Seasons' Greetings

It's my last "working day" of the year, although I will have to bring some work and study with me when I go away over Christmas and New Year. I'm hoping to have enough calm and time to think about this year and all that it's brought, and - barring the invention of working crystal balls in the next week - figure out what I'm going to try to do next year.

In the meantime, I wish you and yours a wonderful end of year, whatever you call it, and all the very best for 2013.

What Switzerland is made of

We've had a fun few days with friends who came to see Switzerland's Christmas markets with us. Friday was spent exploring the two market squares full of stalls in Basel and the train station in Zurich, then Saturday in the two squares and under the train station in Lucerne... the plan for Sunday was to go to Bern, but we didn't get started early enough and the market there closed at 5:00 pm, so we ended up wandering around Zurich again and having some amazing 70% cocoa hot chocolate in a flammkuchen restaurant in the Old Town. The Christmas markets were pretty good, with not so much looking mass produced although there were disturbingly similar stalls in all three markets, even for things you would think were handmade, like wooden carved goods.

It snowed almost constantly on Sunday and Monday, although it was all blown away by a storm last night. I walked around town with Ada on Monday and we stopped into the amazing Sprungli café at Paradeplatz. It's a tie for which hot chocolate is better (both 70% cocoa) and their cakes are amazing!

Ada anticipating all that chocolately goodness, plus apple strudel and coffee éclair.

 She had a mug of hot chocolate, while I ordered a 'portion' - turns out to a hot silver jug full of hot chocolate, with a dark chocolate on the side!

We had had enough chocolate after that (believe it or not) so we then went for a herbal tea (mainly to avoid having to go outside in the cold and snow again). Ada had a rooibos with tangerine, and I had a ginger and lemon.

 After seeing her off at the station I went to see himself, he had just moved desks into a new part of the office and the catering staff were excelling themselves as usual.

Boats and lights and biscuits

I finished off my set of boat coasters!

Really happy with how they turned out, although the thread wasn't finished off as well as I would have liked. It is dark brown on dark brown, so at least it's not too obvious.

I headed into town yesterday evening to pick up some mirin and have a look in the hobby section of the large Migros in Brunau. I noticed on my way to the station that there were signs up for a Christmas market on the weekend of 1-2 December (coincidentally when our guests are here), and that the local Civil Defense had put up the municipal Christmas tree.

I headed into the main station (there's a small Korean restaurant and food shop nearby that sells Japanese ingredients as well) and found that the city Christmas lights were up on Bahnhofstrasse. I do like them.

The lights at the large Sihlcity shopping centre were slightly less subtle.

After checking out the crafting supplies - and other things that I could repurpose - I headed towards David's office for a coffee, passing the rather odd castle near the business park that was festively floodlit.

We did some paperwork and tidying up on Saturday, and had a friend around to watch Iron Sky. I tried making the soft pumpkin cookie recipe that Austa sent me, using a freshly baked pumpkin with lebkuchen spice mix and some chopped dried apple instead of nuts. They needed a little more than 15 minutes to cook, but they were amazing! Nearly all gone already, and I think I know what I'll be doing with the other pumpkin too. ^_^

For the person who has everything...

... I bet they don't have a fluffy cockroach.

Make and do

I didn't just do things over the weekend - I made things! Well, almost. I had some finishing off to do tonight, but I've done the washbag kit I bought in John Lewis in London oh so long ago, and have finished off two of the six coasters from the kit I bought in Japan even longer ago.

The finished washbag, with a ribbon and button closure.

 It's even lined - something I was always convinced would be far more difficult than it actually was (and yes, the lining coming up over the top is a design feature, not just me).

One of the boat coasters, ingeniously made from two square pieces of fabric. So ingenious I've been afraid of the instructions for about two years. 

The pattern calls for beads hung off the ends, but I liked the idea of buttoning up the sides instead. And I just bought loads of buttons the last time I was in Dublin. 

The finishing touches waiting to go on the remaining four boats, some other evening.

So, overall very happy with myself. I'm learning what the sewing machine can and can't do, and getting used to guiding the fabric. I have a few other things I'm looking forward to trying out, including interfacing. It's a brave new world.

Sushi and cake

I finally managed to catch up with Mr Yamaguchi last week - we met up at the Japanese bakery in Sood-Oberleimbach, Hiro Takahashi. Where we had - sushi! It was absolutely delicious, hand made by the chef himself.

I gave Mr Yamaguchi my origami paper. I have too much craft stuff. I decided to concentrate on the other stuff - jewellery and fabric - and leave the paper to the expert. We had a great chat and found out what the other was doing, and we got an invite to their new place outside Bern.

