The upside (sometimes the downside) of living in Geneva is that you get many many visitors. These people are known as Temporary Tourists and are usually delighted by our little city.

Normally they pop off into the sunny streets, enjoying the lake (Bains des Paquis), the views (Mont Blanc), and the al fresco sophisticated city-sidewalk dining. They gather back in the countryside for an evening BBQ, stories, and reminiscences. It’s lovely.

However, this June in Geneva the swimming pools have been cold and depressing, Mont Blanc foggily lugubrious, and the sidewalk cafés damp and dismal. Alternative plans have had to be made; here are the results.

1. First of all, find a hole in the clouds and go up the Salève. Delightful (perhaps fleeting) views of Geneva and the lake surprise and delight. Note: the Mont Blanc massif will be completely invisible, but you can ask your tourists to stand very still and see if they can hear the glaciers cracking.
2. Find a lakeside restaurant, and, in the pouring rain, ply them with perch fillets and white wine. This is a game-changer as they are so grateful to be inside rather than out, and dry rather than wet, they begin coo-ing at the subtle manifestations of the colour grey over the lake and the motionful multi-layered clouds.

3. Go to a Sunday market and buy one of every sort of cheese and mountain sausage that you can find. If you take umbrellas with you, it usually does not rain during this activity. Come home and enjoy a cheesy lunch on the sheltered back porch with delicious unpasteurized products that they moan that they just cannot get “back home”.

4. Drive over to Lavaux on the way to the Chateau de Chillon. At one point, the fog will possibly blow away and the sight over the grape fields in their little stone encasements tumbling down to the lake (a UNESCO world heritage site) will seduce them completely and they will immediately forget their Burger King Lunch with its complementary Whoop Swiss red cardboard crown.

5. Next day is serious shopping day. In bad weather Manor is the ultimate one-stop place for this: watches, knives and chocolate all under one big solid dry roof. Note: don’t even mention the Geneva Fountain as it’s been turned off.

6. Then comes Geneva History Day—Maison Tavel (the model of the city) and St Peter’s Cathedral (the tower climb and the Chapel of the Maccabees). This can include such delightful impromptu events as two Geneva policemen herding a mother duck with her four little ducklings down the Grand Rue towards the lake, or a trio of swarthy Spanish troubadours singing their hearts out on the tram.

7. The last day is when the faulty watches have to be returned, last minute Swiss army knife purchases made, and the mountain chalet with its smashed walls (don’t ask) thoroughly examined and marvelled over.

My muddy-but-happy tourists have left with their wet shoes packed in plastic bags. They report to be safely back home in Canada, but, unfortunately, it’s far too hot and sunny for a cheese fondue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you’re a skinny person who sleeps like a baby for a solid 8 hours every night, then don’t even bother to read this. You don’t need my handy health tips and medical reassurance. At least, not at the moment.

In this house, watching evening TV is a normally-pleasant communal activity. The ritual of the Swiss news, the French news, the international news, the weather, more weather, a movie, a series or two usually keeps us going until the sun has long gone down. The big friendly TV is our window on the world and all the lights are blazing. We are alive and active. Sort of.

Dragging our sorry asses up to bed at about 11:00 (I’ve usually already fallen asleep on the couch) I am told not to snore, and then sleep overwhelms me until about 2:30 a.m.

 And then comes then comes that terrible bit.

Unless seriously jet-lagged, I have always taken this next hour or two of wakefulness as a physical and psychological failure. Tossing and turning, trying to read, worrying about the state of my sock drawer, anxious about being awake, hoping I manage to nod off before the sun comes up—I had thought was unnatural and seriously unhealthy.

I have now learned that I am the victim of light bulbs. Prehistoric, and even preindustrial, humans went to bed shortly after the sun went down or the candles ran out (depending on your wealth), you then slept for a bit. Then you indulged in a spot of dorveille. During the “watch” praying, interpreting your dreams, sex, writing, singing, meditation, visiting neighbours and burglary were popular activities. You then crawled back under the feathers until the sun came up. This, it seems, was healthy and natural.

So, that’s my first spot of good news. Lying awake in the middle of the night is GOOD for you.

And then it just gets better and better. In today’s paper a very large, lengthy and serious Danish study published in the JAMA has shown that people who have a body mass index of 27 (which means pleasantly plump in laymen’s terms) live longer than everyone else. They actually die less from everything!

Now this is cheerful information indeed. My two helpings of potatoes I had for supper and the banana cream ice-cream I’m now considering suddenly seem like healthy life-style choices.

Dusk is settling. I will prepare my Alpine herbal infusion and hit the sack. I will revel in my dorveille, and awake refreshed and relaxed for a day filled with bread and butter, pickled herring, frikadeller (meat balls), and leverpostej (liver paste). I’ve even put akvavit on my shopping list.

We all know the next study is going to show that the BMI number is completely irrelevant and it is their Viking food that is keeping the Danes all going forever. I’m one step ahead of them on this.

 

 

I almost didn’t make it to Japan. The Geneva countryside holds many surprises–not all of them pleasant.

If you ever are approached by a man suddenly running, then crouching, behind your car breathlessly explaining that he has seen flames shooting out the back of it, don’t believe him for a minute. He is a crook and wants to steal your car, your handbag, and your groceries. He has an evil friend hiding in the bushes. You and your car and your pork chops are all dead ducks.

