most of them do not look very fit but they are willing to park their cars further down the mountainside and walk 30 minutes uphill to get a good viewing spot. For some reason I can't fathom, the number of people with canes, wheelchairs and crutches is relatively high. People with small children have to carry them uphill, even though the mostly little boys are clearly thrilled with the racing cars. Mothers, rather than fathers, tend to carry them. People with dogs have to carry them, for the noise makes them skittish (so why bring poor Mutt, I wonder?). No one looks at the view. Strangely, for I have a lot of flowers and people driving normally look at them, no one looks at gardens. No one looks at the sky, which is spectacular on this warm late autumn day.

The first car misses its sharp turn, which has a very steep drop into the woods to one side, and I remind myself how I always take it slowly. The team ends up near the top, however, so they know more about recovering from a missed turn than I do.

Supporters drift down for an hour after the last car has left, and they all seem happy.

I think it is mainly a guy thing, and if I live to be 100 I probably won't get it.

Swiss alpine skyfire

2006-10-25T20:59:00.000+02:00

Here is what I saw this morning, very distracting and hard to sit down on front of the computer when the sky is ON FIRE! It lasted 10 minutes and then the day turned docile, as if nothing had happened. A bit like a wild night and then you get up and go to work as if nothing happened, right?

(same as photos published on my Tribune de Geneve blog, but larger)

I can hear the F-18s in the clouds

2006-10-24T14:09:00.000+02:00

Vrrroooom, it's the season for F-18 training. I can hear the Swiss air force fighter jets zooming around in the clouds, chasing each other. I hope they're not in this cloud, which is heading straight for me at top speed. Clouds are usually soundless.

I'd like to think the pilots are a little higher and fly by radar rather than sight. Probably, right? aiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeee.

Old age could look like this

2006-10-23T21:18:00.000+02:00

After the girls from Iowa sing for a few years we might look like this. That wouldn't be so bad.

Girls from Iowa sing!

2006-10-23T20:50:00.000+02:00

Blooming, singing . . .

Back to front: Claire, Judy, Cathy, Mary, Ellen and Judie. Behind us: some of the other girls from Iowa.

Last month I was in the US and got together with the Girls from Iowa. We do this once a year. We usually get a little carried away singing and dancing but I can't show our faces since in our other lives we are respectable people.

Pilots have two directions to choose from

2006-10-22T22:43:00.000+02:00

Dawn continues to be a beautiful time, so I thought I would take a picture. I looked in front of me. The business of looking one direction is excellent for teaching you to look in other directions, so before settling down to the day's mundane stuff I looked to the right. The mountain was smoking a fine cigar, to my surprise. And then I looked back the other way and pilots were busy. Some were learning to fly across, others to fly up. It probably doesn't look this way from the cockpit, where I suspect the world is always below (assuming the pilot has the basics under control).

Listening to cloud movements

2006-10-20T22:32:00.000+02:00

Selling the farm: Allaman, Vaud, Switzerland. October 2006

On my "work" blog for the Tribune de Geneve online newspaper I wrote today about clouds, with a link to a good site that explains them (in French!), with photos. It's been cloud-minding weather. This time of year their busywork up in the sky is very distracting, but it should be: they are sweeping out one season and sweeping in another. It's a process very like cleaning out our garage. You can't do it in a day.

The clouds have kept me focused on the fact it is autumn. Signs are everywhere, even if it is warm outside and work goes on indoors, especially in front of computers, without regard for the season shifting. Here are a couple of the autumn treasures I've seen this week when I wandered outside.

Two-tone goats are a Valais specialty. These have been in a patch of sticky burrs.

In memory of John Stephens

2006-10-18T20:12:00.000+02:00

John Stephens of Chew Magna, Sussex, in England and also of Spain, died last Friday, hiking with his wife of many years, Pat, and very close friends, in the Pyranees.

He was first a colleague, then a friend, and we had lost touch, in part because John and Pat had decided to do away with some of life's complications, starting with computers. Also in part because I never got around to answering their last letter, interesting and filled with news as it was.

I had news of them through a mutual friend very recently, maybe two weeks ago, telling me that John, an excellent designer, had returned to the painting work he loved, and that he had a show opening in Spain. That was an important reason to write, and I put it on my list for the weekend, this one or the next. John had stopped working as a designer and I was one of his clients when he decided that he no longer really enjoyed fighting computers and large organizations, that life was too short and he wanted time to hike in the mountains and paint and work on his boat. I had enormous pleasure imagining him free of the corporate world. Life is short, he said, and you never know.

I'm sorrier than I can say that I didn't have one last catching-up conversation with him. I would have liked to have heard more about the mountains he loved so much, and walking in them, staying in huts and building fires, sharing a good bottle of wine with friends.

He was a good man, with a big heart and a soul that wanted the world to be right, and he was a hard-working man - he was also bright and creative, and I think that knowing he had a chance to let those last two words shine will bring solace to Pat. It does to the rest of us.

Last rose of summer

2006-10-15T21:04:00.000+02:00

I think this might be it. Let's hold our breath and admire her bravery. It's 4-5C/40F at night, chilly for a pink bud.