I also mentioned that it was David's birthday the next day, and before I knew what was going on, Mr Yamaguchi had arranged for Hiro Takahashi to put together an amazing strawberry mousse cake! I failed to pay for it. I will get my revenge somehow!

David bought the cake into work and people loved it, so I hope it brings more business to the bakery!

Bear

A warm welcome to the newest inhabitant of my desk - a spirit bear from the Grand Canyon.

He's officially a fetish bear, but I learned the other definition of that word first, so I'll stick with spirit bear.

That makes three bears, a frog, a sea slug and a nautilus. The joys of having a large desk.

Lingering

The snow has stopped falling, but is still out there - unsurprisingly, since it's about +1 C. I'm going to have to turn up the heating, as my fingers are turning blue if I leave them out on the keyboard long enough to type a sentence.

And the birds have decimated the feeders.

Schnee

Looks like the weather forecast was right.

It's due to warm up next week, so I doubt it will stay long. The birds don't seem to mind at all, I saw all four great tits on the feeder (one pecking at the water), the sparrows were darting in and out and two blackbirds were chasing each other noisily through the garden. ^_^

I made myself some breakfast and took it back to bed.

Strange days

Finally got around to sorting out the big blue Ikea bag that was full of my stuff from the last time I sold any of my jewellery - in March on the anniversary of the earthquake in Japan. I took inventory of all the remaining pieces and found that I couldn't name one of the semi-precious stones. You know you've been away for too long when that happens.

Decided to do a draft list of people for physical and e-cards for Christmas and (Japanese) New Year. The last list I could find to edit was from two years ago, and I found myself having to take some people off the list as they had passed away in the meantime. Very strange feeling.

Here, there, everywhere

We were barely back from Berlin before himself had to get ready for a three week work trip to the USA, and me for a 10-day one back to Dublin. Thanks to everyone who sent Dad good wishes for his surgery, it all seems to have gone perfectly and fingers crossed his vision will improve before the end of the year as the corneal graft settles in.

Apart from juggling the flood of work that predictably came in just when I couldn't take it on, I've wandered far, far outside my comfort zone with the amazing Experimental Genome Science course that I found after someone pointed me at the Writing for the Sciences course on the same site (Coursera). The courses are all free, you just need to put in the time and do the assignments. Experimental Genome Science is aimed at entry-level graduate students in genetics, which I am not, so I'm not sure if I'll make it all the way through but so far it is fascinating if an awful lot of hard work. The Writing for the Sciences course is much more my speed and I'm enjoying it immensely, especially the tips on writing and revising.

And thinking ahead - it feels like the end of the year already - a search for images to use for my Japanese New Year cards led me (in a rather roundabout way) to the very lovely LittleLion Studio. Not that any of their images are suitable for the cards, but I just love them to bits.

Berlin!

I'm still working on getting all my camera photos of Berlin in order, but hopefully it will be done by/at the weekend. Took far, far too many photos in the zoo and aquarium....

We loved Berlin. It wasn't what we expected at all. It was wide open spaces and never crowded, chilly but sunny, full of places to stop and talk and eat and then realise that you were surrounded by history. The first reaction was that we'll be back. As a bonus, I got to meet a translator I've worked with on the Japan Society school exchanges - we got on like a house on fire - and another translator who was in Berlin at a conference.

The U-Bahn trains had the Brandenburg Gate printed on every surface.

A double pumpkin delight at a restaurant in Hackescher Markt - pumpkin soup with smoked duck breast...

Followed by linguine with huge slabs of roast pumpkin and shallots. Couldn't finish!

Our sugar rush on Saturday, a German dessert made with pancakes, raisins and slivered almonds, served with fruit compote and ice cream.

There was a spot of rain on Saturday, so we nipped in to the Ritter showroom/shop. Their half-bitter hot chocolates were amazing!

And finally, a bit of strangeness from Zurich station, when I was there yesterday trying and failing to send a DHL parcel.

Notes from Switzerland

Well, in case you were wondering, the Christmas season appears to have officially started. The cheerful orange-shirted staff in Migros were busy building a display with Christmas lebekuchen when we were in there on Saturday.

We had a quiet weekend as we were both tired. We walked from ours in to the local shopping centre, taking plenty of detours around the river. And stumbled across things that I've only ever seen here.

Pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins

I ordered new fans for my old Macbook Pro, which arrived very quickly from the US. Himself kindly installed them for me on Saturday, and while digging through the stuff I'd left on the laptop I found a flyer for last year's pumpkin festival at a farm on the other side of the lake - and just in time, because their next festival was on the following day! Here are the photos of the pumpkin festival, with its Olympic-themed pumpkin sculptures.

