You Would Look Pretty in Pink

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.

The end of a bad name

I am still struggling with my watercolour painting. After almost a year of weekly classes I don’t see a lot of improvement in my work,and I still seem to make the same silly mistakes. With watercolour it is difficult to amend them once the paint is on the paper and I don’t want to cheat and use white goache. So I thought I would go on a painting holiday where I could paint without interruption ,and have tuition too, once the weather improved.

So I contacted a very helpful lady at creArtive,Rhodes explaining what I wanted and that when considering different groups I fitted into what I think is known as a senior citizen, but my eyesight still enables me to paint and my hand doesn’t shake. I felt almost ashamed to admit that I wasn’t young any more, even though my generation of war babies had done more than many to alter the course of the world. But then I thought of the Rolling Stones and said what the hell.

Somehow the names given to people having reached the age of 55 seem to me discriminating, and does nothing to make us feel better on having reached retirement age in the first place. OLDIES, PENSIONERS even WRINKLIES. !!

Why can’t we introduce a more acceptable name for the old hippies, 68ers and war veterans.

I would suggest,

SEENAGERS

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end.

But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”

Winston Churchill 1874-1965

Civil Courage in the Catholic Church. A woman speaks up.

Monika Schmid is head of the Catholic Community in the town that I live.

A Woman. It is difficult to find enough Catholic Priests these days in a country where half the population is Catholic.

Maybe people can’t believe in the preachings of the Catholic Church any more. In a five minute TV programme which runs just after the main news and before the evening peak viewing starts on a Saturday, representatives of the religious communities in the German speaking part of Switzerland alternately are asked to talk on some theme for thought on Sunday.
Monika Schmid was chosen lately, and she had the courage to sock it to 630’000 viewers in a true Harper Valley P.T.A. manner.

Based on the latest scandal in which yet again a Catholic Priest had abused a child and had been “hidden” by the Church in a small out of the way Parish.

Frau Schmid found it unbelievable that Priests who break the rules of celibacy must leave the Church and others that sexually abuse young boys are at least for a time hidden and may continue their role in a Parish. It was no wonder that the Church had fewer followers.

She was of course summoned to an audience with her Bishop.

I would say a woman was needed in the Vatican.

Oh Do Belt Up!

There were always certain “must haves,and must do’s” if you were a visitor to Switzerland. Apart from opening a Bank Account. Cheese Fondue had to be tasted, and Chocolate of course, 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 weathered 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.

Circle of Friends

I began the week feeling miserable and depressed although I had no grounds for it.

It wasn’t the lack of sun, central and northern Europe have been enjoying an exceptionally sunny February,but I felt nasty and was being nasty to those around me.

Then I heard within twenty four hours from three friends that I don’t see often.

A woman that I met on a beach in Thailand and found that we had so much in common .

A person far away that has influenced me and who I love so much it hurts.

And someone else who over the years has become more and more a friend to me.

I am so thankful.

This morning a note of paper with this printed on it fell out of a telephone book while I was looking for a number.Someone had sent it to me, I don’t know when with the message; ” It would be great to see you again”.

I’d like to share it with you,

The Circle

A ball is a circle,

No beginning, no end.

It keeps us together

Like our circle of Friends

But the treasure inside

For you to see

Is the treasure of friendship

You ‘ve granted me.

How could I have felt so miserable.

Call a friend.

Kosovo Declares It’s Independence

For a Sunday the Bahnhofstrasse was surprisingly busy this afternoon.

The weather was cold, but sunny so we thought everyone was out taking advantage of the Spring like day.

We heared the tooting of car horns and at first thought it was coming from supporters of a football derby being played in the Hardturm,but then as we reached the first crossroad we saw that this was something rather different.

Passengers of cars were hanging red and black flags out of the windows while the drivers seemed to have their hand continually on the horns causing an almost deafening noise.

The peaceful Sunday afternoon in the city was over.

It’s Kosovo I said.They have declared their independence whether Vladimir Putin likes it or not.

Kosovo and Serbia have been fighting against each other for the last 800 years. They endured many aggressors,and took on the faith of the Ottoman Empire. They are still fighting the Serbs in the north of their country but the tables have been turned.
After the last war the estimated loss of lives in Kosovo was 12,000.

In August 2000 the International Criminal Tribunal exhumed 2,788 bodies from mass graves. 3368 civilians have never been been found.

Many of the refugees came to Switzerland, it is said a third of the male population looked for work in Switzerland and Germany. We harboured their shadow Prime Minister Bujar Bukoshi too, and much of the work and funding of the Kosovo Liberation Army came from exiles here.

From today they are on their own. Judging by the cars flying the Albanian flag ” they made it here,” the ones I saw were all big and shiny. One of the reasons maybe why they aren’t particularly liked. The average Swiss can’t afford that kind of car,to say nothing of the average refugee.

The question is what will happen in the Balkans now , and will the Kosovo Albanians leave their good life here and go back to Pristina where they are needed.

Sharia shire in England

Although I do sometimes get homesick for England but I think I would probably go mad if I lived there.

