My confident prediction, that the move to Switzerland would produce more blog posts, hasn’t yet materialised. The truth is, there’s been a mass of stuff to talk about, but I’m still feeling too darned pleased with myself, and there’s a limit to the amount of smarm one can reasonably slart across the blogosphere. But. But allowing a trip to New York to pass without mention seems a bit too much like self-denial. A Swiss myth (and there are plenty) is that the trains run on time. Some do. Many don’t. Which explains why I legged it for the wrong train, and found myself stranded on an empty suburban station, early on a Sunday morning, with no immediate prospect of making … …
Blog Posts
It’s not every day you bump into Alan Shearer on the frozen streets of Oerlikon, the slightly seedy suburb of Zurich we’re living in at the moment. Shearer is followed a moment later by Boris Johnson. Then Fabio Capello. No, this isn’t the consequence of too much Gruyere before bedtime. It really happened. I think. But to illustrate the scarcity of the experience, I have to admit it’s never happened to me. The story belongs to my wife, and to yesterday. As a footnote to the anecdote, she added casually that she’d also come up against “that bald bloke”. Via a variant of Twenty Questions, I was able to establish that the bald bloke was Sir Bobby Charlton. Instead of … …
“Wow, this is a really interesting car park!” It’s the sort of thing I think you’re supposed to say when otherwise engaged with recreational narcotics, but I heard myself uttering this unlikely phrase last Saturday in Konstanz, just over the border in Germany. It’s a fine town, and popular with Swiss residents who fancy a break from their own, pricey, restricted shops. The massive, majestic lake, Bodensee, turns our own Zurichsee into an embarrassingly insignificant puddle. There are huge, stern statues to creep past, occasional deposits of medieval architecture to blink at, and somewhere, I’m told, evidence of the town’s Roman origins. And did I mention that interesting car park? We’ve a long menu of cities to sample on this … …
And how rapidly the unfamiliar becomes almost normal. We probably won’t feel in reach of true settledness until we move into our permanent apartment in Horgen in January, but nevertheless, despite being here in Zurich for only 10 days, already we seem to have found, or created for ourselves, a surprisingly comfortable groove. That said, we are leading quite different lives from each other. I’m working; M isn’t. Every day I get to travel 35 kilometres beyond the city, and spend my day 2,600 feet (800 metres) above sea level, in a modern office in a small town at the far end of the long and winding Lake Zurich. High above the lake, surrounded by green hills and distant mountains, … …
Someone asked me today how my German was getting on. Here is the answer: This evening, at the end of my long commute back to Zurich, I called in at a Shell station to fill up with petrol. Despite the 5 empty spots available, I waited until I could fill up at pump number 1, 2, or 3, as otherwise, I wouldn’t have known what to say if I was asked which one I’d used. I’ve been making use of the lengthy drive (an hour or so each way) to listen to Teach Yourself German tapes, but we haven’t reached anything as useful as numbers yet. Tuesday was my first work day. After a 700 mile road trip from Blighty, … …
We’re here, in Zurich. One of my new-start resolutions is to post quick and short messages here, rather than always feel the need to write epic entries — a bad habit that gradually appeared a couple of years ago. I would rather write more frequent messages than agonise over spinning out some dense, meandering narrative. We left England yesterday morning at 8:30. We’d planned to spend the previous evening in leisurely fashion, chortling at Spamalot in Oxford. Instead we opted for a chaotic evening of ‘packing’. This began as a civilised and orderly process of selecting things we would need for the next two months (until our furniture and other possessions join us). As the hours trickled away, it turned … …
A man shouldn’t have this much trouble writing a blog post. As most likely readers of this will now know, I have some major news to impart, but I’m like a small-time actor who’s finally been trusted to deliver a key speech, and keeps fluffing his lines. As previously disseminated to many people, something genuinely life-changing has happened: the sort of thing that blogs dream about. Yet I’m struggling to give this piece an appropriate gravitas, or explosiveness, or sense of electricity. You see, I can’t even decide on the wrapper. Bah! Let’s just get on with the news. If you’ve not heard it, here it is: in a few weeks time, we are moving to Switzerland. For the last … …
Claiming that we would be hot yoga-ing 4 times last week was a magnificent example of giving a hostage to fortune. I knew it as I wrote it. It’s why I wrote it. The sentence was tapped out meticulously, and slowly, with my left hand. I was using my right to hold that gun to my own head. Bang! We had already missed one scheduled session when M had to visit her parents at short notice, and since she returned, she’s been squirming in agony with acute lower back pain, scuppering plans to return to the studio over the weekend. She’s not in a good way: barely able to move, and being hit by a spasm of pain every few … …
Everything about the Hot Yoga studio is small and neat, even the receptionist’s sales pitch, after which she asked: “Do you have any questions?” “Just one — why is Hot Yoga always spelt with capital initial letters?” “Oh. ” M and I finally made it to a session last night, after a hesitant week or two. It was good to rope her in. The presence of another newbie added a small sprinking of reassurance to the experience. What is Hot Yoga? Pretty much what the label says it is: yoga, practised in a room heated to 41 0r 42 degrees Celsius (105-108F). The idea of the heat is to loosen the muscles and encourage the cleansing qualities of profuse sweating.… …