Had a great time. Sunshine, relaxation and good food. I have managed to gain a couple of kilos, but that is what holidays are about. Italy does seem to be very expensive in comparison to Switzerland. What is the cover charge all about???
The Euro is expensive so eating out was very expensive. Fortunately we had half board at the hotel, hence the couple of kilos

back to work tomorrow, which is a bit of a blow, but Switzerland has a bank holiday on Wedensday, so won't be for long.

Dear Rebekka

I must admit that I did tidy your room a bit whilst you were away at camp. I know you told me not to dare do this, but as you generally don’t listen to what I ask, I chose to ignore what you asked.

As you complain that after I have tidied you can never find anything here is a list of where everything went:

·The decaying orange went in the bin, sorry if this was a science experiment
·Ditto the cup with the orange juice residue at the base, this is in the dishwasher
·Most of the specimens from the live spider-breeding program escaped – or may have been vacuumed up, sorry about that again, I didn’t realize you were so interested in science.
·I am not sure if the white T-Shirt under your bed was gathering dust for a special occasion, but it has now been laundered
·Ditto the pink silk shorts
·You might be lucky in that I didn’t venture that far under the bed, so there could still be some dust covered items if you need them
·Some clothes did climb off the stool and into the laundry basket by themselves
·The rest are in your drawers
·The hairballs by the chest of drawers disappeared up the Hoover with the cobwebs, as well as a sock, which jammed the vacuum, but it is okay, Dad fixed it. The sock has been laundered along with its mate I found lurking nearby, and several relatives strewn around the place.
·The empty peanut butter jar is in the wastepaper basket- was this another science experiment?
·The assortment of used plates and glasses have been returned to the kitchen
·The various dust covered tissues and random pieces of paper that were strewn around the floor were hoovered up with all the dust or put in the wastepaper basket. I am not sure if this was some sort of modern artwork, but it was lost on me, and hard to distinguish from the dust.
·I removed the sellotape pieces from the antique dressing table, and it seems to be still standing, ditto the pieces from the floor. If you need them, then they are also in the wastepaper basket.
·As School is now over, I put all your old school books together in one of your designer carrier bags, which freed up a lot of floor space.
·The collection of wooden picture frames is in your white storage unit, which was surprisingly empty
·I left your desk as it is, as I didn’t want to disturb the obvious dis-order on it.
·Although I had emptied the wastepaper basket before starting work in your room, I have not emptied the refilled basket just in case you want to retrieve anything.
·I also stripped the bed and replaced all bedding.

I hope you are not too annoyed
Love
Mum

All totally true, and I know I should be on holiday, but we aren't leaving until Wedensday, so I couldn't resist:D

Summer has finally arrived, and I am going off on my annual holidays with the family next week.
Holidays can be relaxing, or they can be stressy. We are going through or over the mountains to Italy. The journey will be stressy, I know it. Too much arguing about where we should have turned left , and choruses or "are we nearly there yet?"
But once we are there, it should be fun.  There is a pool, good food, a fantaastic view, and hopefully lots of sunshine. Plus I have discvered a day spa nearby, so if it all gets too much, then I am off to the spa.

The Swiss employees representatives are pushing for a standard 6 weeks of annual leave per year for all workers.
They are citing increased workload and stress as the reason why we need more time off. This is all very well, but the employers have to be able to pay for it, plus, if you are like me, whilst away, no one does the work, so once I am back, there is twice as much to do!! Last year, I couldn't take the leave I was entitled to, and this year is a struggle. 6 weeks, it would be nice, but impractical for us.  In Switzerland all changes are voted on, so once they have gathered 100'000 signatures it will go to the vote, but I don't think it will get through,

Anyway, I am out of here for the next 2 weeks. I wish you all a good time, be good, I am sure to find out otherwise.
Here is a piccie of where I will be

I saw in todays paper that Rev White, running the only Anglican community in Baghdad, has left following murder threats. Amazing he stayed so long really.

So that means he is looking for work. We have a vacancy. Bern after Baghdad will seem a piece of cakeD

I might go google him to see if I can get an email address

I have been at blogthings again

You Are a Little Messy

You aren't the cleanest person in the world, but you're definitely not a slob. You clean up when you have the time, but you're realistic about what you can get done. Generally, you're pretty organized and tidy - though you may have a few hidden messes. You eventually get around to making things spotless, but you do it on your own schedule!

My new piccie is of that great Swiss icon Heidi, taken from the Tv series. Heidi is eating the traditional dish of fondue, which is bread and melted cheese to the rest of us. Other traditional dishes basically consist of cheese and potatoes or any combination of the 2D

naturally enough though the Swiss are one of the biggest consumers of Chocolate per head, being second behind Ireland. The Swiss consume 10.74Kg of chocolate per head apparently. I think I am probably getting my fair share.

I have just read on the BBC news an article about a 70 year old woman who was cautioned in the US for not watering her lawn!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Apparently she was assaulted in the process as well
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6282348.stm

Obviously the police over there do not have any more pressing crimes to deal with

A great week for Switzerland, the Alinghi cup came back again, and Roger Federer won Wimbledon - again.

makes me proud to be here, plus the Brits do put on Wimbledon very well.

A friend and fellow confirmee has posted his pictures of our big day on the web.
Here is the link if you would like to have a look. I am not saying which is me, my friends should know, and the rest can try and guess

http://www.carrick-photos.com/cpg148/thumbnails.php?album=87

On July 21st 2007 from 2pm onwards Landers of blog.co.uk will be blogging for 24 hours solid. No sleep no breaks! He’ll post a blog entry at http://bloggingforamy.blog.co.uk every 30 minutes.

This I think is great, and should be encouraged. I for one will be sponsoring him. I sent out an email to lots of friends and acquantainces yesterday to spread the news. In my mailbox this morning I had an interesting reply.

Why would one person - where the diagnosis
> is not sure - be privileged while millions die
> of other problems. There are many more worthy causes.
> Not to know what others are doing, but I would
> spend effort otherwise, and not use my resources
> in a way which will make then less valued.

Now, he probably is not the only one to think like this, and of course, each to their own, but is he being fair?
Just because there are so many worse off, does that mean that Amy is any less deserving? my view is that we all need to do our bit where we can, and that we, as individuals, cannot tackle all the worlds problems, so let us do little things to help.

I also told my friend that I would be more inclined to agree with his view if everyone was already giving as much as they could. However, studies show that in the UK for example, less than 60% of the population give to charity. In Switzerland I think it is even less. This also does not answer what % of their income these 60% are giving, some maybe give £10 per year, and that counts as giving to Charity.
So i think we have a way to go, and good luck to landers in his blogging attempt.

hello bloguk. I have set up this blog with a Uk address as a test.
my .de blog was not getting enough visitors , so I was feeling lonely.
Please visit my .de blog as well though for all my past posts.