when I have to fill in my self assessment for the annual review

Ranfuchs likes puzzles it seems, so I have another for him.

Zermatt today was very picturesque, but not sunny. It was full of the rich wearing their fur coats, which riled my daughter somewhat, she wanted to rip them off them and burn them, or at least swear at the owners.
Anyway, the puzzle.
On the train back, we entered a carriage that was pretty much empty. The seats were arranged in 2's either facing the direction of travel, or facing away from the direction of travel.
Every so often the orientation of the seats would change, so then that would make a group for 4 to be able to sit together. There were maybe 8 of these little groups of 4, and lots of 2's, mainly empty.
Why is it that in every group of 4, without exception, one person had plonked himself down, usually with a bag on one of the seats?
So that meant that the 4 of us, had to split into 2 sets of 2.
At one station the hogger opposite us got off, but we didn't move to the 4. 5 people got on, a single male, and a group of 4. The single male took that seat just vacated, leaving the group of 4 bemoaning that they could not sit together. And he stayed put!

So is it just plain selfishness? Or is there an evolutionary reason? Over to you Ranfuchs (and anyone else who thinks they might know

Tomorrow we will get up early!! and escape this freezing fog in which we live, for the clear air of Zermatt. 2 hours by train away, and it will be a totally other world. I might even get a touch of colour.
Zermatt is a car free village, famous for the Matterhorn on which the Toblerone packaging was based. It has loads of winter sports, but we are just going to soak up some sun, and gluwein for a few hours before we descend back to our foggy depths. Too close to the river, that is our problem

that out of 4 crackers, 3 of them will contain exactly the same hat, novelty and joke! Quite high it would seem, as we managed it today. I had only bought 4 of them (crackers are like gold over here). Technically you are not allowed to bring Christmas Crackers over on the plane, as they contain explosives. So at our Christmas Bazaar at Church the Crackers that are there, have been driven across, and are correspondingly expensive. Actually I bought them Nov 2006 at last years bazaar, and then forgot I had them, so they are practically antique as crackers go.
As was the joke. So the joke we had in 3 crackers, and which therefore I now know by heart is:
What is the definition of minimum?

and the answer: (scan with your mouse to read)  a very small mother

I would like to wish all my friends and visitors a great Christmas, however you celebrate it, or mark it. Here in Switzerland Christmas tends to be celebrated on the 24th of December, when the Christkind brings the gifts (strange idea!) in the evening and families gather for a big meal
Of course Midnight services at Church are on offer, but generally by the 25th it is all over apart from the clearing up.
I think this makes it a bit short, especially as the shops stay open until 4, and lots of offices are open too.
We try and combine the traditions with maybe 1 gift on Christmas eve to the Children, and then the rest on Christmas day.
My youngest is singing at the Midnight service in the village this year, so I will go to that. It is part of their religious education here, although singing is voluntary Not sure if the rest of the family will come, my husband has very similar views to ranfuchs on religion.
We bought a real tree yesterday, which we will decorate today, and there is no work for me until Thursday, which is wonderful. Hubby is off for 2 weeks, like the kids!! This is going to make getting myself out of bed in the morning very difficult.

Today I wanted to look smart. It might be winter and cold, but the auditors are in, so time to put on a skirt suit. Plus I watched What not to wear last night, so that always spurs me into smartening up.

So I put on my skirt this morning, fished a suspender belt and hold up stockings out of my drawer, but then the suspender belt vanished. One minute it was on the bed, the next it wasn't
So I was in a hurry, so put on the hold ups anyway. They are hold ups after all.
On the way to the station I felt the one on my left leg slipping ! Too late to go back. I held it up through my skirt.
When I got off the train in bern, I felt the right leg slipping as well Walking along trying to hold them both up through my skirt looked ridiculous. I headed for the local supermarket. By the time I got there they had slipped down about 5 times already. I headed for the tights, hid behind a shelf, and ripped open the packet. They were stockings!!
So opened the second packet, they were stockings too!!!
So abandoning all decorum I went back to the shelf in bare feet and carefully selected this time a pair of tights.
back to my hiddy hole, opened the packet, pulled out the tights, they laddered as soon as I put them on
OMG, now I was getting stressed. I looked at the second pair of stockings, turned out they were tights after all. This time I got them on without laddering.
I did pay for them - honest. Just scanned the empty packet at the till, and explained to the embarrassingly young male cashier that I needed to wear a pair.
i didn't pay for the laddered pair though, what useless quality.

i just hope my antics were not caught on the store camera, otherwise I could appear on youtube!! And if I do, I bet you Jack finds the clip.

