Diamonds and Rust

“To Travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive,
and the true success is to labour”
Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850-1894 Virginibus Puerisque 1881

We should be enjoying ourselves,for it’s time to take a summer break again.We pilgered to the Holiday Exhibition and came home with two bags full of books and brochures. (Heaven help the enviremont) Special offers had also fluttered into the house by post, which we should have taken them up on monthes ago.Too late now. I have scoured the internet to no avail and two days ago I was obliged to set foot in a Travel Agency.That is of course where the trouble really starts.

There are so many of them here, that’s because the Swiss are always on holiday somewhere. Each travel firm has it’s offices in every town. Upmarket and downmarket businesses,usually all controlled by a couple at the top,so the prices don’t really vary, we are just made to think we are getting a good deal.

On entering we are always greeted by a helpfull smiling assistant.Don’t be taken in by the smile,in actual fact the scenario is of the spider greeting the fly.

If you have studied the wonderfull coloured books full of carefully shot photos you will also have read the small print,and interpreted their language. “Original” well in need of new beds,paint,showers. “Quaint” on it’s last legs. “Within walking distance” anything between 10 meters and 10 miles. “Discotheque in Hotel” not for people who like ro go to bed early,especially if your room is near it. “Child friendly” be very carefull if you like to see young children but not hear them.” Side view of the sea” only if your partner holds you feet while you hang out of the balcony. The traps are endless.

I had already decided where and when. I just wanted a 5* Hotel there at 1* price. Can sometimes be done,but then there is always a snag with the flights. Just one place left when there are two of you.All seats booked on the return journey etc.

I wasn’t lucky of course with their “Last Minute” offers, is anyone ever? But then I would have had to have paid a 100 Dollar booking charge instead of 60.
Because I wanted to use my credit card to pay for the arrangement, which would save me the 45 Dollar obligatory insurence coverage they would have to ask for a further 1 1/2%.
Would I like to reserve a special seat on the three hour flight? For free,of course not, 50 Dollars more. No thanks I’ll stand.

I came out feeling liike a squeezed lemon,and vowing to do it all differently next time.

Not to worry I have a month to prepare myself for the real problems.
The Check in at the Charter Flight desk at 4.30 in the morning.
How to think positively and thus not draw anybody into the place in front of me on the plane who is going to put his seat right back the moment we are in the air, or beside me and glue their elbows onto both arm rests for the whole flight.

If we do take off and land without any mishaps,I only have the apprehension at the luggage belt.
and the elbowing of my fellow travellers at the hotel reception to overcome.

Then, usually after a bad first night in a new bed walking down to the beach at seven o’clock in the morning to find that all the sunbeds under umbrellas have already been reserved with draped towels and bags printed with “Neckermann machts möglich”. OK maybe “Kuoni” too.

For such a small country Switzerland certainly has a knack at getting themselves into trouble.
Or maybe I should say our women do.

Only last month our Foreign Ministerin,Micheline Calmy-Rey,took a trip to Iran,donned a head scarf and shook hands on a deal with their President to supply us in future with enough natural gas to keep us warm in Winter. Just in case the Russians play around with their tap,she said.
The Swiss didn’t like the head scarf,and the USA and Israel didn’t like the deal.
“When in Rome” she said about the scarf.
It seems now we weren’t the only country to do business with the Iranians,but at least she did it openly and with charm.

Carla Del Ponte is at the moment Swiss Ambassadress to the Argentine.
It won’t be for long, if a lot of men in our Parliament have their way.
She opened her mouth to wide,not at all the done thing in the Diplomatic Corps, she even wrote it down and believe it or not published it.

In case you have not heard of her before,Carla Del Ponte was the Chief Prosecutor of the War Crimes Tribunal for Ex-Yugoslavia in Den Haag. Netherlands.
She saw and heard of unbelievable atrocities towards mankind during the the civil war.
But there was no atonement.The war criminals are still there.

It must have been impossible for her to come to terms with it all. She has now written a book.
“The Hunt. I and the War Criminals.
She was forbidden by the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs to attend the presentation of her book,

A delicate diplomatic situation,especially as she among other things, accused the Kosovo Rebel Army UCK (members of which are now leading Kosovo) of trading with the organs of people in their hands.
and found the cooperation of Serbia and Kroatia with the Tribunal after the war insufficient.

The Department of Foreign Affairs is calling for her resignation.

Is it just that women allow their emotions to run away with them,that sometimes their hearts rule their heads.
Or is it that women are less afraid then men to say what they think.
Maybe they are just more honest.

If I were an American Citizen I think Hillary Clinton would get my vote.

I have an old book that belonged to my Grandmother.

To Dearest Grace with Best Wishes from A.B.

