The Phoenix Has Landed

When we opened our shipping, our once home packed up and made cardboard if not destitute, there was a cloud of memories ushered in by the quick scent of the tropics, its musky odour in everything. It wasn't mildew exactly, more captured humidity caught in the fibres like the mosquito who rushed out, given freedom and then no doubt shock to find itself suddenly here. I know the feeling.

It's been great to have our tropical world join us here in our wee Swiss hamlet and it seems to have merged okay. I'm amazed our Japanese Phoenix made it without losing a wooden feather and musky belongings aside the Vietnamese packers did an amazing job.

So we are still settling in. Our necessarily minimal apartment now has clutter but hopefully character too. Below, painted on to a cliff face a cycle ride away from us, are shields depicting significant Kantonal events. And then one of us, on a wet visit to Zurich.

Photos from a New Life!

Summer is ending...

In the Bernese Alps with the kids, we chanced on a cafe selling Rosehip tea.

Our new home town...

In case you lose your way on the Wanderweg

Switzerland has a one of the highest ratios of gun ownerships in the world. No wonder they stayed neutral.

People are getting ready for a long winter..

This is our local cafe that has survived recent health scares.

Heidi Hi

There's going to be a lot of that - cheesy jokes that amount to more than Fondue, chocolately sweet remarks about life here in Grellingen: Population 1700 + 2 now of course. Our arrival is to be announced in the local paper - not out of celebrity of course but by way of communal introduction. We are expected to introduce ourselves to our neighbours, formally one by one knocking on doors, so we tapped homes and waited to say hello; bought bikes and staggered into the hills to be passed by effortless joggers; stepping on and off trams to France and Germany, a kind of trans European travel that required little effort as we joined the Swiss Franc flockers to the limping Eurozone.

Then a balcony with the view shown in the photo above that allows us to sit outside in the dark without the bite of mosquito, the damp wrap of humidity.

The sledgehamming difference between life in Vietnam and living here in this quiet hamlet is as resounding as the bells from the church half way up the hill.

Also, gehen wir