The fans work beautifully and the laptop is just as quiet and well, no warmer than it was when new although that's not saying much. Unfortunately, when I plugged it out for a moment to plug it into a different socket, it died on its arse. The battery says it's not charging (although the generic battery status indicator says it should be replaced soon but is still fine to use. Right).

The only other news is that I've signed up for my next two OU courses - another short course, about plants and all they do for us (and what we do to them) and a bigger one, made of two 15-unit courses on cardiac disease and cancer mashed together. Being on the transitional fee arrangements meant I paid £300 less for the longer course, although the short one was mysteriously £15 more than the previous ones.

This now means I'll have three weeks in October where both these new courses and my current vulcanology/seismology and alternative to oil courses are running, so that's lots of incentive to get the two current ones finished ahead of time... after that, I just have 20 units left on Level 1, so it'll be nuclear energy and forensic science and then on to Level 2 for more chemistry and biology.

Yay for recipes

Because they turn this:

Into this:

I normally make these without the glaze (and the little flowers, which are in the original recipe) but decided to try it this time as we were taking them as dessert. And kudos to himself for the idea to pop the cupcakes back into the warm oven to melt the glaze and get it to spread evenly. ^_^

Foxy!

We took our guests to see the Wildpark last Saturday, and saw all kinds of things - wolves, bears, wild boar, beavers, alpine ibex, wild cats, lynx, elk, buffalo... and the cutest red foxes!

This one didn't care that there was a crowd of people just a few feet away. Maybe we were in the cage from where he was looking.

In your eyes

Himself looks out at Lake Zurich on a sunny Saturday.

Brand name tentacles

Walking back from dropping friends off at their hotel last night, we passed by something himself had seen before and referred to as the "tentacle window display". Turns out it's the windows of Louis Vuitton, empty of their products and instead filled with the characteristic dots and eyes of artist Yayoi Kusama.

Not quite right

Last Sunday we went for a walk along the ridge of the hills behind us, taking the Felsenegg cable car up from behind the station. There was something a little bit curious about one of the road signs.

Nothing wrong here, some lovely German literalness - cable car street. But what's that at the bottom?

Hmm. Didn't know there was a combat kitty.

And this spotted in the 2Fr shop by the station today. Another I'm-not-sure-that's-licensed moment!

暑中お見舞い申し上げます

炎暑ことのほかきびしい中お変わりなくお過ごしでいらっしゃいますか。

色々とお世話になりながらもご無沙汰してしまい申し訳ありません。お蔭様で相変わらず元気に暮らしています。

この写真は京都水族館で見かけたかわいいハコフグです。

この暑さはまだしばらく続きそうです。くれぐれもご自愛ください。

Summer greetings!

Japan has a tradition of sending greetings in mid-summer, the hottest time of the year, to keep in touch with friends and family. So I'm sending you this exceedingly cute boxfish who was causing a logjam at Kyoto Aquarium. (They're really sweet. Until they get startled, release a toxin and kill everything else in the tank.)

We'll be in Zurich for the foreseeable future, so please let us know how you're doing and if we can see you sometime soon, here or elsewhere!

Swiss Miss

We had a nice lazy day yesterday - Swiss national day - sleeping in, having a late lunch, heading out to meet a friend, ending up at the apartment of some other friends for BBQ, then down to the lake for some amazing fireworks. I had no idea what you could get these days, some of the rockets and cakes were amazing. We headed home after midnight, and got utterly drenched on the way back from the station by a sudden thunderstorm. (Himself wondered if all the fireworks had seeded the clouds.) I'm sure the fire brigade were glad to see it.

We also got a leaflet from a nationalist party asking us to sign a petition to kick criminal foreigners out of the country (I'm sure that must already be a law, you can get kicked out for being on benefits here) - but there seems to be one foreign cat they're happy to let in... And the amusingly-named "Lady Crackers".

Finally!

When I was in Tottori in May, my client took me to a 'recycle shop' where people sell what they don't want or need (clothes, furniture, electronics, games, books... you name it) and others buy what they fancy. In my case, this meant Japanese fabric, and especially kimono and yukata. I got two kimono with matching haori (overcoats), one kimono on its own, a yukata and a roll of cloth for 2,000 yen. Posting it surface mail cost 4,000 yen! And it's finally arrived, just over 2 months since I posted it. Now I just need to learn to sew well enough that I don't waste them...