Visitor

We had a visitor in our garden on Sunday!

Swiss life

Everything is gearing up for national day next week (1 August), with all kinds of Swiss flag or Swiss traditional pattern tat overflowing the shelves in the supermarkets. And all made in China, which I was a bit surprised by.

Right now, all you need to "heat and melt" at least is to leave chocolate out of the fridge.

We managed to escape from the heat yesterday - we met up with Dawn in Lucern and although it was a hot 33°C with a "felt heat" of 40°C thanks to humidity, we got the bus to the cable car and switched to the gondola to go up and away into the mountains to Pilatus, which was 20°C degrees - heaven! We also managed to get a little burnt despite putting on sun block, but it was still very worth it.

A new experience - a goat jam. The one on the stairs was not moving for anything. And some little hitch-hikers we found when we sat down.

There was a huge wait for the gondola to go back down, but just as we went to see if the cog railway was running some staff appeared at the gate to say yes, it was, swapped our tickets for us and ushered us onto the last of three cars making the descent. Thank you! And what a descent it is. And just to prove that Swiss cows get everywhere, there were some at the side of the tracks...

Dawn was just back from Japan and had brought us some amazing omiyage - a "lobster kitty" bag and "lobster kitty" and "candle kitty" sticky note set from Mie! Love the regional Hello Kittys. And we got a box of the delicious senbei crackers she brought us before, but the summer edition this time! Even the packaging is cute.

Angels, Divas, The Master and Mr Perfect and other stories

Last week was a bit crazy. I had lots of work, and we ended up doing lots of other things as well. One was seeing an apartment in Wadenswil, which we both really liked - incredibly quiet despite being close to two train lines, small garden, beautiful finish on the apartment... but the layout of the rooms wasn't something we thought we could use. The master bedroom was as large as the front room, and the current residents had divided it in half to make a bedroom and lounge area with TV, which was fine for them and their kids and made good use of the space but wasn't really something we'd do. Another bonus for the place was the hobby room which had been converted to hold a sauna and two-person bath/shower spa unit, and it was built on the site of an old brewery - the tower was still there and just down a steep path was a barbecue area with the waterfall that used to supply the brewery. Not sure what happened to the sign, as it's in a cul de sac down a small path...

Not so good was the estate agent, who despite being in his 30s and sounding Italian or Swiss-Italian, was incredibly racist and crude. We were talking about how the family had left all the doors and windows open when they went out, and about safety in Switzerland in general, when he pronounced that Geneva was less safe than Zurich because of all the "blackies". I stared. "You know, the people who work for the NGOs." He later strongly hinted that the spa bath would be a great place to have sex, so racism wasn't his only issue, but it was a shock to hear it from someone that young. I thought the country had moved on since my parents were in Geneva in the early 90s and ambassadors to the UN had trouble renting because of the colour of their skin.

We came back through the main station, where we were surprised by a suggestion that bratwurst was illegal in some way, and interested to find what looked like a bank of QR-controlled lockers where online retailers deliver purchases for you to pick up later.

The strangely sexist Diet Coke and Coke Zero bottles - the small bottles aren't so bad, although the names on Diet Coke are mainly women's. The big bottles of normal (aka "full-fat") Coke say "Family". Well, thanks for telling us your assumptions. The caps boast that the Coke is made in Switzerland (by which I assume they mean diluted) and it looks like the marketing may be done here too.

I jumped on a train up to Berne on Friday to meet Karen, a Scottish translator (French to English) who lives in Nevada but was in Evian for two weeks on holiday and coming up to Berne to meet a client. We at at Tibits, where the buffet helped to cater for various allergies, and then strolled around the town before splitting up at the Bundesplatz - which instead of the usual fountains was hosting the finish line for a race. Love the Radio Bern mascot!

I was in Zurich on Saturday afternoon meeting another translator, we had never met before but since we met at 5:00 pm, went for a long walk, had dinner together and split up at 11:30 pm I'd say we got on. ^_^

David meanwhile headed out to Ikea to get these cute and practical mini-greenhouses for my struggling shiso. Fingers crossed they do the trick.

