Diamonds and Rust

The sun is shining.Birds are singing.Our garden is already full of flowers. It is a good day.Especially as I am about to be spoilt. Why?
Because it is Mothers Day in Switzerland,and I am one.
I have grown out of the role of course,my daughters have long turned into my friends,which is I suppose as big a compliment as any mother could wish. But I am getting more today. An organised Brunch in the garden and a big bouquet of wild flowers like the ones they used to pick when they were small.

If you are celebrating in your country today.
Happy Mothers Day.

Were you around in 1968?
I was, and it is one of the few things that make life today tolerable. The fact that I lived through the years that moved history.

40 years ago today on the 3rd of May 1968,students of the Sorbonne University in Paris occupied the building.It was the beginning of events that led to a general streik in France and sowed the heterogeneous seed that changed our society.

Looking back it is difficult to define what exactly happened,the movement was dissimilar and mostly unorganised. The moved were young,creative,spontane,and questioned everything established in the world. It was a apart from certain street riots a quiet revolution,but it changed the world.

68 a painfully beautiful year full of 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.

My Father liked to grow roses.When I was still in my first decade we lived in the county of Surrey in England,there they said the sandy soil was particularly good for roses.

One of his favourites was a rambler that he grew from a cutting taken from a bush belonging to his Mother,there it transformed the small city garden into a mass of mauve.

The cutting grew and after a few years it was covering our high wooden fence.

Everybody commented on the colour.Nobody had seen such a rose bush,full of clusters of small, filled roses, varying in colour from mauve over violet to splatters of deep purple and blue.

We had to move to the west coast,so some of the rose was lifted and it came along too. It flourished there despite the stony soil. My parents moved twice again before they eventually

retired and went back south. With the rose of course.

When I married and settled in Switzerland they brought a piece of the root over for us.

It has been growing in our garden ever since.

I had never seen another one like it.Roses don’t grow well in Switzerland,but last summer we went to a gardeners near the German border, and there I saw it,

“Veilchen Blau” covering an old rusty arch.

It had apparently been bred by a German rose grower in 1909. How it came to be in my Grandmothers garden could possibly be an interesting story.

At Christmas we went over to Canada to visit our eldest daughter and her husband. Yesterday I spoke to them on the phone.

Guess what they had just planted in their garden.

To everyone who has a Birthday today,and especially to Spaz.

Happy Birthday and Many Happy Returns Of The Day

Ethic has become a fashionable word these days. According to the Oxford Dictionary, ethics is “the study of standards of conduct and moral judgement”.

There are Ethic Commissions everywhere earning good money to save us in our completely unethical world.

In Switzerland they have probably given up trying to save people and animals because the Ethical Commission here has now moved on to plants.

They say plants have a dignity that needs to be protected,and are discussing what ethical position we must take in this.

So, up until a decision is made please don’t pick the Daisies.

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.

Hands clutching at last piece of driftwood,
Nerves alive in a rigid body,
Waiting for the ultimate wave.

Managed to get a piece of poetry written to befit my mood,but darned if I can get an image posted with the new system.
At the moment I hate WordPress.

“Veni,vidi,vici”

“I came,I saw,I conquered.”

She did it with bravour,and contempt has turned into admiration.

Carla mania has broken out,and she is now everyone’s darling.

The wife of this Frenchman, what was his name?

A State Visit to England always entails a lot of work when it comes to getting the brass polished, but what was shown yesterday for the visit of President Sarkozy of France and his new wife,- more well known for nude portraits, seemed to me as a Brit, and despite everything a Royalist, a little over the top.

Not that I have anything against La Grande Nation.Not more than the average Brit. We just seem to have been at loggerheads with them for the last thousand years.

Luckily after William the Conqueror we always came out on top, and I can’t help thinking that was what the message was about yesterday.
Up until now Nicolas Sarkozy hasn’t had too many admirers. Angela doesn’t care for him, and I don’t think even George was flattered by his dripping charm.

HRH The Prince of Wales showed that even an Englishman could outdo him,when it came to hand kissing.

HRH The Prince Phillip,seemed to really win over Madame Bruni- Sarkozy, but then he always had a way with women,and doesn’t seem to have lost it even at his age.

HM The Queen got out the Golden Coach,and put on so many jewels of immense worth that her head and neck must really ache today.

Even the great hall at Windsor Castle was used as dinner venue-everyone has Palaces.

“I have the ambition to work hand in hand with the English” President Sarkozy told us.

Does he indeed.

I don’t think Gordan Brown will be bowled over.

The Royal Family probably have not amused themselves so much in a long time.

And the crowds only came to look at Carla.

The President certainly has one thing the others haven’t