Swiss Walks

Today we might as well speak of blue skies and autumn leaves because that is what we’re facing. The Septemper/Autumn grey clouds, fog, and cold are not here yet. Instead we have warm sunny days. The habit of walking one and a half hours a day is perfectly safe, with such a stable weather system.

Sigg Bottles

I have two Sigg water bottles, the half litre and the one litre. For months or even a year they lied dormant due to the pandemic and attempts to clean them. I used the tablets but I didn’t like the taste so I left them aside. Yesterday or the day before I decided to take a sponge and clean the exterior and mouth of the bottles. That’s when the taste I expect from these bottles came back.

Today as I walked from one village to another I looked up the hill and I saw a cloud arch framing a nearby village and I had to take a picture. The framing of the image was rather unique. It is below. Is it kitsch? There is a good chance. It was unique, so I captured it.

The Cloud Arch

I liked looking up at the sky today because it was different from usual. It was full of interesting clouds and the light played between areas that were in the shade, and others that were in the clouds. I saw a rainbow in one place, and a curtain of rain falling on the Jura in another.

One of the great things about using the word Autumn, rather than Fall, is that we can say that something looks Autumnal. We can say it with a single word. With the word Fall, you need to add context. Fall sounds like something people do when they make a mistake and lose their balance. I prefer Autumn, it is a nicer word.

If you walk around at the moment you see that they have cut corn, sunflowers and beet. You also see that there are piles of beet in fields, queues of tractors waiting to send them on a train journey and more. Agriculture is busy at the moment.

Plenty of Beets

This morning I heard quite a few sirens of emergency vehicles and as I looked out of the velux I saw a column of black smoke rising. I was curious as to its origin. I thought “Is it a car or is it a building.” It turns out that a car had decided to start burning while being driven on the motorway. I saw no mention of injuries or other. It seems a strange thing, for a car to spontaneously combust. I wonder what mistake led to the fire.

Duolingo and Babbel log days in a row, rather than the progress made in a day. The Kindle App counts days and weeks in a row. Kobo and Apple Books both log reading time. I want to dump Duolingo but I don’t want to lose my days in a row streak.

Language Learning Streaks

Plenty of apps like to log streaks. For them it is a way of addicting us to their app, to force us to use their app every day, whether we feel like it or not. It is a way for them to hold on to us as users, way after we have lost a passion for the app. I hate Duolingo but I keep using it only to keep my streak. I don’t use it to learn German now. Babbel is better. It allows you to move on, and choose whether to repeat a mistake. It also provides you with an in-depth explanation of what the grammatical rules are. Understanding the logic makes learning much easier.

I’m afraid to open the veluxes because of the threat of finding yet another large spider. I don’t mind having to dispose of it, but I hate the idea of having one walking around without me knowing. A great alternative to open windows is to go for your daily walk. You’re far from neighbours, from smokers, from metalworking and more. You are free to daydream. Today the Mont Blanc was clearly visible. The image is at max zoom with an iphone 8+.

We walk daily to look into the distance, to have fresh air, and to think about things. We take our daily walk because it’s a habit. We take our daily walk because it is a way of travelling from one place to another, without necessarily changing location.

A flower, with a field, and the Alps behind it.

Today is day 100 of writing a blog post every day. Every day I have tried to find inspiration to write and every day I have succeeded. The posts go unread, but the challenge is not to be read. The challenge is to be consistent. I have managed that challenge.

Today I felt like taking a break from studying Wordpress. I played with some code from a book I got for free on the Apple Bookstore. At this moment this code is consolidation. I will get to the challenging stuff later. I have read, from many sources, that it’s good to have examples of your work online when you learn to code.

There are two steps to take although I don’t think the order matters. The first is to create a new repisotory on There are two steps to take although I don’t think the order matters. The first is to create a new repository on WordPress. In my case it is Laughing Raclette. The name is ridiculous, but it’s available, and absurdity and humour are good. Once you have created a repository, it will provide you with help on how to connect your local directory. I connected it via Terminal in VS Code, to my online repository. The process was quick and simple.

Yesterday I decided to take a break from the Apple watch for up to a week. I am tired of two behaviours. The first of these is the watch’s habit of saying that I did not stand for two or three hours in a row. I know that I have. I need to stand to cook, or to brush my teeth and other tasks. It also annoys me that if you bend your arm it counts that you sat down. Bend your arm to check if you have been standing for at least one minute and it resets the counter.

I have managed to neutralise the inner censors. I have accomplished ninety five days of blogging in a row, once again. During the first 100+ days of the pandemic I did the same. At the time I thought that this would provide a document of how life was for the pandemic. The pandemic has lasted over 540 days and I eventually lost inspiration, and inspiration for new things to write.