And on Sunday we went up the Dolder cog railway on the east side of Zurich - which amazingly neither of us had gone up before even though it's covered on our passes - to see Hugh Laurie and the Copper Bottom Band play Live at Sunset. They came on at 8:30 pm and - after two encores - finished just after 10:30 so there was indeed a sunset. They played lots of old blues and jazz, all amazing musicians and singers, and they even had people standing up and dancing for the last few songs. Half of David's office seemed to be there as well.

Monday was crazy for work as well, today is finally clear but I have a lot of catching up to do and the computer is acting up so no rest for me just yet!

So Swiss, and not so

One of the clothes shops below the local Migros has started stocking traditional wear for ladies and men.

We headed in to Zurich on Saturday to meet a friend and see some of Zurifascht, a festival held every three years. I saw some of the air display team on Friday evening on my way to the shops, as they seemed to be turning around near us before heading back up the lake. First stop was the Korean food shop near the main station, and we were delighted to see that it has expanded - the little food section is now in a separate two-story shop across the street, with the food in a nice cool basement and expanded to include fresh vegetables - and the tiny restaurant was getting ready to expand into the space it had previously occupied. 

There was lots going on in the town centre - we didn't realise the trams were diverted and ended up further away than we started but eventually got to the top of the lake where you could barely walk through the crowds. Parachutists were coming in to land on a very small pontoon near the bridge, and later divers were doing acrobatic dives from a high board also very close to the bridge. There were stalls selling all kinds of food, as well as rides, a rather dubious "gondola", and more tat than you could shake a stick at including multiple piercing jewellery stalls. 

A handcar race getting ready to go, all dressed up as local trams.

Another of the irritating "share a Coke with..." labels. Might be Swiss German.

The fire brigade, who had the very high ladder extended for a while.

A "gondola", aka a wheeless bus/shipping container with windows on a crane.

A truly impressive production line of barbequed pork and beef in a fake train.

A member of the "Swiss Barbeque Team".

Sherry nice

The friend of ours who rented the villa has a friend who imports sherry, and this friend of a friend very kindly arranged for us to have a tour of the Gonzalez-Ayess distillery. Really fascinating to see the history of the place - more photos to come when I have a better connection.

Ahoy Cadiz!

Today we headed out by ourselves to have a look ariund Cadiz, which was full of welcome shady, narrow roads under a blazing blue sky.

Ooh

Found some herbal teas I've never seen before.

View

The villa is gorgeous. Looking forward to a week of doing as little as possible...

Room at the top

It wass a blazing hot day in Jerez, we had a walk around the town centre and discovered that storks really like nesting on top of churches. There were plastic storks on top of some roofs as well, whether to attract or scare off the real thing we're not sure...

All the chocolate

Panorama

On our last day in Interlaken, we went up the Hardkulm - Interlaken's "home mountain" with a great view of the other peaks. And great weather for it!

The joys of summer

Not even the miserable spring followed by a summer that can't seem to decide if it's winter or not has put off the rhubarb - the local shops are full of it and Austa very kindly sent me a recipe for a rhubarb and yoghurt parfait! One for now, one for when I finish work some time tonight...

From on high

It's a steep climb to the St. Beatus caves, but the view is its own reward.

Double rainbow!

Visited the amazing glacial runoff waterfalls at Trummelbach, complete with (barely visible here) double rainbows in the spray. Definitely recommended on a hot day!

Mind the glass

Last Sunday I went to the flat of a friend who is very into making things with glass - you know it's serious when someone has their own portable hospital oxygen generator to super-heat propane. 

We donned safety glasses and got started melting glass rods and winding them around mandrels, which was actually much easier than I had thought although there were so many factors to keep in mind that it was mentally exhausting after a while - keeping the mandrel parallel to the floor and rotating it constantly to keep the bead even, keeping only the edge of the bead in the flame to avoid it melting and running (I did that a lot, as you cans see from the turnip-shaped ones), and just telling where the flame was through the safety glasses! The easiest thing to do was was to watch the glass bead like a hawk and guess from the incandescence of the glass.

