O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum.....

I was recently amused to read Chantal's story about buying a Christmas tree. Yep, can relate to the ins and outs of that. Having grown up in England, I was used to having an artificial tree with a string of lights on and for me, that was really Christmassy. 21 years ago I moved to Austria where Christmas trees are the real thing, for goodness sake and you only bring them in and decorate them on the 24th, not put them up at the end of November and have them jollily twinkling away for the whole of the Christmas period. I always found it a bit of a chore to go and buy a real tree, transport it home, attach it to its base, remember to add water or else the needles would fall off sooner than they already did etc etc. Not to mention the fact that I always missed the date when you can dispose of your tree, so therefore had it forlornly hanging around outside for months. Oh, the memories of that uncomplicated, artificial tree. However, living in Austria and now in Switzerland, I felt it would be unheard of to mention the word "artificial" in the same sentence as the words "Christmas tree". Especially as some people in Switzerland (and I have experienced this) go to a designated area of the forest on a special date and CHOP DOWN THEIR OWN CHOSEN TREE. Imagine my surprise and delight, when, a few years ago, I went round to my ex-neighbour and good friend Monique's house for a coffee around the beginning of December and saw that she had a lovely artificial Christmas tree. Oh, how lovely, I exclaimed. Yes, she said, isn't it. We've had it for years now and always put it away carefully so that it looks nice year after year. No apologies for it not being real, no excuses about not wanting real candles on a tree with 2 small children around. Well, I thought that was my license to buy, so I went out a few days later and purchased an artificial tree. My husband was shocked (he is Austrian), but when we put it up again this year, he did comment on how nice it looked....And Monique? I met up with her last Saturday and asked her if she had her tree up. No, she said. After 18 years of an artificial tree, we thought it about time we got a real one!!

And talking of Christmas trees, how about this easy decoration to make with the kids:



Cut out a Christmas tree from corrugated green paper. Cut out a hole large enough to accomodate a Christmas bauble - our hole is a bit wonky, but you can maybe help with the cutting out. Cut a smaller hole above this hole. Take your bauble and 2 lengths of thin ribbon in green and red (or other Christmassy colours). Thread ribbons through the hook in the top of the bauble and then thread the 2 ribbons first from front to back through the large hole and then from back to front through the smaller hole in the Christmas tree. Tie the four ends of the ribbon in a bow at the front so that you can't see the smaller hole. Add star stickers to decorate if you wish. Pierce a small hole right at the top of the tree and add thread to hang up.

Have a great Christmas everyone. Back in the New Year!

In the interest of integration....

As you might know, we have recently moved from Basel to our present address near to Zürich. Keen to meet new people and integrate into the community here, I always say yes to any invites I receive and I never cancel. This week one of my neighbours had asked me if I wanted to go with her to Aquafit at the school swimming pool. As this is only a five minutes' walk and as I do like water etc, I saw it as a good opportunity to do a bit more, well, integrating. I thought it was going to be like keep-fit, or aerobics, in the water - you know something jolly and a little bit sporty. Instead it was extremely, excruciatingly embarassing. First of all, we had to put on what looked like a huge, black nappy thing, velcro strips and all, to help us stay afloat. Then the whole "lesson" consisted of jogging round the pool, with a couple of minutes of other exercises in the middle. Have you ever tried jogging in water? It feels a bit like that dream, you know when you want to run away from something, but you can't get away fast enough. Well, the others had all had 8 lessons, so knew the technique but I just ended up feeling self-conscious and ridiculous and wishing I could get out. We spent a good half an hour going round the pool, jogging, I should say, in a figure of eight and had to criss-cross with other people in the middle. Well, I was almost always too slow and consequently constantly missed my "gap". The crunch came when, for one part of this figure of eight circuit, we had to take 2 polystyrene floats, wedge them under each arm and, well, flap with them whilst still jogging. I have no idea what the point of this exercise was, I just knew that I was doing it wrong. As soon as I "flapped", my whole body catapulted upwards and out of the water like Superman or something. But, get this - when the others did it, their bodies stayed in the water. How weird is that? I'm actually having delayed hysterics writing this! No, not my thing. The lesson to be learned here? Integration is good, but there are limits:/

Don't judge a book by its cover and CELTA, I'm in!

Actually, that's just what I normally do. So when I received this book from my Uncle Brian I was bemused to say the least:



To me the cover promised Mills and Boon romance, definitely not my scene. Anyway, I gave it a go and it was actually a good read. It is set in France and America, with the main character, Mischa, returning to France in later life to conquer his demons.
BTW Santa Montefiore is Tara Palmer-Tomkinson's sister, just FYI.

I also recently read this book:




This was terrific. If you like Dan Brown, you'll love this book. A real thriller, faster-moving than the Dan Brown novels. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Anyway, that may be the last of my leisure-reading for the moment, as I am busy ordering books on teaching English as a foreign langauge. Yes, I made it onto the CELTA course in January, so my reading matter will be more theoretical for a while. The interview went well and was not as scary as I thought it would be. I've got to complete and pass the course now - keep your fingers crossed for me.....

