Posts about Life
Mint choc chip at last!
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After more than twelve years in Switzerland, there are few foods or drinks which I miss from the UK. Kenco (instant) coffee is a regular buy when we’re in the UK and we also stock up on pain killer tablets when we can, as prices in Switzerland are astronomical in comparison. The biggest pleasure which
A little effort is worth it
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Never having been a great one for sport and exercise, and having given up long walks around golf courses when I moved to Switzerland, my legs aren’t up to the challenge of big mountain walks. My knees are a bit of a weak point, and a long walk in the mountains often ends in a
Swimming with the fish
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Swimming in the river Aare is a hobby I’ve taken up this year with gusto, having been initiated by colleagues at work last summer. Once past Bern, the river slows down as it meanders through the countryside and the greenness of the pastures below the ridge of the Jura mountains extends into the river itself, reminding
Remember when…?
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Sometimes I remember to take a photo just so that I can look at it one day in the future and say, “do you remember when we used to do this?” One day, this photo will be twenty years ago.
D is for Darkroom
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It was amazing to watch him in the darkroom at an advanced age, still get excited when the results were pleasing. He still struggled like we all do in the darkroom and he struggled behind the camera, and when he had a success he was beaming. John Sexton It’s a bit scary to think that
C is for Car
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“Man sits in car; dribes.” Judging by this early statement from my childhood, I’ve always been a driver.
B is for Blog
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Blogging – writing for an unknown audience – has been a part of my life for over twenty years. And I still love it.
A is for Ausländer
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Being a foreigner, or Ausländer, is only how other people classify me and what affects my life for better or worse makes me who I am today. I am just a person, formed in character of those experiences which have led me to where I sit today.
The Swiss MOT
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The Swiss are reknowned for their efficiency and I’m used to the smoothness of dealing with officialdom here. The extent of the efficiency surprised me a little this morning, though, when for the first time since I’ve lived here, I had to take my car to the testing centre. The “Amtliche Fahrzeugprüfung” is akin to
The difference between racism and ignorance
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Richard Herring writes about racism in today’s Metro newspaper, but is Richard’s definition of racism in the context he cites accurate? I think that lumping people from different countries into one group is laziness and ignorance rather than racism. Demeaning someone just because of their race (“colour of their skin”), and not their nationality, is
How to keep you interested
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With such a plethora of photographic websites online, both good and not so good, it’s increasingly difficult to gain a reasonable readership of a blog. Blogs have been historically prone to their authors over-thinking their purpose, and aiming for a much wider audience than they are realistically going to achieve. Most blogs have a small
Cutting out the chaff
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In order to help me retain focus on project work, documentation and online authoring, I have found iA Writer, a text editor by Information Architects, really useful. As creator Oliver Reichenstein said in a recent article, authors – especially those writing for online publication – often spend far too much time formatting their text instead…
Keeping your data safe
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Using a mixture of password segments stored digitally and a second segment stored manually, access to online systems becomes highly secure.
Welcome to Switzerland (conditionally)
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(Post originally begun in 2011.) Along with most other households in Switzerland, I received a pre-printed flyer from the Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP) at the end of last week. (Obivously the person delivering them didn’t bother to check the name on the post box, in our case.) The flyer has been timed to coincide with the…
Squirrel!
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One of the greatest problems that I face on a daily basis is that of a lack of focus. I love to do so many things – taking and editing photos, creating designs for websites and books, programming – that when I’m fired up, it’s difficult to know where to start and where – or
Wonder and reflection
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I wonder, sometimes, about the nature of photography and why I spend so much of my time engaged in it. A snapshot, recovered with the use of Photoshop, garners the appreciation of hundreds and hundreds of people, whilst a series which I return to again and again gains less views than I can count on
The Way to Green Crag
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I don’t usually bother celebrating my birthday in any great fashion, but as I turned forty this year, I decided to make an exception and plan a short break away with Jo, so that I could look back on the arrival of mid-life with some fondness. After some to-ing and fro-ing on a destination, I
