Today my eldest finished School. There was a ceremony where those who had passed the exams received a leaving diploma. 64 out of 88 had passed, so I was hoping that Rebi had passed, especially as I had not seen her do any work!
Not only did she pass, but she got called back up to get an extra award for having the best average in her class That was a surprise to her and to us. Mind you, English was one of the subjects she got top marks in, so that helped pull up the average. But fair dos to her, she had top marks throughout her report. I take it all back

Afterwards we spoke to her class teacher, who expressed disappointment in Rebi's choice of career - hair stylist. He hadn't told her this of course, which I was pleased about, but it echoed my husbands feelings as well. But I don't agree with them. This is what she wants to do, and if she wants to do it, and does her best, then she will be an excellent hair stylist. I was at the hair salon last week actually. There were 2 old ladies in, both thinning on top, one with great bald patches. This is bad enough for a man, but must be awful for a woman. The young women employed there did wonders with their hair. They chatted cheerfully the whole time, showed no distaste or judgement, and made both the women look like they had full heads of hair when they had finished. One of those women comes every week so she can hold her head up outside. Now, i don't know about you, but i think that is a wonderful job those young women are doing. They and all other hair dressers around bring pleasure to all their clients ( hopefully) and they stay cheerful throughout. Personally I think that what they do had a lot more worth to it than what I do, even if I do have more status attached.
I did point this all out to the teacher, and he was forced to agree with my point. Or maybe he was just being polite. But whatever, the next 3 years training will be a learning and growing period for Rebekka and after that she can choose her direction.

I have been away this week in Germany on yet another training course. This one was on Interview techniques, but a specific method where we learned to ask specific questions to find out past behaviour in order to predict future behaviour. So no more just telling me your strengths and weaknesses. You might have to prove those strengths now.
It was a very interesting, if exhausting time. And I was there for the Germany / Turkey match, so i am glad they won
In Frankfurt we had hail storms, down here in Switzerland it is baking again. 31 degrees and too hot to do much outside. I stripped our bed last night, as it was too hot with the quilts to sleep, I changed all the bedding for a lighter airier effect. I could not find the alarm clock, but reckoned my husband must had put it somewhere, as he had it last.
Today it was so lovely, I did all the laundry including that bedding. I found the alarm clock - in the washing machine I should have checked that bedding a bit more closely I think.
So now it is in bits drying out in the sun. it might still work afterwards, but I am not holding out much hope. That poor alarm clock has been through a lot. More than once it has fallen out of the window when I was shaking the quilt. So looking at the past behaviour involved here, I think that we can safely say that I have not applied any learning from those incidents before

Today was the institution of our new Vicar, Rev Peter Potter. The sun was shining, as Summer has officially arrived and seems to be staying a while, we had a flock of clergy ( is that the collective noun? )
and a good turn out as they say up north.
Rev Potter has come from Scotland, and did joke he had bought some traditional Scottish weather with him - I am glad he hadn't
It was a really good service. Great hymns, and good liturgy. I was on reading, along with the British Ambassador, so felt pretty chuffed to be picked.
The Archdeacon gave an "interesting" sermon referring to the recent marriage of homosexual priests in the CofE which he obviously does not agree with. His point was that we are judged by what we do, and a lot of people can be offended by certain actions, so we should consider what we do carefully.
Rev Potter remained fairly quiet throughout, but I am sure he will be fine. Never judge a book by its cover as they say, and having had about 6 locums over the past few months, I can vouch for that one

my laptop has just died - in the middle of a scrabble game as well
So I lost the scrabble game by default, and seem to have lost my hard drive. We reckon the fan has not been working. It overheated once before but survived, but this time we may not be so lucky.
Ah well, maybe I spend too much time surfing as it is.

My eldest will be finishing school soon, forever and ever, unless we count hairdressing college once a week as school. Anyway, they have 10 days of tests coming up, so she went to School on Friday to pick up her revision folder, and promptly left it on the train coming home
She called me at work in a panic, so I looked up the train, and found it would return through our station 2.5 hours later. It is a train that stops everywhere, and goes a long way in the process.
So I advised her to get back on the train when it returned, search it through, and if the folder was not there, report it missing.
So she got on said train, and searched it for the 4 minutes to the terminus ( such a short time she had to remember that folder for in the first place), didn't find it, but then as she was getting off the train there was an old man with it in his arms, taking it to hand it in.
She was very relieved, even though he quizzed her as the contents before he would hand it over.
Saved her me Fr20 that she would have had to pay to the railway company to get it back as well.
Luck or providence
needless to say, the folder is home, but I don't think she has opened it, and the tests start tomorrow !!

remember when Rebekka did her Ötzi walk, and we spent 2 hours at the hospital afterwards getting crutches?
Well we received the bill for the crutches, which she eventuelly used for all of 2 days, so that was Fr10.
Today we received an accident form from the health insurance. They must have received the hospital bill.
Now, if we fill in this form saying that it was indeed an accident that caused the need for the crutches, then the health insurance pays the lot. If we ring them and tell them that it could just have been to walking way too far in flat leather shoes, they will charge the bill on.
Hmm, bit of a bugger this one.

I guess I will be honest though, as I need to set a good example to the kids.

I just caught our cat with her head in the bread bin. She had been miowing quite loudly. I think she was telling me she is hungry

I was talking to my youngest today about a schoolfriend of hers who is behaving strangely. She is taking offence at the slightest thing, hitting out, and not joining in. My youngest reckoned that it is because she wants everyone to feel sorry for her. So I was asking if maybe she was not getting enough attention at home or similar.
My daughter said that could be. " Her Parents are not good role models. Her mum swears in front of her, and she never gets told off for swearing, and they aren't very welcoming"

I was quite pleased in a way, if laura sees that as not a good role model, I must be doing something right after allD

MInd you, not so good for the girl in question. She might live in a big fancy house, but money can't buy you love.

The Euro08 is in full swing. Switzerland are now out of the running, which has made a few of my colleagues rather subdued. Bern is host to all the Holland games, and they of course are on a high. Doing well, and partying to celebrate. We have about 40000 fans visiting Bern alone, I think most are Dutch, camping in huge fields and joining together in the fan zone in the centre. Here is a picture emailed to me, of the orange masses, before their 3:0 victory over Italy on Monday.