Winter! What winter?

Hello again

It's been a while since I last wrote anything slightly more personal. I've been busy working on a handful of translations, doing some interpreting work for environmentalist and human rights NGOs. A bit of socialising has also been going on. So after lunch today I came to the office to catch up on NGO work and make headway on a couple of translations that are due out of here tomorrow. It's good to have such privileged work.

The world is going mad, the situation in Iraq worsening; U.S. planes have bombed buildings in Somalia; U.S. troops are holding Iranian diplomats; the news out of Colombia continues to be one tale of woe after the other -- some of this is elsewhere in this blog, or in my other ones... I sometimes wonder where this is all heading and what will come next.

As if this was not enough, we've been messing with the environment to the point where the past few weeks have brought temperatures that are 6°C above average (in Switzerland). Indonesia and Malaysia are drowning in mudslides and floods. England, Scotland and Scandinavia have been lashed by some of the worst storms in history.

Since a memorable cold morning on December 28, we had exactly one day with a tiny bit of snow. In the eight years that I've lived at my current place, I've never sat out on my balcony enjoying my coffee and a book as early in the year as this. Today I almost caught sunburn in my face! One of my little delphinium plants has two new blossoms. The sage is pushing out new leaves on every branch. Lawns are speckled with new daisies and primroses; snowdrops are almost over and daffodils are pushing their spiky leaves up through the warm soil. People were sitting in their gardens and having their french windows open wide until well into the afternoon. I'm off to the mountains next weekend but am not expecting to see much snow. Too bad because it's a good area for skiing, usually.

Here are some photos taken at the end of last year, on a sunny slope near Oberbalm, beyond the nearest ridge of hills to the south-west of Bern. It was a lovely walk, not least because the restaurant at the end of it had some delicious roesti and fried farmer's sausage. The friendly waitress served huge portions. My friend F. and I almost couldn't eat it all.

This half-ripe berry in the freshly green strawberry plant among dry leaves (photo taken on Dec. 30, 2006) reminds me of a story by Jeremias Gotthelf in which his young protagonist, 'Erdbeerimareili' (little Mary of the Strawberries), almost starved to death, goes berrying in midwinter, trudging barefoot through the snow.

Switzerland knew the direst poverty until not so terribly long ago. When my grandmother was young, they considered themselves lucky to have one cow and a couple of chickens. It meant their family of eleven or twelve had at least one small cup of fresh milk each and a fresh egg every other day. They ate meat on Sundays only, if then. Clothes were hand made from hand-spun wool or cheap cotton, and handed down from older child to younger child. Socks were hand-knitted and meticulously mended when they were worn through at the heels and toes. Even I was taught to darn hand-knitted socks -- it was one of the skills still considered essential for mid- to late sixties girls. ...

Back to that sunny Saturday, the last in 2006.

I have no idea what kind of plant this berry came from. It looks rather worse for having been exposed to a few nights of snow and frost before the sun and drier weather. Elsewhere, a rose had pushed out a fresh shoot at least ten inches long; the blades of irises stood two hands tall; primroses were limp with the sun; dandelion flowers on short stems dotted a still-brown meadow. A few kites were circling high above us, their keen eyes scanning the ground for a mouse or a beetle, perhaps. One of the kites was harried by a couple of crows. They gave the much bigger bird a really rough time.

On our way back to 'civilisation', the sun set behind a distant hill. Clouds streaked the sky. North-facing slopes still had a few streaks of snow here and there. The air was filled with the noise of chainsaws and the cawing of the odd crow. Smoke was rising from a good few fires lit by farmes burning the chopped-off branches of recently felled trees.

With a bit of imagination, I can see the sea far beyond. The sky is almost like the sky above Western Scotland. How I miss that place!