Diamonds and Rust

When I was small I asked my Father what the difference was between the Tory and the Labour Party in British government.He gave me an answer that satisfied a childs mind.
“The Tories help the rich people in the country,Labour help the poor”

London has now voted against “red” Ken Livingston ,who has been Lord Mayor of the city for several years.He was always to the very left side of the labour party,but he didn’t do a bad job in London.
One of the things he initiated was a toll of 25 GB Pounds on every owner of a high powered car which expelled more than 225 gramm of carbon dioxide who wanted to drive in the City
This motion should come into force in Oktober.

But now “Red Ken” has gone, and London has a Tory mayor. Boris Johnson, educated at Eton and Oxford,who’s family most probably didn’t have a Ford in their garage.

My Father’s words ring in my ear,and I am wondering like many others if Mr Johnson will amend the toll.

The German motor manufacturer, Porsche, already brought an action against it last month.

“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.

Ferdinand Hodler was another Artist to whom success didn’t come easily.

He was born in the city prison at Bern Switzerland,there his mother was the cook. It was 1853, and although married his parents couldn’t afford to live anywhere together they were so poor. The Hodlers had five children before Ferdinands father died. His mother remarried and her second husband brought five children of his own into the family before he left them all and went off to see the world.

At the age of twelve Ferdinand was head of the family.

Three years later his mother collapsed and died in the city, and the young boy loaded her body into a cart and took her home.Later with the help of his brothers ans sisters they took her coffin to the churchyard.

He said later in life “This picture remained long and clear before my eyes for ever”.

For many years he unsuccessfully tried to be accepted at one of the Art Schools. At last his talent was seen by the Artist Barthelemy Menn who ran a well known Art School in Geneva.

He was allowed to study without paying,but he didn’t have an easy life. His fellow pupils mocked him for being so poor,and because he spoke such appalling french. Most of the time he was hungry.

His paintings from that time were dark and dismal. What he depicted was the fear of the illness that killed both his parents and most of his brothers and sisters. Tuberculosis.

Then in 1887 he was invited to Paris and was awarded an honorary medal for one of his paintings.

At the same time he was working on “Night” and in it he showed what until then nobody had dared to show in this way. It took him two years to finish and it was a scandal for the Art World.

The name Hodler was known.

He was invited to Vienna, he was invited to Berlin.Only the prude city of Geneva didn’t want to show his paintings.

Hodler became more and more a painter of light. After Parallelism he found Symbolism,a movement that mostly he started.

He eliminated everything unnecessary in his paintings,a way that led to almost total Abstraction.

He painted huge canvasses and frescoes always on the search for expression. and he conquered his own world.

In 1914 Wilhelm 11 ,the last German Emperor said at an exhibition as he was presented to him.”Emperors and Kings come and go, but there is only one Hodler. It is my honour to meet you”.

Not much later Hodler signed a petition against the German bombing of Reims Cathedral,and attended a dinner with the emperor wearing not any German orders of merit but the rosette of the French Legion of Honour on his jacket After which public opinion wanted all his paintings in Germany destroyed. The Kaiser just had them boarded up.

Almost a hundred years later Hodlers’ paintings are worth almost 6.000,000  dollars each.

Not many people can afford one,but you can look at them at the present Hodler Exhibition at the Art Museum in Bern.showing a hundred and fifty of Hodlers works from museums and private owners.

One is missing.

It was collected from the owner before the exhibition by a woman with an identity card showing herself to be an employee of the Bern Museum and it hasn’t been seen since.

If you are wondering how long it took “Old Man Winter” to burn in Zürich yesterday.(See Post)
It took 26 Minutes and 1 second. For the records anyway.
His head was long gone before the big bang was heard. (Who was to blame for that?)

It means of course we are in for a bad Summer here if the oracle is to be believed.
It means too that Basle can laugh over Zürich again at their next Carnival.

Every year the Guilds of Zürich celebrate with great gusto their traditional Spring Festival called “Sechseläuten”,or Six O’Clock Bells.

Celebrations get well under way on Sunday with the parade of the children dressed in historic costumes walking through the streets of the inner city.

On Monday the parade of the Guilds takes place.
After, everyone meets by the Lake, where punctually at six p.m. the effigy of “Old Man Winter” is burnt on a huge bonfire while riders in costume gallop around it.

