geraniums

August 10: Silly me on the Töffli

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The three motorised things in my life … the covered Vespa (which I don’t ride at the moment), the Töffli and the lawnmower

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Look at how shiny the bike is now that Rene cleaned it with the jet hose! Some paint came off as well, but hey … it’s clean …

Turned up a bit late for work today. Not because I had the first-day-back blues, but because I didn’t open my eyes. Silly me.

Jumped excitedly on Bruce the Töffli, keen to see how smooth the ride would be after his service and … spluttered to a stop after 200m. Luckily I was still close to home, so I pushed the bike back, tried unsuccessfully to start it again, accepted defeated and walked to the bus.

When I came home, I saw Rene and he said, “Oh yes, I turned the petrol switch to ‘off’ while you were on holidays so the petrol didn’t leak out.” Ahhhh yes … the petrol lever … located on the right side under the tank. If it’s pushed all the way forward, it turns off the flow, if it’s facing straight down, the flow is open, and if you push it backwards, it goes to the reserve tank, which I learnt about the hard way.

You’d think I would have thought to have a look, seeing as it’s caught me out once before? Ah, no. It seems my knowledge of bike mechanics needs a lot more work. But the short ride I did, to get the petrol flowing, felt great and the speedometer works now too! Woo hoo!

At least I can count the 40 minutes of walking to and from the bus as my exercise for the day! I walked past the corn fields, which have grown huge in the past two weeks. I always love seeing the ‘hair’ on the corn. A few years ago I saw it when it was purple and red, which reminded me of punk grandmas with bad frizzy perms. Today, the ‘hair’ was burnt brown. I wonder if it will be a good crop this year because it’s been so hot and dry, or if that makes the corn not as sweet?

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You my, brown haired corn. Singing tra la la la … (apologies, Van Morrison)

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The grass is turning green again too

After breathing a sigh of relief about the bike, I wrote a review of the first of two books I read on holidays, Bruno, Chief of Police which you can read here if you fancy.

And then I pottered around the garden for a little while. The gladioli are blooming and my geranium planter boxes on the upstairs balcony are going gangbusters.

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The glads in bloom … to the right is a small patch where the glads from last year died, and then a few more orange ones are blooming

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Healthy! The two geranium pots add some much needed colour to the brown exterior

Wishing you a wonderful day.

May 21: Running around without raising a sweat

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Today was an on-the-go kind of day – I should have worn my running shoes!

My phone died this morning (Leo says from overuse – can’t argue) so I borrowed the neighbours’ car to go to a nearby shopping centre with a phone store, hoping they could fix it. No luck – it’s been sent away for a week, like a naughty kid suspended from school – but at least I have my old phone to use in the meantime.

This is one time I’m glad I haven’t been a minimalist and gotten rid of the old phone as soon as the new one arrived. The old one feels like a brick in comparison, and the photo quality will be pretty average, but I’m contactable, which feels more important than it should be. I’ll carry my compact camera around in case I see Betsy and friends again.

Amazing things, cars. I even managed to do a grocery shop AND go to the nursery for more plants and soil. I wasn’t going to put planter boxes on the upstairs balcony but hey, I needed geraniums. It wouldn’t be a Swiss house without geraniums. I was trying to avoid conforming, because it seems like it’s compulsory to have planter boxes overflowing with red geraniums in Switzerland … so I chose pink ones instead. Still a rebel.

Couldn’t plant them this afternoon because it was raining so much, but hopefully I’ll do it on Saturday … if the weather gets any better. It was five degrees Celsius this morning, and 10 degrees at 3pm. Come back spring, we miss you already.

I really, really, really have lost my exercising mojo. I feel worn out, and I look it too, but really, I’m not worn out, I’m just being lazy. Which is a shame because the fitfor15in15 six-month mark isn’t too far away and I want to look and feel my best. (I blame the mammoth book, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, that I’m still reading. What a sorry sack that whole story is at the moment – it’s leaching into every pore).

So, banishing the book and with the halfway mark as my motivation, I’m off to do 15 minutes of squats with hand weights, push ups, sit ups, lunges and all that kind of malarkey.

Wishing you a wonderful day.

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Here’s Betsy’s hairy Scottish cousin, Beryl, who lives in the north of Switzerland