Quite a long time ago, way back in November, writer Georgia Rose passed the ‘Lovely Blog’ award to me, and it’s been on my to-do list every since. One of my reasons for putting it off for a while was that I’ve already participated in something very similar and blog posts all about me are probably less than fascinating to most people – but last week I had an idea. I’m going to cheat a little…
The rules of a Lovely Blog post are to write seven facts about yourself and then link to up to fifteen (yikes!) of your favourite blogs, inviting them to do the same. Long-standing readers of this blog will know from the last time that I love EastEnders, hate flying, cut my own hair and have a messy car – etc etc. So I’m going to write seven facts about living and writing in Switzerland, and hope that Georgia doesn’t disown me…
1. It is said to be illegal to hang out your washing on Sundays here. In fact there’s quite a long list of things you can’t do on Sundays, like mow your lawn and wash your car. I’m not sure how much of this is actual law and how much just social tradition – many people including me do hang out washing – but I’ve yet to see someone mow their lawn on a Sunday.
2. I live in an absolutely lovely area, on the banks of Lake Constance. (Click the link for photos and info.)
3. There are 208 mountains over 3,000m high in Switzerland. The most impressive views I’ve seen were from the Jungfraujoch, between the Jungfrau and the Mönch mountains. The photo here is the Eiger north face, the Mönch and the Jungfrau.
4. My favourite Swiss city is Berne. It’s on the banks of the River Aare, and the old town is amazing. (Click the link for photos and info.)
5. I have dual nationality and can travel all over Europe with my Swiss identity card – in fact I don’t have a passport. Applying for a British passport is so horrendously time-consuming, complicated and expensive I’m not sure I’ll ever have another. If I wanted to travel outside Europe, a Swiss passport would be easier to obtain.
6. The last time Lake Constance froze completely in winter was 1963, when it was possible to walk from one side to the other. You can see on the video there are literally hundreds of people stamping about on the ice!
7. Since becoming a published writer I’ve been in contact with many others on the www, people I’d never have ‘met’ otherwise. And it’s not always writerly things we chat about. A Twitter contact gave me the recipe for the best banana ‘ice cream’ ever, so as a reward for getting to the end of this post, here it is:
Ingredients: 1 or 2 ripe bananas.
Method: Slice bananas onto a plate. Freeze for 2 hours. Put frozen banana slices into your mixer/liquidiser and blend them until you have a creamy dessert. Serve with whatever you fancy.
To finish up with, I’m passing the Lovely Blog award to the following blogs I enjoy reading. Possibly some of you have already been a Lovely Blog, and there’s no ‘must’ at all about joining in, but if you do please link back to me, share your seven facts, and nominate (up to) 15 others. I’m doing seven to match the seven facts:
The Witty Ways of a Wayward Wife
linda huber 
Really enjoyable read. Looks like you live in a really beautiful place.
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Thanks – it’s lovely. Cold, snowy and miserable right this minute, but when the sun shines it’s amazing. I’m lucky!
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Would love to live somewhere with scenery like yours. 🙂
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It’s lovely in summer and winter alike. We get a lot of tourists, especially cyclists who ride round the lake, which borders with Germany and Austria. (On my to-do list…) 🙂
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You must never know where to start with all the options you have 🙂 look forward to hopefully seeing more photos of it on your blog.
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I did a Switzerland post a couple of weeks ago, entitled ‘Welcome to Switzerland’. It’s a very photogenic area!
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I will check it out 🙂
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My hubby and I had our honeymoon in Switzerland. We stayed in Wengen in May and it was thick fog 9 out of the 10 days unless we got high enough. Lovely place, though.
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Oh no, how unlucky was that! We get fog here too, especially in autumn, being so near the lake. Sometimes too there’s ‘high fog’ and down here we’re beneath it and it’s just grey. Did you go on the Jungfraujoch? That’s not too far from Wengen. Or the Männlichen? Must go back to that area sometime, it’s lovely (when there’s no fog…)
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Brilliant facts! And thanks for the nomination! Got my thinking cap on already!
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Great! Can’t wait to see what you come up with! 🙂
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Thank you Linda x
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You’re welcome, Rebecca x
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Fabulous! I love you making the change Linda. Great facts too – I’m particularly keen on bringing in some laws here to stop cleaning type things happening on Sundays. I might even be minded to vote for whichever political party brought in such things come May… And I shall definitely be trying out the banana ice cream – thanks!
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You have to keep scraping it down from the side of your blender till it liquifies a bit. A small portion goes a long way – it’s very banana-ish! As for cleaning, I think it was Quentin Crisp who said the dirt doesn’t get worse after the first 4 years of non-cleaning… 🙂
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Thanks for the nomination, Linda:) I think I already owe two posts for blog awards over the last few months so I shall have to wrap them all up into one egomaniacal post about me. (Not a lot of difference from all my other posts really:D) Switzerland looks truly beautiful, as does the view of Lake Constance. I used to live by the sea and would like to return there one day – water has a fascinating appeal.
I’m going to try that banana recipe! I am desperate for some variety in my current diet. If it wasn’t for bananas I would have drowned in a sea of soup by now.
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You have to keep scraping the frozen banana down your blender till it gets creamy. I’d like to live by the sea too – our lake is beautiful but we don’t get crashing waves… We could retire together to Bognor… or somewhere 🙂
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