However, last Saturday, I DID believe him. I grew up watching Cannonball, 12 O’Clock High, Combat! and Highway Patrol. Despite (or because of) extremely restricted TV-time I have retained much crucial information. Based on realistic action TV and Gerry movies in my formative years, I still seriously believe in spontaneously exploding cars, trucks, helicopters and airplanes.

I believe in fireballs.

When the man urged me to get back into my car and turn on the ignition while he fixed the problem of the alarming dangling wires, I point-blank refused.

When he insisted that I get some water for him to throw on the smouldering ashes of the car’s undersides, I knew that this was wrong. One needs foam, sand, perhaps a fire-blanket or a thick leather bomber jacket. Not water.

So, secure in my ancient knowledge of 1960s television I held firm. I got my purse, I locked the car, and told the near-hysterical man that I was phoning the Swiss Touring Club, and he’d better get away if he didn’t want to be melted into a red-hot puddle in the middle of the road.

Turns out, this was a well-known sting operation. Lone women pulling into countryside drives are targeted. Lone women in parking lots are targeted. A mechanical problem involving drama and confusion is created. Dangling wires are attached. If all goes well for the villain, the car key is placed in the ignition. The panic-stricken lady runs off to get some water from somewhere. A car and credit cards and a sack of groceries are lost forever.

But, girls, do not fear. Forewarned is forearmed. Snap a photo of the villain as he supposedly fiddles with your car. Lock yourself in and call the cops at 117. If he gets too close grab a finger and snap it back. Run in circles, scream and shout. Be brave. If worse comes to worse, slap him with a pork chop.

Be a red-hot grand-mother warrior.

I have just learned that Japanese people don’t really like to eat whale. I, personally, have always found it over-rated. The meat is fishy and chewy – exactly as one would expect.

It seems that whales were eaten as a last resort when the country was hungry after WWII, and the hunting of whales today is just a bureaucratic remnant of that trying time. For a generation of kids (of about my age), whale soup was a staple of school lunch.

Normally-constituted Japanese people today prefer beef or chicken or shrimp and there are only two whale meat sellers left in the Tokyo fish market. No one cooks whale at home; it would take months to get the deep dark smell of the sea out of the apartment.

Of course, the good things you eat as a child are what you like and, thus, certain traditions are established and preserved until they die a generational death. My daughter is a pure cultural-fusion product and her food choices are totally outlandish and at first glance incomprehensible.

From the Swiss side of her family she has picked up an abiding love of boudin (noir). I used to serve this once a week in winter blood-sausage season. I, personally, ate only the boiled potatoes and apple sauce. One extremely embarrassing day, I was pulled over by the lady running the crèche as the morning’s diaper had revealed a product of the most alarming colour. I explained about it being Wednesday, and boudin day was Tuesday. I believe I was put on some sort of Crèche Culinary Watch List.

From my side of the family comes that old Canadian staple of wieners and beans on toast. This was eaten with my daughter exclusively when Swiss husband was absent – preferably out of the country and as far away as possible. Always a bit of a food snob, only Heinz beans were served and the best brand of wieners cut into perfect rounds. A little Swiss friend was brought home for lunch one day; she had never had such a wondrous meal. Departing for school she thanked me effusively for the nice soft meat.

Anyway, from where I come from whales, rabbits and horses are all left to roam around uncooked. Instead Sloppy Joes, shepherd’s pie, fish-fingers, macaroni & cheese, Yorkshire pudding, hamburgers and hotdogs and scrambled eggs with ketchup are grist for my version of the Canadian food mill. Coming originally from the north of England potatoes figure at least once a day; and the existence of Swiss rösti has contributed greatly to my perfect cultural integration and happiness.

Yes. We are what we eat—individual memories and comforting confusion. Whales included, one presumes.

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It has finally snowed and I can feed the birds. The bird balls (seeds and suet packed into a net) and the bulk bag of bird food were purchased a month ago. The feeding houses have been hung from the apricot and the cherry trees. The old Christmas tree has been placed on the strawberry boxes. Let the banquet begin!

It has been too warm so far this winter to feed the birds. If the ground is not snow-covered or frozen you should let the birds fend for themselves. If you spoil them they become too fat to fly. As a member of the Swiss Ornithological Institute in Sempach (I buy their calendar every year) I know this to be a true scientific fact.

So, I put on my boots, found the bird balls on the kitchen windowsill, and trudged into the garden to begin the hanging of the balls. They had been waiting. No sooner had I started, than they rose up in a great twittering chorus. I don’t know if they all spoke the same language, but I clearly distinguished robin, chaffinch, sparrow, and goldfinch. On the ground the resident blackbird couple was silently, sulkily, looking for worms in the snow.

St Francis preaching to the birds, Giotto, 1297

They flew in from all directions. My bird-balls had gone viral; they got millions of hits. Even the woodpecker on the walnut tree stopped bashing his head against the bark to see what was up.

Now, I’m not particularly sentimental about birds. I like to see them out and about: turquoise kingfishers flitting over the Rhone River and cormorants drying their wings in the weak winter sun; jays squawking from the trees; and I’ll even tolerate a redstart building her nest in the tool shed. But on a snowy morning to be greeted by a whole inter-racial bird crowd and thanked for a bird-ball feast I found to be most moving.

I now understand Saint Francis of Assisi preaching to the birds and Dr Doolittle talking to the animals. They must have had bird balls in their pockets.