The lack of activity in here might suggest zero activity out there. Almost, but not quite true; and less true this week than at any time since we arrived in Switzerland, four months ago. My Garmin strap remains split, so my phone, and Runkeeper, have been called in to keep tabs on anything approaching athletic bustle. They tell me that before this week, I managed just 41 kilometres of disidleness — if I may offer the world a new word.… READ MORE.... …
Blog Posts
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.… READ MORE.... …
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.… READ MORE.... …
“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.… READ MORE.... …
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.… READ MORE.... …
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.… READ MORE.... …
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.… READ MORE.... …
We leave home in 7 hours. That’s it for now.… READ MORE.... …
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.… READ MORE.... …
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.… READ MORE.... …