Theme: Station, Kissing Couple, S. Ritter

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*****

Wise indeed are those who combine a hobby – photography – with making money for a worthy cause.  Below are:  Stefan Ritter, Christiane Dawson, Ralf Gschwend and Pierre Bongard.   Action Sabrina,  for which Sfr.10,000. was gratefully raised, was represented by Christiane Dawson the founder of this childrens’ cancer charity.

A fantastic fun night that opened our hearts, our minds and perhaps our wallets (!) shared amongst friends, family and interested members of the public.  A big thank you to all of those who came along especially the readers of this blog who graced us and especially me, with their presence.

It’s mushroom season and Saturday saw Mr. Jules and I up with the larks foraging in the woods above….well I’m not allowed to say as it’s a secret.  Friday night we received A PHONE CALL with A TIP-OFF from Fausto, an Italian technician on one of Mr. Jules’ trusty teams.  He has been feeling sorry for our pathetic attempts to find what the locals call “bolets” (porcini).  In fact last year we threw in the basket and didn’t go at all.  Being a short Italian he has two distinct advantages when it comes to mushrooming:  a) Close to the ground and b) Being Italian he is by birth a forager.  We came home with four kilos of porcini.  My first sign.

As we were foraging Mr. J. jokingly remarked that we were becoming one of those older couples who  replace sex with joint “activities”.  I knew what he was getting at.  August has been a rocky month with a lot of highs and lows namely a long low period during which Mr. J. had a ding dong with some contractors and was seriously worried about one of his projects.  Like most men this meant a long time down under in his Man Cave whilst the rest of us kept out of his way and waited for him to emerge.  It was a long ceaze and there were many angry phone calls and tense moments – only normal when you work from home – but this did not lead to anticipatory moments in the antechamber.  In fact it was rather thorny. 

A girlfriend once told me about an ex-husband who used to try and convince her to have sex with him by saying:

“Go on, you won’t feel a thing.”

The irony being just that.

Today on my run I decided, for no logical reason, to go up a track that in all of my 17 years of hiking/running/chasing kids in the woods above our house I always (wrongly) thought led to the dusty old gravel pit.  And finally I found THE LAKE.  The one  people had been telling me about for years and that I didn’t believe existed.  Now, today, two days before I leave.  Surrounded by bullrushes and yellow flowers it sits languidly between the leafy Jura and the snow-tipped alps to the south.  I stood spell-bound basking in the discovery.  What a gift from nature.  My second sign.

All will be well.

I can go now.

NEXT BLOG FROM LONDON!!!

It is a slight stretch, in fact it is a Boarding House reach out of Mr. J’s comfort zone.  Used to crunching numbers and problem solving, his right hand creative brain lying dormant under layers of dust, has been punched bagged into action.  

Each photographer has to take four photographs from each of the following three themes making a total of twelve.  These will then be framed and sold for a few gold coins:

Cemetery

Station

Simplicity

Now the first two are left hand brainers where you just set the GPS and turn up and shoot but the last has been causing all sorts of problems to poor old Mr. J.’s under-used right side.  In desperation he acknowledges that we females of the race really do have some good qualities and he has been sucking the three women in this house dry for ideas:

Here’s a typical conversation that has taken place all summer with Mr. J, the three women in closest proximity, visiting relatives and even Marlyse the dog walker:

“What shall I do?  What does this mean this SIMplicity?”

“It’s your interpretation not ours, it has to come from YOU (duh).”

Again: “But what does it mean?”

“What you THINK it means is what it means.”

Mr. J. looks crestfallen and way-befuddled.

Females sighing:  “It has to be evocative.”

Mr. Jules looks wobbly.

“It has to stir something in the viewer.”

This then sparks an animated conversation between the present females on the subject.  Mr. Jules’ eyes glaze over and he quietly leaves the room.

Below is the invitation, please come along and view the photos and have a glass of wine with us.

I N V I T A T I O N

3 Guys – 3 Cameras – 3 Visions

 Join us, bring a friend -
and share a glass of wine during our
upcoming Photographic Exhibition.

PLEASE SAVE THE DATE
Vernissage
6PM to 9PM
Friday 3^rd of September

Quadrum Gallery
17, rue du Nord
1180 Rolle,Switzerland

Stefan, Ralfonso, Pierre

All Proceeds will go to the Charity “Action-Sabrina”, http://www.action-sabrina.ch/ .

I am monosyllabic, speechless, lost for words.  So out of character.  My word synapses are sizzled with over-firing.  I’ve spent the past week with Madre.   The weather was beautiful so we stayed put and sat in the garden. We had people over for  lunch in fact we took all our meals in the garden watching the bees flitting around the lavender inbetween breaths. 