Some colours of glass were easier to work with others, and once I had an idea of the basics we went on to dots and stripes, twisting and poking the hot glass, making thin "stringers" from the large canes and coating in clear glass.

The glass loses all colour when it's heated, so it involves a certain amount of guesswork. As soon as the bead starts to cool and the colours starts to return, it's time to bury it in a pan of hot vermiculite so it can cool down slowly and not crack.

It was a huge amount of fun, and much more manageable than I had thought. I might have to get rid of another hobby before taking this one on though...

I know this one is distinctly turnip-shaped, but I do like it.

It was Ms Really Should Know Better, at her desk!

I finally found an ink pad (in the stationery department of the big Coop in the local shopping centre, they must be out of fashion) had a little forensics party all by myself with the John Adams New Scotland Yard Forensics Kit.

The fingerprinting was fun, and I know now that I am a Loop (which is nothing to get excited about, it's the most common type) and that I should refrain from committing any crimes involving my left ring finger as the scar makes a very distinct print (long story involving my brother and a gate, long long ago). I was a bit worried by the staying power of the ink, but by the time I'd washed my hands repeatedly as I went through the rest of the kit the blue stain was mostly gone.

Apart from the lack of any ink pad in the kit - which looks like a factory issue, as the box that should have contained it was sealed - there was also no pipette for measuring water to test the "mystery substance" (clearly labelled with a health and safety warning stating what it was and how it was toxic). So it was all a bit haphazard, but I suppose people think that's all right for children. Still, they could have made an effort. A child would get a shock watching CSI after using this kit.

(I was overcome with a desire to watch CSI, and nearly bought the first season streaming on Amazon.com before realising that their T&Cs state the service is only available in the US, so although they would sell it to me they probably wouldn't then let me watch it.)

I appreciated the clear health and safety warnings and advice on how to handle the powders, but it would have been nice to know that both plastic jars were sealed with foil, so you had to totally remove the child-proof caps to get the seal off. Lots of potential for throwing activated carbon and calcium carbonate all over the place.

I got the fingerprint identification wrong, and had to decide what "lab result" the chromatography matched based on who I thought had done it as it looked nothing like any of the possibilities. But overall it was fun and definitely checked the box for the optional "take fingerprints" activity for the OU Elements of Forensic Science module.

Things I have learned:

• Forensics is messy
• It involves a lot of washing of hands (or disposing of gloves, I suppose)
• It involves a certain amount of waiting around (chromatography, I'm looking at you)
• Activated carbon gets everywhere. An object lesson in "every contact leaves a trace".
• No, really. I kept finding it rooms I didn't even remember going into while playing with the kit. And black powder on a black glass desk is a nightmare.

It was fun and doing some of the activities may help me understand the content of the forensics course a little better, but I'd be wary of buying the kit again as it was missing items (pipette and ink pad). It's also far cheaper online (about £21) than in Hamleys (about £33), although it would have been easier to bring it back to a physical shop and complain. There were also reports of missing dusting powder in the Science Museum fingerprinting kits, which is annoying. Even children expect a certain level of quality. 

I'm going to keep a few of the items out, as they might be useful and/or fun - plastic tweezers, UV light and UV pen with "NEW SCOTLAND YARD" on it. 

Biggest gripe? "Forensics' kit" wasn't a just a flare of something on the outer box. It was everywhere. Along with the amusingly ambiguous "Advice for supervising adults" and the awful "Hair and how is it examined?".

Unboxing

I know, people usually take photos or video of unboxing the latest highly sought-after gadget but no, I unbox a Scotland Yard forensics playset. If only to show how much of it was in fact styrofoam.

I really hope that thing that looks like an apostrophe after "Forensics" is some kind of background pattern...

All very exciting...

And, as you can see, mostly styrofoam.

It all ended up being not much bigger than a book, although the impression clay caused a bit of a problem as I already had 10 things that security like to consider liquid. Apparently Lush's solid shampoo/conditioner bar is also a 'liquid' despite the fact I can rattle it in its tin. 

But at least they didn't take away my sewing machine needles.