This is for Juanita!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I went to a party this week with my husband and children. I got talking to my husband's newest male collegue and the inevitable question arose. "What do you do?", he asked. My heart sank. All too often I've said I'm a stay-at-home Mum to see people's eyes glaze over and it's also a complete conversation stopper. At this point, may I say, if you are guilty of your eyes glazing over when faced with this reply to your question, please learn a couple of useful sentences to get yourself over this, something like "Yes, well that's a very worthwhile career" or "I bet you could tell us a story or two", or something like that. But, I digress. So, yes the dreaded question had been asked. This time, quick as a flash, I told this chap that I was a Domestic Engineer. He was suitably impressed. "Oh, oh, yes, I see," he said. Then a frown formed on his face. "What is that, exactly?", he asked. "Well", I said, "you are probably more familiar with the term Hausfrau". At this point he laughed so much that I thought he was going to spill his drink. And I had to laugh too. And Juanita? See her blog and more specifically her profile. Thanks for the tip, Juanita!

Recycling rules OK!

I was invited to a party last night with my husband and children. Fortunately I had a fairly new top to wear, but it needed a necklace. As I had to pop into Wintherthur (Winti) on Monday morning, I thought I would quickly stop by the Bead Shop and pick up some beads in the colour of the top and make a necklace. Not so. Both the Bead Shop and the Craft Shop in the same street are closed on Monday mornings. Duhh! Probably to compensate for being open on Saturday and, anyway, who on earth wants to buy beads on a Monday morning ? Apart from me, that is. So I came home and rummaged in my bead stuff and found a necklace which I had made some time ago, but never worn, as I found it too purple in the end.



However, I did like the pendant on this necklace and had made it by re-using the amythest nugget and chips from something else and reworking them onto sterling headpins and a large sterling silver jumpring. And the stones were just the right colour for the top. So I just detatched the pendant and added it to a ready-made cable choker and Bob was my Uncle, if you see what I mean...et voilà:



That all took a couple of minutes - quickest piece of jewellery I've ever made..

Jewellery Organiser

I'm always looking for ways to organise my stuff and have finally got round to finishing off this necklace/jewellery holder. It is hanging on the inside of my wardrobe door:


Not that it was rocket science or anything - just that anything involving sewing causes me to break out in a cold sweat - I'm actually a bit scared of my sewing machine - I have to psyche myself up to use it. First of all I found a coat hanger, the kind which you can hang trousers over, like this:



I then took an IKEA cushion cover that I no longer used, cut it down to size and hemmed it (is that the right terminology) from the wrong side around all 4 sides, leaving a big gap to turn it to the right side and then hand-stitching the "gap" from the right side. I think it's good to use a thickish material, as this cushions your necklaces from banging against the wardrobe door when you close it. Next, decide which side should be the front and fold the top over the bar of the coat hanger. I added a velcro "spot" to each of the top 2 corners and 2 more spots a few centimetres underneath to be able to "fold" the top few centimetres over the coat hanger and fasten. You could also sew it on. After this I hand-stitched some old-fashioned hooks and eyes onto the front part. I used the same colour thread as the cushion cover for this, but it would also look great in a contrasting colour. You have to play around a little bit with the position of the hooks and eyes - if they are too close together or too close underneath each other your necklaces will not have enough room to hang without getting tangled up with each other. The final stage was to decorate the upper part of the coat hanger - for this I used buttons, press-studs and glass stones that I had in my stash.



I then used a self-adhesive hook from TESA to hang it inside my wardrobe door.

Obviously, pieces of jewellery made from silver or other metal which could tarnish should be kept in air-tight containers, but this is fine for jewellery made from wire, cord etc.

The total cost was a few Swiss francs for the hooks and eyes -all other materials I already had. So now I can take my jewellery out of the shoe box I have been keeping it in since we moved house - hey, maybe I can use that shoe box for something! Watch this space.

CELTA interview

I have applied to do a CELTA course at the beginning of next year. CELTA is the Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults. Having now been a stay at home Mum for nearly 9 years, I feel it is high time to edge my way back into the adult world and I am hoping that this qualification will enable me to teach English here in Switzerland on a freelance basis and so fit in with the school schedules of my children. My application for the course consisted of a fairly lengthy pre-interview task - grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation questions, a proof-reading task and a 500-word report. My application has been successful and I have now been invited to an interview this Friday, which will last for 4 hours (!) and consist of general information on the course, a group task and a one-to-one interview with a tutor to discuss the pre-interview task I submitted. Getting an interview does not mean that I have a place on the course. I have worked out that the last formal interview I had was in 1995, so naturally, I am feeling a little apprehensive, let alone the fact that I don't have anything really suitable to wear - obviously can't pole up in my normal "uniform" of jeans and a fleece! So, wish me luck and, if anyone has any comments, information or the like on the CELTA course, I would be really interested to hear them.