Diamonds and Rust

What I like about women is that we can adjust to any situation. The survival instinct is born into us and we are completely adaptable if the situation arises.
In Europe the situation is here, and the only way to exist in it is to go by the old adage;

“If you can’t beat them, join them”

You see the EURO 2008 will be starting soon and Europes men are suffering from Football Fever.
In Switzerland where many of the matches will be held it has reached endemic proportions, and there is absolutely nothing we can do to beat eleven men chasing a ball that they can’t even pick it up.

That is why we will have to join them if we don’t want to spend a very unhappy couple of weeks.
The Commercial College near us has also seen the problematic.
They have now invited Manuel Navarro,a Fifa referee to give a course on the rules of Football for women. Worth checking out I think.
At least we can join in a conversation,-and an offside is not always an offside.
We wouldn’t just have join them,it seems we could even know better.

It makes the EURO 2008 almost acceptable.

You might think the Euro and Potatoes have nothing in common but you would be wrong.

“Swisspatat” the Swiss Potato Industry Organisation says it does.
It is the Worlds best loved vegetable, and Football is the best loved sport. These bind.

Therefore Swisspatat want to widen the horizons of Football Fans with Potato Recipes
from the participating Euro countries, menu ideas and theme evenings are being arranged to waken the interest of fans for other cultures.
Whether “Swedish Potato Pot”, Tschech”Potato Packets”,or “Drunken Potatoes” from Portugal.
Tubors tie.
Infos can be found under www.kartoffel.ch

“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.

Would you believe it,

The missing Ferdinand Hodler painting”Bare Chesnut Trees in Ticino” which I wrote about yesterday has been found.

An employee of the Volkart Stiftung in Winterthur, a town near Zürich, after watching the news on television, remembered seeing the painting in their storage room.

The painting belongs to Andreas Reinhart, whose family are generous art patrons with their own museum in the town. The Oskar Reinhart Foundation Museum. Am Stadtgarten, Winterthur.

He is very glad to have it back because it was left him by his late brother George,whose entire estate was donated to the Volkart Foundation, and of which Andreas is president.

To the question, if the painting was ever really stolen? At the moment the police are still investigating every possibility they say.

The loss was only discovered after the real transport firm sent by the Bern Museum stood in front of Reinharts door and was told it had already been collected by the artful trickster.

“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

It must be the Italian flair in their Spirit. But if Bellinzona, a Football Team from the Italian speaking part of Switzerland can’t match the Azzurros in their football the colour of their clothes certainly does.

Last night we quickly watched some of the match between Bellinzona and Xamax Neuchatel. Bellinzona won 4:2 after penalty shooting, and they will now be playing in the Swiss Cupfinal against Basel. As a Challenge League Club they will certainly have a bit of a fight but maybe in their clothes they will dazzle the eyes of the opponents.

I, at least could hardly believe mine as I saw the splashes of colour running over the television screen.

The Bellinzona players’ shorts and jerseys were PINK, Not Baby Pink, not quite Shocking Pink but shocking enough for the green field.

In Ticino they are apparently known as the “Granata”(Pomegranates)

I think we are certainly going to have a colourful European Cup in Switzerland.

Somehow the days don’t seem to be long enough for everything I have to fit in. Luckily the evenings are drawing out and it isn’t dark until gone six pm now,at least that gives me the feeling that I have time, and I can paint longer by daylight.

The trouble is I take my household duties too seriously and feel that because I am married it is my responsibility to shop and cook for my husband,to say nothing of washing and ironing (he wears shirts with collars,not T shirts) Don’t get me wrong I love cooking and eating,but the half of me that would rather be be writing and painting is hammering from the inside wanting to be let out and this is very strong.

In that world where I would like to be food and eating is immaterial as are clothes or cleaning a house that is already overly clean.

I would have my own little cottage by the sea,or even a garret would be acceptable if it was in an inspiring place, and I could write and paint until the proverbial cows come home.

Sometimes I would like to be just like an Artist friend of mine who earns enough through painting to eat (fast food) and buy a ticket to somewhere in the world where the light is good and the weather doesn’t make youvulnabarable to Arthtitis He doesn’t let himself get tied down by people or things,and definitely not by a bad conscience.

But I do.

So I’m busy painting empty jam pots between times, and as usual painting glass is as difficult for me,as snow, mountains and weeping willow trees. It all needs practice,practice,practice.

Even writing a post is proving very difficult! “Have I checked so and so out?” ” How long does the chicken need to be in the oven”? ” I think the potatoes are done”

There is a hammering inside of me again,and I’m wondering whether I should run away.

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.

Tomorrow is one of the highlights in my year.

The Cookery Club will hold it’s Annual Dinner.

Nothing blinding in that perhaps,except the Cookery Club is solely for men,and tomorrow their wives or partners are invited to sample what they cook.

My husband doesn’t really like to cook, he prefers the eating part of it, but he does know how, which enables me to take off to far away places now and again.

I don’t really know why he started. Maybe his Mother thought it was an added precaution when he decided to marry an Englishwoman. It was well before Jamie Oliver, and we did have a bit of a bad reputation at that time.

The Club meet in the Secondary Schools’ kitchen once a month. Four tables each with four men. The members at each table represent a certain “species” in our small town.
So there is a table with four council members, four teachers, four from the medical profession, and the last is not categorised but is generally made up of notorious citizens. My husband works on the last.

We women always enjoy the meal,which the men have usually spent more time in planning than cooking. But then the whole thing has more to do with sociability than cooking, as the choosing (and sampling) of the fitting wine does play an important role for them.

For us the washing up is the real eyeopener. Each table has it’s own sink and cooker,but no washing up machine.

We certainly love to sit back at the end of the meal and watch them go about clearing the mess up.

What is interesting of course is the way the different groups go about it all.

For the politicians the order of importance is never the same as the logical thinking of the everyday housewife.

The small things and detail seem to come first for the medics.

The uncategorised and notorious are sitting down with their wives almost before the others have started.

But it’s the schoolteachers that are the sad and sorrowful bunch. They are just never finished, probably because they don’t seem to know how to start. Considering they have all been practising for many years they really should be better.

Of course the last group might be writing a thesis on it.But I know which group I would like in my kitchen.

I don’t mind the cooking,in fact I love it at times-providing I can find somebody to clean up after me, and believe me I do tend to make rather a mess.