Are the Swiss more, or less formal than the Germans?
I read something in Sara's blog yesterday, that set me thinking.

When I first moved to Switzerland I was very surprised at how quickly the Swiss will offer you the informal form of address, Du.
Quite often, someone you just met informally will automatically address you with Du.
In Germany you can go for years, saying Sie to someone that you meet every day, just as you could address someone as Mr. or Mrs. for years on end in Britain.

The rule I learned, is to say Sie to anyone older than sixteen, until prompted to say Du. That is, of course, unless you are higher in rank or older than your opposite, in which case you may do the prompting.
I remember once, inadvertently addressing someone with Du. The response was
'I don't remember that we ever ate cherries together?'
Sorry, could you repeat that?

In German speaking Switzerland, people are rather less formal and I sometimes get the impression, that they even feel uncomfortable with Sie.
If they feel uncertain of the situation, they will often revert to the old third person, formal version Ihr.
It just so happens, that Ihr is also the plural form, so when someone asks
'seid Ihr ...', it can mean 'art thou ...' or 'are you [all] ...'
Some Germans call this the Ghost Form, because you always feel the need to glance over your shoulder - 'me - and who else?'

Children here present a completely different problem.
Children in small towns and villages are brought up to greet people they encounter.
If you pass a child in the street, it will most likely greet you. It takes time for children to learn discretion; when I visited Zurich with friends, they had to say 'no, child, you don't have to greet everyone you pass in the city ...'

So what do you answer a child, that greets you with 'Grüezi' when you pass it? (Grüss Sie - greetings to you) The normal reaction would be to repeat the greeting, but one does not say Sie to children. I personally find the personal Swiss greeting 'Hoi' too informal, when greeting a total stranger - no matter how old, so now I have started to use the German greeting 'Grüss Dich' which is formally informal but sometimes results in strange glances. At least I feel comfortable with it.

You'll have to excuse me - there is a class of school children coming this way and I need to cross the road.

The monsoon season would seem to be over.
After six weeks of sunshine the temperatures dropped by almost 20°C and it rained almost none-stop for what seemed like the proverbial forty days and forty nights. Up in the hills where I live (950 m - as in '3/4 of the way up Snowdon's 1300 m') the rain is often accompanied by wind. And when I say wind I mean wind with a capital W!

The house I live in was built in 1788 to house a small farm with about twelve cows. The cow shed now houses bicycles and gardening tools.
The house is a typical Appenzeller house built entirely of wood. It was 'renovated' about twenty years ago, so now the floors in each room are level and most of the ceilings are too. Though the floors are all level, none of them are actually at the same level - this means my rooms are a series of steps running diagonally across the house - the highest in the front bedroom, the lowest I use as an office.
You would pay a fortune to rent most split-level flats. This one is quite reasonable.

The lowest door frame is 1.65 m and it took me almost a year to register the fact.
The scars are gone now!
The highest door frames just allow me to pass through without injury.

When the wind blows, the house starts to creak and groan all over. There are two rooms with their original beamed ceiling and walls and they make the loudest sounds. At the same time dust spills out from between the cracks in those ceilings and from the (treated) woodworm holes in the walls. At times the wind can howl eerily like a horror film, through one of the kitchen windows.

The other day, I had guests when the house started one of its more Oscar-worthy performances. My friends looked at each other in surprise. One of them jumped up in panic – at the noise, I presumed. He informed us he had to go home immediately, to prevent loss of some textiles, that were now airing too heftily.
He raised his wine glass in a final toast and smashed it's stem against the ceiling as he drank. I wasn't really too happy about that, even though it was amusing.
After apologising, my friend turned to leave and drove his forehead straight into the door frame with a resounding thud.

We just had to laugh! Some misdemeanours are punished immediately.
Mind your head!

'ginell !!
When are Swiss landlords and their personnel going to remember the fact, that they earn their living by being hospitable?
I live in the middle of nowhere, my next neighbour is 100 yards away and the next but one house just happens to be a restaurant.
This is very practical, because I can go there in an evening, drink a beer or a glass of wine and catch up on the local gossip.
The proprietor - a woman - is a gossip, which is a great help in that situation.
The restaurant is closed on Thursdays. It just so happens, that it is convenient for me to visit the place on a Wednesday.

On Wednesday I sat down, ordered a beer and asked what was on today's menu. A perfectly normal question in a restaurant?
Don't you believe it!
I was presented with a torrent of unfriendly sounds.
It slowly dawned on me, that I was being asked, why I had the audacity to order something to eat, when I know very well, that the place is closed on Thursdays and there is obviously (why hadn't I considered it myself!) nothing edible in the kitchen! Mumble, mumble, mumble!

I replied, that I had considered the fact, which was exactly why I had asked what was on today's menu and had not asked for the menu.
The answer was, that I could mumble, mumble, have Rösti (plate-sized hash browns made with julienned potatoes) and Bratwurst (fried sausage).
As I really enjoy rösti, I asked if I could have a plate full with baked cheese, instead of the sausage and the proprietor went mumbling off into the kitchen.

Twenty minutes later a plate was un-gently placed in front of me, accompanied by the comment 'You only come in here when the other pubs are closed anyway!'
I resisted the urge to get up and leave immediately - the rösti looked so good. I ate, drank another beer (I'd come for the news) and pretended nothing had happened.
The Appenzeller can be a little strange, but that kind of unfriendliness is taking things too far. It will be some time, before I go there again.

How do you boil an egg?
Although I really enjoy cooking, I couldn't boil a soft boiled egg for you, even if my life depended on it.
The problem is, you can ask whoever you like, how to boil an egg and you will get a different answer every time.
I know because I recently asked and almost rekindled the civil war which originally separated the two halves of Appenzell.

Now, at last, help is at hand. As of autumn this year you will be able to go to the supermarket and purchase soft boiled eggs, or hard boiled - as you prefer.

Our very own Lion Quality Eggs are to be printed with an invisible, heat sensitive ink. You will be able to drop your eggs into hot water, boiling water or cold water - which ever your preferred method is - and when your egg is just right for you to dip your toasted soldiers into, the ink will appear to inform you of the fact!

And no, it is not April the first!


An egg shell displaying a new thermochromic logo, which becomes
visible when the egg is cooked (PA - The Times)

You realise, of course, that this just will not do!
On Sunday I got sunburned while sitting in the shadows for an hour.

Today there are hundreds of Neo-Nazis getting soaked to the skin, while they wait to disrupt todays celebrations.
There are hundreds of thousands of sausages getting soggy, because the grills can't be ignited and there are millions of Franks worth of fireworks, that can't be ignited because both fuses and matches are soggy.

Sorry, could you move just a little further to the left, with that umbrella, I'm trying to light this rocket!