It is called The Birthday Oracle or Whom shall I Marry . Guesses at the character or appearance of your future husband or wife. Arranged for every Day in the Year with Extracts to suit both sexes.

In it my Grandmother noted the names of family or friends opposite the date and the Birthday Oracle to the words of a well known writer.
Yesterday, March 12, my name had been entered in now faded ink and that of an 81 year old Uncle.

“He is more than six feet high,

And fortunate and wise ;

He has a voice of melody,

And beautiful black eyes. -Praed

How true that was about my Uncle.

Tell me a thing she cannot dress, _

Soups,hashes pickles and pies;

Nought comes amiss, she is so wise. -Lloyd

Me? Maybe.

For April 16, The Birthday of my eldest Daughter

Her dress was like the lillies,

And thy heart as pure as they.-Longfellow

How true

May 27. My youngest daughter.

I think there has rarely been a more admirable woman.- O.W.Holmes

And that of a very good friend

His face is fair as heaven,

When Springtime buds unfold.- Blake.

Mmm, probably.

May 3, my Son in Law.

He cannot even essay to walk sedate,

But in his very gait,one sees a jest,

That is ready to break out in spite of all his seeming.-Knowles.

August 14. My Father.

The proudest now is but my peer.

The highest not more high;

Today of all the weary year ,

A King of men am I. -Whittier

Oh,how true.

December31.My Husband.

My own ideal Knight,

Who reverenced his conscience as a King;

Whose glory was redressing human wrongs.- Tennyson.

You may smile,but for me the oracle rings true.

I read this in a Swiss newspaper yesterday;

Adventszitate

“Regelmässig zum Fest der Liebe wächst meine Mordlust”

Agatha Christie.

I haven’t been able to find the actual quote in English,or when and in what context it was said or written, but roughly translated it is;

Advents Quotation
“Regularly to the Festival of Love (Christmas,Advent)

grows my urge to murder”

I would love to know what she really meant by it, but I think I understand her.

Amsterdam, 23 February 1944

“From my favourite spot on the floor I look up at the blue sky and the bare Chestnut tree on whose branches little raindrops shine,appearing like silver,and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind.

As long as this exists I thought and I may live to see it,this sunshine,the cloudless skies,while this lasts I cannot be unhappy.”

The fourteen year old Jewish girl wrote these words in her now world famous diary. Daily she would look out of the attic window in the Prinsengracht.It was the only one that wasn’t blacked out in the tiny warehouse hiding place of her family and four friends, on to the Chestnut tree. It gave her strength through the twenty five monthes confinement during the German occupation of the Netherlands by just being there.

Anne would look at it and note the changing foliage from season to season.
It was bare when they came for her in February 1945.

She died early March of Typhoid Fever in the German concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, a few days after her sister. She was fifteen.

The Chestnut tree lived, and is still there so many years after. But it was sentenced to die on the 21st of November 2007. Some experts said it was old and sick and couldn’t be saved. Others said it could but they had little weight in the matter.

I don’t know what has happened to Anne’s tree.

Photo:Peter Dejong

My Asian fever has been cured.Relapses are of course known,but at the moment I’m just enjoying being back in Switzerland where the trees are no longer the colour of best Burmese Jade and today we can almost smell snow in the air.

I experienced so much on my trip to south east Asia.I met so many lovely caring people,saw so many things that the impressions will stay with me for ever.

Nothing negative happened to me in the month that I was travelling,so all I can say is to anyone thinking about it,especially middle aged women who want to go it alone -just do it.

One thing though; don’t even think of carrying weighty guide books with you.Leave all your Green Planets,Travel Know How,Baedecker or whatever they might be called at home. Maps along with historical and geographical information are of course usefull ,but the rest too subjective and usually out of date in this fast changing world.

Greet people with a big smile and you will get to wherever you want to go even with sign language.

I’m looking forward to sharing some of my impressions with you.

When I had time to spare my favourite reading to pass that time were books featuring spies. John le Carré being my absolute master of the game.

He of course knows what he is talking about having been educated within the ancient walls that housed,Burgess and Maclean,not forgetting Kim Philby.

The cold war ended, nobody wrote about spies anymore,what for, we were all buddies now, and even I went to Russia.

I sat in an Aeroflot plane on the runway at St Petersberg the night before new years eve just after the “opening” and saw out of the window, Russian soldiers in their long greatcoats with the collars turned up against the cold. On their fur hats the small red stars still shone- and I got goose pimples.
John le Carré found other themes, and Kim Philby got a State Burial in Moscow. Absolute friends.

A Brit friendly Russian was murdered in London,and two diplomats were sent home.

The British Embassy in Moscow are running short of staff this week too, and I’m eagerly awaiting a new spy book.