It is said that the kind of Summer we can expect depends on the time it takes for the effigy to explode.

I never care either way,more important to me is that Winter has at last gone.

59% of the people who were asked this question in Switzerland last week said yes. It won’t help of course.It wouldn’t help if most of the world said yes. The only thing that would help is that the athletes themselves refused to take part. But they are not going to do that,because it is all a matter of gain. Advantage, whether it is personal merit, or business profit. Human suffering, is just something that gets in the way. They knew it would. And they still chose China.

On the 6th of March I wrote a post on the possibility of snow for Easter.

We have hardly had a snow flake in this part of Switzerland the whole winter. In fact my husband and I sat on the terrace of the Hotel Hirschen in Obermeilen a month ago watching the sailing boats on the Lake of Zürich and enjoyed a glass of white wine without having our jackets on.

We were all sure not only Spring but Summer was on it’s way.

How wrong we were.

It has snowed here the whole of Easter.Today it is 2°C, and as I look out of the window now it is still snowing.

Sunday Morning Breakfast in Switzerland wouldn’t be the same without Zopf.

Fresh Plait, or Zopf as we say , thickly spread with Emmentaler butter and home made jam is a feast for the Gods.

It’s easy to make and a hundred times better than any mass produced supermarket product.

Beginners might find the plaiting a bit complicated.There are different ways of doing it,but if you do get stuck use the same method as you would for hair.

This is the easiest way.

This is a little more complicated.

Here is the Recipe: Swiss Zopf

30g fresh yeast (dry if unavailable)

1teaspoon of sugar

125g butter

3.75 deciliter of milk

1 teaspoon of salt

750g white flour

2 egg yolks mixed with 1 Tablespoon of oil

Mix yeast with sugar and leave to dissolve. ( If using dry yeast mix as instructed on packet)

Dissolve salt in the hand warm milk,add melted butter then add egg mixture.

Sieve flour into bowl,make a hollow and add dissolved yeast,then slowly add milk and egg mixture. Mix together.
Need for about 10 minutes .

Cover with a wet cloth or cling film.Place in bowl and leave in a warm place for about an hour, until dough has doubled in volume.

Or leave, covered by film in fridge over night.

Need again for 5-10 minutes.

Divide into strips and plait.

Leave on greased oven tray to rest for 15 minutes.

Brush with egg yolk and bake in pre-heated oven at 200°C for about 40 minutes. Lower shelf.
Bread is done if it sounds hollow when tapped on base with knuckles.

If you have enjoyed this bread while visiting Switzerland I am sure you will want to make it yourself.

As an alternative it can be formed into a small or large wreath at Eastertime,the centre later filled with coloured eggs resting on green cress. Or form into chicken or other birds. Children love helping with this.
If you prefer a sweeter dough try adding a little sugar and dried sultanas.

Enjoy being creative.

There were always certain “must have’s” if you were a visitor to Switzerland. Apart from opening a Bank Account.Cheese Fondue had to be tasted,and Chocolate, and miniature or otherwise Cowbells taken home for the neighbours.

One item that was always very sought after was an Appenzeller Farmers Belt. Tourists still buy them but they definitively went out of fashion in Switzerland with the oncome of the big Italian G, and George Bush’s Texas Style.

Pity really, for they were a superb belt for holding up Jeans and virtually unbreakable,providing you had an original leather one with its brass applications. Like the farmers of the two counties in the north east of Switzerland,tough and weatherable with a good sprinkling of humour.

The last time I actually saw one being worn was on Kia in Canada last December,and she had it around her neck.

Now I’m not a fashion freak as I don’t like standing out in a crowd,which I do anyway,but I like to keep up with what women are wearing and adapt it to my style and wardrobe-(takes years off of you ) So it was with interest that I read about a slowly coming trend. Appenzeller Farmers Belts. Just the thing for Jeans,and matches everything apparently.
If you happened to want an absolute original from the first little store in Appenzell that made them you could pay over a thousand francs (about the same in dollars) for it.

Now Kia ’s Mother gave me one, an original bought from one of her first pay checks, and it has been leading a quiet life at the back of one of my drawers for a long time now.

I got it out,it still looks like new and it even fits.

I’m wearing it in my Jeans today.