Snow at 4,000

2006-10-15T20:46:00.000+02:00

It snowed at 4,000 meters during the night and at noon the sun came out so we could see it.

I worked outside most of the day, but took time out from turf-cutting and replanting to shoot a few pictures of a patch of grasses which I love this time of year . . .

And if it is not your birthday but you want a present

2006-10-12T17:47:00.000+02:00

. . . here is something beautiful, to be shared with someone else who might enjoy it - it's a rose that sits high in the Swiss Alps, enjoying the first rays of sunlight and a beautiful view when it takes time to look up.

The deep colour is just what the sun washed it with, no touching up.

Shoes 'n blooms for Mary birthdays

2006-10-12T17:05:00.000+02:00

Here is a bright happy birthday hello to my sister Mary, who always does something special on her birthday, so I will be interested to hear what this year's day holds!

And here is to buddy Mary, whose birthday I thought about, briefly forgot about, remembered, missed and remembered again - oh dear. She has the world's most amazing ability to get her friends to take off their shoes and kick up their heels: a good recipe for happiness.

Curious cow

2006-10-11T22:10:00.000+02:00

Two posts back I showed Farmer Bernard's cows, down from the hills. Here is the curious cow, a lovely creature! A summer munching grass high in the Alps does wonders for a girl's coat. These are milk cows and they give wonderful alpine milk for cheese.

In a very tight spot

2006-10-11T22:04:00.000+02:00

Who cares how tight the spot is, when you've got this view?

Life is just full of work and cows and flowers and ...

2006-10-10T21:44:00.000+02:00

Too much going on in life, but all of it interesting (except the kleenex my daughter decided to eat because she was bored, waiting for me to finish on the computer).

The words will have to wait for another day, but here are some images for now.

The mountain garden was harvested and tilled to make room for autumn onion and garllic planting. But one last pumpkin vine, with flowers babies, had to be left for a few extra days to enjoy balmy October days and cool nights.

In the valley, near Lake Geneva, everyone has been harvesting fruit and the smell of apples and plums and especially grapes fills the air. I stopped near Tara's school and asked some of the seasonal workers, from Portugal, if I could take their picture. These are Gala apples.

In the space of a week almost all the grapes are cut and taken to the wineries or cooperatives. The leaves suddenly turn the most beautiful colors! I used to love maples and other northern trees that turned red this time of year, something we don't have in Switzerland. But we have gloriously multi-colored vineyards.

And then, up in the mountains, the cows came down from the high Alps. At night they are still out in the fields, their heavy loud bells clanging all night long, but usually in fields just far enough away so that they sound like chimes. Here is one of the neighbors, a curious young girl.

Today the sun rose in the West

2006-10-09T20:49:00.000+02:00

Last night a fantastic full harvest moon rose over the Alps. This morning an even more fantastic thing happened. As the full moon prepared to set in the West, the sun rose in the West. I've never seen this happen before and don't expect to ever see it again.

Rings on their fingers and bells on their toes

2006-10-03T21:38:00.000+02:00

We just can't see the toes. American women expressing themselves.

Old people are not always unhappy or lonely

2006-10-03T21:18:00.000+02:00

Here is a photo of my mother, age 94, taken a couple weeks ago on a day warm enough for her to sit outside. She had all four of her daughters visiting, which was a little overwhelming. We asked if she minded so much chatter around her and she smiled, saying she enjoyed hearing all of us having a good time together.

I attended a conference last week in St-Gallen, Switzerland, on aging. I learned much about the demographics (a huge number of us are getting old rapidly!) of aging, but also about the realities of old age. I read a report by Dutch researchers who said something I think we would all do well to reflect on: old people are unhappy and lonely in relation to their expectations. An older person will feel let down, miserable and be unhappy if she or he expects to be surrounded all day by laughing family members who pay a good deal of attention to the wise elder, but who in reality are off working or taken up much of the time with their own lives.

People (and I think this is not just the elderly) who are realistic and generous in their expectations of others are more likely to be happy and to attract others to them.

Easier said than done, of course.

A Vancouver bear

2006-10-01T10:12:00.000+02:00

I was looking for a photo of my mother for International Day of Older Persons, but I don't have it with me and will have to post it Monday morning. I'm not sure what she would think of this substitute, but here is a bear from Vancouver, who does not quite qualify as an older person. Here, nevertheless, is to older people everywhere: may their lives be rich and happy in the ways they hope for!

Bears galore start here

2006-09-29T15:59:00.000+02:00

Let a bear wear long red underwear, please!

The bears that go with some of my posts have been stuck on camera cards, but they are now marching out of the camera and into the computer. You will soon see more bears than you care to see. For now, here are just a couple, from the delightful town of St. Gallen in Switzerland. Maki added a comment to the previous post about the origins of fiberglass cows. I think, but have no proof, that cows evolved before bears, at least in plastic and faux-plastic terms.

Cross my heart and hope to die; I love that building and I would never lie.

Let's all go to the zoo!