Kitty has found somewhere warm and cosy for these winter nights.

I know I should be writing Christmas cards, but I have a feeling I have missed the posting dates anyway, so it may be electronic ones this year,

So I have been booking our holidays instead, while there is some choice. We belong to HPB, invested about 20 years ago, and it has served us really well. At least we know what we are getting with them.  So I have just called them and booked 2 weeks on Madeira for the Summer, and 1 week in Yorkshire for Christmas. Eh by gum, might get sum reit gud shopping dun there.
The idea is of course also that our relatives and friends can visit us there and I have taken a bigger place so they can actually stay over

So this is a test to see just how many of my friends and relatives actually read my blog - get  your dates in now for Yorkshire, we'd love to see ya

And now I will go and do something slightly more seasonally appropriate, especially as the cat is on my knee and farting like crazy

Today in the centre of Bern there was a party at 8 in the morning. This is because the right wing politician Christoph Blocher has been voted out of the cabinet and Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf accepted the nomination to be on it.
He was responsible for the biggest win for his party SVP in the recent elections here, but his success was built on the black sheep campaign, a controversial campaign aimed at kicking out the criminal foreigners. The campaign caused a stir everywhere, with the British and US Media making the Swiss out to be racist.  It scared the ordinary Swiss, and it made us foreigners very nervous as well.
It was very unswiss, and now the other MP's have joined together to keep him out of Parliament.

The problem now is that Mr Blocher is not a gracious loser. He is splitting the party and threatening to take his ball home and shout from the sides.  Swiss politics just got interesting

well today was Beckys 16th. I reckon she enjoyed it. She liked all her gifts, but especially the laptop. We went and signed her contract for her apprenticeship, which will commence next August, and this evening we went out to dinner- she could take a friend

The restaurant we picked did free dinner for the person with the birthday, which we didn't know when we booked. But they did ask if it was someones birthday, and had balloons on the table, and part way through all the lights went out, and they brought a special drink to her with a sparkling flame to light the way. The music system played Happy Birthday, and Rebekka was very embarrassed. We thought it was great.

So now it is midnight, and she and her friend are in her room surfing the web on her laptop. My husband is in bed already, the youngest just went. The cat is curled up asleep on my desk. I think it is time I called it a night as well.

So good night all.

someone sent me this on the email. I am not that old! But it is pretty good.

Seems I was right after all, Rebekka has got the place at the hairdressers we went to last Saturday. We had to clarify it, as this week she received a letter from another place she had tried, to come for a second interview, with us again, there as well!!

She has done really well, especially as one always hears how hard it is for young people to get an apprenticeship place here, and especially for foreigners. But at Harlekin, where she will be working from next summer, us being foreign was never mentioned. So refreshingD

Tonight I am going to buy her a General Abbonnement for the Swiss railways. I bought myself one the other day. It allows unlimited free travel for a year on our amazing railway system. The prices increase this Sunday by 3.25%, so I saved over Fr100 buying it this week, and for Rebekka, they go up not only 3.25% but an extra Fr200 when she is 16, so by buying it today i am saving a further Fr 220. Plus it is actually cheaper in conjunction with mine than her current season ticket.
All helps towards the laptop expenses I suppose

Only problem is that several of Rebekkas friends also have these wonderful tickets, so I know she may be disappearing off all over the place on a weekend in the future. Mind you, maybe I will too

For Rebekkas 16th Birthday we finally decided to get her a laptop. Nice and shiny, with Vista pre-installed.
Of course not all is as straightforward as one thinks. Luckily we checked it out before her birthday. My Husband managed to get it going last night, only took 2.5 hours.
Today he has been trying to create the rescue discs for if it crashes. The instructions say 2 DVD's required. He tried, for hours he tried, but they just kept failing, so now he is creating rescue CD's, 8 of them! and one of them failed, and he had to use another one.

We also invested in a wireless router to allow her to go on line, and for us to hook up our other computers to. But of the other computers, only one has virus protection, as the others never needed it before, not being internet enabled.
So I bought a McAfee for up to 5 computers. Said on the box good for operating systems XP from service pack 1. That is what we have. But it wouldn't install.
Error message said we had an incompatible operating system. So I contacted McAfee and it transpires that the box is wrong, service pack 2 required, which of course you can download for free from Microsoft, if your software is legal to start with

So now I have to buy new operating systems, service pack 2. Fortunately it is getting cheaper, as Vista takes over.

This is turning into a very expensive laptop.