It was bad enough that England decided they needed an Italian to show them how to play football, but now the Archbishop of Canterbury, of all people rants on about how we should accept the idea that the Muslim communities are allowed their Sharia Courts of Justice. His Grace is truly well read of course and knew that there were several different types of Sharia Courts. Although he didn’t say so I’m sure he didn’t mean the acceptance of the Sharia criminal courts. The media and other people could see them hacking hands off up on Tower Hill if it were allowed, and the shouting began.
So England is the home of the Magna Carta,and Habeas Corpus, and the people wanting the Sharia mostly have British citizenship but I can’t help thinking all this takes the proverbial cake.

Over the last years British traditions have had to be put aside so as not to hurt or affront the mimosa like dispositions of people from other cultures who chose and are allowed to live in our country.

Has no one heard of the saying “When in Rome do as the Romans do”

I know the Middle East and you certainly better do it there.

If people cannot except the law, customs and traditions of a country why don’t they just pack up and go to one that meets their cultural needs. I don’t think the UK sent anyone a written invitation to stay.

The Archbishop of Canterbury was probably last in trouble in England during the reign of King Henry II. I wonder what this ones fate will be?

Hera

Hera is calling, and we will return,

Bound with her twine, long faded by Aegean light.

Where blue meets blue she stands and beckons us home.

Two kindred souls,

Mortals yearning for her ethereal world.

Not daunted by passing time

In foreign lands both grey and cold .

The echo of her laughter is heard by fools.

Food to free you in Lent

Since the scales in my local medical man’s practice pointed out lately that I had actually put on 8 kilos in weight since I stopped going to work in March I have realised I must start being cruel to myself. It probably doesn’t seem too alarming, I now weigh 66 kg at a height of 5′ 8″. But I know………….

° 1 overweight kilo is equal to the weight of 8 kilos on the knee joints.( x8!)
° I have a wardrobe full of expensive trousers that I can’t get into.

° My favourite food, cakes,pastries,chocolate are just not healthy.

° And that there are tens of other reasons why we shouldn’t eat to kill either ourselves or animals.
° That I must do something about it.

Luckily a friend phoned soon after to ask me whether I would like to go to a talk by a nutritionist and natural health practitioner,who had cured something that she was suffering with by rearranging her eating habits. And that when our colleagues in white coats were already sharpening their knives.

I went along open minded but sceptical.

The practitioner herself was underweight and you could see it. Her husband, also there, didn’t have a pound to much and neither did most of the sixty people in the audience, a lot of them her patients.

She told us she had been diagnosed as having Multiple Sclerosis at the age of twenty one with the prognosis of being in a wheel chair at thirty five,she was now fifty two, and since she changed her way of eating completely, about ten years ago,she had never had a relapse. She didn’t say what if any medication she was taking.

Her audience were each given an unpeeled almond nut and told to chew it 40 times before swallowing, as not chewing properly was the first sin we all commit. Not breathing deeply enough the second, and not drinking enough the third.

And so it went on ,but I must say it sounded very feasible.

We must listen more to our bodies, and if we have a craving for a certain food then we should eat it because the damage is worse if we don’t, stress caused by declining a bodily wish is the greater of the two evils. But keep the portion small,and if the temptation comes too frequently chew it but spit it out before you swallow it.!

I don’t like meat much so I would have no trouble in giving that up, apart from feeling it not necessary to breed and keep animals in so we can eat them. Non red meat would be allowed in small quantities,but then you must eat nothing else for the rest of the day that isn’t cooked because meat stays in the stomach for twelve hours and would prove too strenuous for the digestion. Cow milk isn’t good for the digestive system and arteries. If we were meant to drink milk after baby age women’s bodies would have been made differently.Cow milk protein(Kasein) when mixed with calcium proves almost indissoluble in our stomachs and clogs all arteries and veins. We can get all the proteins we need from other sources we were told. –And I just love jogurt and Welsh Rarebit made with a good slashing of butter on the toast. Bread if it is not gluten free is also a no go, thing to say nothing of cakes etc. made out of wheat flour. Gluten glues the intestines together.! Chocolate is still O K when it is made of 100% Cocoa.

Our sweeteners should be honey,dates and raw cane sugar,dried fruit and bananas. Other sugar products,Cola,Sweetened Ice Tea,Lemonade etc. damages the flora of the intestines,apart from poisoning the nerves and ruining teeth.

Depending on weight drink 2 to 3 liters of fluid,water,tea,fresh fruit and vegetable juice daily. Drink before meals and not during or after.

If possible don’t eat carbohydrates and proteins together in the same meal.

Coffee and spirits? forget them,but a glass of wine is tolerated.

OK so I didn’t really come out a freshly baked Vegan,but it all made a lot of sense.

I have tried to keep to some of the rules and haven’t had any real cravings.( I did eat a small Brownie that someone brought to Art Classes yesterday)

I’m telling myself I must be a bit healthier, and my trousers aren’t quite as tight as they were two weeks ago.

Why don’t you try it for Lent

Illustration,thanks to istockphoto.com

No time for writing or painting I’m too busy doing housework

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.