London, Lunches and Losers

Finally my copy of Urban Junkies is going to come in handy next week, as I get to go home and hang out in a city where people make eye-contact (unless you're on the tube), the most exciting thing to happen all year is not a slanging match between two dog walkers, curries get delivered and bacon sandwiches are derigeur. I can't wait! I may also manage conversations that are more meaningful than the drivel dished out at the stepford lunch on Friday.

The lunch was really nothing to write home about, but sod it I have to get this off my chest. I had been mentally prepared for the grieving one, the moving one and the over-bearing one, but they had sadly not been prepared for the "caustic I hate this country one." As each and every one of them proceeded to tell me that they hated it too, had only recently stopped hating it, or were leaving soon....well great that was just what I needed, lunch with a bunch of women who confirmed for me that you need to be here for a significantly long period of time (like long enough to forget anywhere else) to be happy here. Added to this the rest of the conversation was banal diary checking and shopping tips, believe you me none of them is likely to become brain of anywhere in any great hurry. Plus if company later on is anything to go by they are all far too practiced in the art of back-stabbing to survive long as they must all be haemorraghing at an alarming rate from the stab wounds. Will I go along again? I don't think so I really can't be bothered to be a target for bored housewives to hurl daggers at the moment I leave the room.


More bad news was that we're staying in this god-forsaken cultural desert for another six months! I am not holding out much hope of remaining a sane or balanced person by the end of the stint, at least not without regular trips back to the UK and I mean far more regular than once every 3 to 4 months! My mother, bless her, suggested that I should do a course while I'm here in something that I couldn't do anywhere else.....perhaps the making of cuckoo clocks? or holey cheese? nah...think I can cope without those skills! They should perhaps even be classed as non-life skills.

Happily though the Swiss government decided the other day (after about 5 years of deliberation) that it is an acceptable behaviour to resort to beating army recruits as a way to vent one's frustration at the Swiss state...now, where did I see them hanging out?

The only fairly decent thing about staying is we get to move from this appartment to another one, which if I have anything to do with it is going to have to meet with a few basic requirements...a tv that has working scart sockets, and the clever little button that allows you to watch some swiss television in English, a washing machine that is not only located inside the apartment, but that functions at all hours of the day, oh and an oven that works too! At least the smug and stupid landlady has finally admitted that "swiss" is not another word for efficent.

Right well I'm off to start planning my assualt on the capital to ensure maximum enjoyment and the greatest number of bacon sandwiches.

Birdflu.....Migratory Goose etc

No I don't mean the "avian" strain HN51, I mean the not "man-flu" variety which actually warrants a stay in bed for three days that those of us who don't have a faulty chromosome get. Well that's the one I've had for the last few days, hence not quite up to date on the washing, shopping, ironing, cleaning or cooking after the xmas break.

So to fill you in as quickly as possible and get back up to speed.....Hmmmm..well there was the goose that had to migrate to an oven down the road on Christmas day to ensure that we could all eat it with developing "botchulism." Bet you didn't know that a goose could migrate even after stuffing!

Santa did still arrive despite the apparent confusion between Switzerland and Swaziland, and we thankfully didn't get a goat as that would just have confirmed the whole geographical confusion currently sufferred by our landlady. Although I think she may have ordered the engineer to attend to an oven in the wrong place as that is still on the blink.

Milan was a great city break between Xmas and NYE and was well worth the lengthy train journey just to hang out in the snow and eat food that I hadn't had to fight 10 rounds with the oven in order to produce. In fact the food in Milan was fantastic and the three squares around the actual cathedral were beautiful don't get me wrong, but my god it has nothing on Florence!

New Year's eve was a quiet one, family all having departed a couple of days before and the flu slowly sneaking up on me to pounce as soon as I was chilled out...and there we go a quick recap on the last two weeks. I am going to have to get some washing done tomorrow though or we are going to have to start using the bedroom door and exiting the house through the hedge, but the flipping "concierge" decided to be unconcierge-like and disappear on holiday without even the briefest note to let those of us dependent on the stupid washing machine cards completely stranded!