One of the very good things that happened to my father – along with the years he spent in the navy – was meeting my mother.  Such a taciturn character (a gene that none of the women in the family inherited) and a sweet, kind man (ditto for me at least) they balanced each other perfectly.  I know sometimes his taciturnity drove my mother mad and probably her loquacity drove him mad, but until he was cruelly taken from her, their’s was a very happy marriage as neither looked for perfection in the other or made the other responsible for their own happiness.  That’s why I will be with Mr. J. until one of us kicks the bucket or he kicks me out.

*****

The boy is back from Luffbra via Newquay sporting a yellow head.

 ”It was a prank for charity.  Five of us did it.  We went to the pound shop.  Funny.  It turned out a different colour on each of us.”  The same five will shortly be visiting us here in Switzerland so if you see five sporty looking lads with orange/yellow/white heads having a larf, you know it’s Ollie’s crew.

“It’s better than a tattoo,” said Madre wisely.

*****

And yesterday Alexia’s top secret farewell party organised by the very forward thinking Ellen and her mum Sarah which took place in our garden.  The whole school year was invited to celebrate the end of their junior school years and to wish Alexia luck in London.  Twenty-one kids swam, ate and boomed away the late afternoon.  Sarah had made a photo album for Alexia and asked each child to write a message which will be perfect in London as a reminder of her friends back home.  It is Rabbit Boy’s turn to write.  He with the Rooney ears, rough edges and parents who breed rabbits for the table and eye us expats suspiciously.  His name is Mikael and as Sarah hands him the book to annotate, the whole year huddle around him.

“Bravo Mikael.  Well done Mikael, look how well you did that A.  Bien fait, tu t’es très bien concentré.”  Squeezing the letters out of this sweet country boy is a team effort and no-one gets left behind.

At the end of the summer Mikael will go down to Nyon to a special learning school.

“Did you like Mikael mummy?” asked Alexia as she drifted off to sleep.

“Very much so.  I think we should invite him again. I don’t think he gets to swim in a pool very often.” 

At the end of their junior school years here most will go up to the big secondary school in the next village over.  Some will go onto smaller private schools and some will go to schools for those with learning disabilities.  Alexia going off to her school in London is more privileged than Mikael there is no doubt, but only on a material level.    They have lived 25 metres apart,  breathed the same air, played on the same football pitch and attended the same village school.  In Switzerland everyone gets the same start and no one can say whose life will be better.  Let us hope they will both have beautiful lives but most importantly let us hope that Mikael and Alexia will always be friends.

 ”It’s the sugar,” said my friend Martha reaching into the freezer for a bottle of vodka.

“It’s the sugar in the wine that gives you the hangover.”

We are standing in her kitchen a few evenings after we both attended a very raucous affair where I, it appears, drank too much because I couldn’t function properly for a few days after.  I’m not talking about getting drunk here as there is nothing so deeply unattractive as a drunk woman, I’m just talking about having a good time and drinking a tad more than the daily recommended allowance dictated to us by the nanny state.

“How much did you drink?” she asked kindly almost masking the incredulity in her voice. 

Martha is tall and blonde and savvy .  She worked out long ago that wine gives her headaches and makes her feel lousy but spirits, in particular vodka, are her friend and can be drunk with little side effects. 

“Around three glasses of wine with the dinner.” (I didn’t like to mention the glass of champagne prior to the red wine as well, it sort of slipped my memory standing as I was next to this alpha woman).

“Did you have a headache?”  She continued

“No, just that yucky liverish feeling and no energy for two days!”

A horrified look flitters over her face.  “Were you hungry the next day?”

“Yes, famished.”

“Sugar does that,” she said shaking her head wisely.  ”Sugar and Alcohol don’t mix! The only remedy being a hot night on the dance floor. Burn baby burn!!!!”  She intoned clinking ice into her drink.

I like to drink.  I like a glass of red wine at night, even if I’m all alone.   And I like to drink when I go out socially. In other words I don’t want to give it up.  It is one of my few vices along with watching Oprah.  But alas, excessively bad-tempered and humourless in the days following a night out, are not doing much for my reputation and obviously my liver just ain’t what it used to be. 

But here’s the thing.  One:  Brits don’t abstain, it is our/my social oil.  Two: Some occasions, it has to be said, need a little buzz going just to get through them.  Ever been to a nightclub sober?  Christmas without a drink?  It is a depressing thought.

What I really need is a spare body part.  I need a new liver to strap on every time I’m out having fun, a sort of medical bum bag, a cute little Geisha Girl’s hump which can be thrown away – along with the hangover – once home.  In the meantime whilst I wait for medical science to catch up,  if you see a middle-aged woman flinging herself around a dance floor at a party don’t worry, you know it’s only me, burning baby burning!!!