Slackarse Sunday Selection

....It's nearly 5pm here in Switzerland, so it's already Monday in Oz, but with a year of ideas and photos and learnings, my brain has instead decided to stay in Sleeping in on Sunday-mode and not do much in the area of work, words or creativity.

It's been a while, but I remember loving the Sunday Selections weekly meme that is hosted by the living legend that is 'River' over at Drifting Through Life. 

Her rules are very simple:-

1. Post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title

2. Link back to River somewhere in your post3. Leave a comment on River's post and visit some of the others who have posted and commented: for example:    Elephant's Child    Keep working through it    Kit Conn

Here are my iPhone orphans:

A bathroom mirror from IKEA.  Purchased to let me keep my elderly eyes on any stray facial hair.  I only noticed that it was called 'frack' when I got home and thought it rather neatly summed up what my reaction is at seeing my face first thing every morning.

At Milly's Meadow (officially known as Parc de Trembley), we found this rather clean sofa plonked right in the middle of the beautifully manicured lawns one Sunday morning.  It may not have been my preferred style but it was eagerly leapt upon by Milly.  Having a sofa of her own plus a long walk meant that all she needed to complete the ecstasy trifecta was a few slices of bacon.

I've revealed the Jovial Douche shower gel, Douche Parking, the Chateau d'Ouchy and Vadge Fresh to you before, but why not have some extra brain cells for those clever comebacks in addition to minty fresh breath?

Other brand favourites include our current shower gel - Douche Sensations (although I get enough of those 'sensations' just driving Sapphire to school amongst the never-ending road works, impatient horn honkers and the French Suisse's allergy to using indicators); Grande Cracks (biscuits for cheese) and 'extra dick' pizza bases.....

Parking perpendicularly is a selfish annoyance in the communal garage under our apartment building as it prevents not only the car directly being blocked from getting out but also the car opposite, as the space is too narrow to back out from.  If this car wasn't so adorable, it might - just might - have had a bag of Milly's butt nuggets placed under the windscreen wipers.

Last summer, the building's residential owners committee decided to invest in a robot mower.  Shallow channels were dug, wires inserted and carefully defined paths laid out for the green machine.  All went swimmingly until autumn, when the beast simply could not recognise or cope with wet leaves.  To the mower's mind, they were flat stickers on the floor, but to the aggrieved concierge, they were nature's litter and an unbearable offence to all who lived there.

However, just before they retired the mower for the winter season, Milly entertained the neighbours at the eastern end of the building with her never-fail, highly outraged lunch time reaction:

Yes, I guess that this is cheating a little as it's a video and not a photo, but imagine this performance occurring Every. Single. Day.....

.....within a fortnight she had several retired couples deliberately timing their balcony sandwiches and cuppas so that they could be entertained by our insane little orange dog.

The mower is back in business again, and so is Milly's pursuit of it.

Sapphire and I went zip lining with our gregariously gorgeous friend Gianna and her nephew Malachy in a forest just near Nyon.  It was then that my suspicion that French Suisse concerns for Health and Safety were nowhere near as stringent as that in Australia or the UK were indeed confirmed. 

Call it the Gallic shrug, or perhaps the fact that Gianna and I were the only people older than fifteen years old participating, but clearly the wooden platforms at each end of the lines were merely serving suggestions and not rigorously tested or secured.

Then factor in my 72 kilogram frame (easily being the largest of the four of us), a downward wire and momentum building to a level that saw my cheeks flapping back like a beagle's ears and my bulky bod was smacked directly into the trunk of an ancient oak tree and swiftly flung halfway back up the wire and smacked back into the tree again. And again.  Despite this - and the inability to walk home later or lift my arms up higher than my shoulders - we had a hoot.

The Swiss love a referendum.  Some of the topics can be incredibly controversial and have serious ramifications, such as the recent 'aye' to restrict international immigration; but others can be rather flighty.

This poster is advocating a 'yes' vote for extending the hours of road houses.  Yes, they want petrol stations to be able to sell sausages and other hot foods for longer hours.  

Not to be outdone, an opposition party went straight for the lowest common denominator - sex.  As in make love; not a trip to the servo for a sarnie!

Sapphire and I visited the Musee Ariana which features a huge collection of porcelain in a beautiful 18th C mansion by the edge of Lac Leman.  Part of the attraction was that it was a nice walk from our apartment and it was free: two winners for Geneva.  Luckily, it was easy to while away a pleasant couple of hours there, but this little triple gold lion-legged sugar pot with what appeared to be a rogue bagpipe painted on it left us pretty confused.

I'll leave you with these final two photos. The first is of Love Chunks' Big silver Bad Boy barbecue that he had in Australia compared to the tray of charcoal he has now. Both do meat brilliantly well. 

.....although the chef has a fair bit to do with it!

Sunday Selections - Alhambra Aquatica

Alhambra (in Granada) is Spain's most-visited site and we were determined to get our egg-beater-for-an-engine hire car over there to see it.  The contraption was so small the back seat had to be flattened to get our suitcase inside and we did our best to heed the traffic warnings:

In a place known for temperatures of 45-48C in the 'high' season, we felt a bit like tourists who visit Ayers Rock/Uluru during a thunderstorm: slightly damp due to rain rather than sweat, and well aware that not many get to experience it in this way.

Kicking off as a fortress in the 8th century, becoming a Moorish palace by the 11th and reclaimed by the Spanish Catholics in 1492, the place has seen a few changes, additions, dodgy renovations, vandalism, refurbs and a tourist or two.  Granada was barely visible during the drizzle and the ticketing system was run on an almost Swiss-like, humourlessly strict 30-minute basis.  Miss your slot and you don't get sent to the back of the line: you get told to bugger off and try and book for another day.

Rain I can handle; bone chilling breezes are what make being a traveller with nowhere to hide until late afternoon check-in a nightmare.  Luckily was wet but mild and the grey skies helped make the intricate stone carvings stand out even more.

It was a genuine joy to see how Sapphire responded to the place. "I will come back here again," she gasped, "I have to."

Whilst admiring the endless rooms of painted tiles (not allowed to be photographed due to the need for the use of flash), 'glory to god' carvings, blue and green alabaster ceilings and courtyards that would have been the coolest places to recover during a blistering summer day, it was hard not to wonder how the poor peasants of Granada felt seeing an enormous mini-city of opulence literally looking down over their town.

The Four Minute Showerer may have left her birth country, but couldn't help seeing the water tumbling down and thinking, 'What this joint needs are a few humungous corrugated iron tanks dotted about and some guttering."

The flowers were in a mild state of shock.

"This is crazy, yes," said a museum guide, watching as an inner courtyard turned into a plunge pool.  We all had to jump in as the circuit only went one way and Alhambra doesn't tolerate tourists who don't toe the line or move in an orderly clockwise direction towards the overpriced gift shop.

Perhaps I've left it a bit late in this piece to let you know just how dazzled and impressed and inspired we were by the place?  

And how my photographs don't do it justice?  Especially the ones where I'd left a fingerprint on the lens so that the famous lion fountain could only be glimpsed behind what looked like a lonely cloud?

Wet through yes; in awe and thrilled to be there, yes times a hundred.

Sapphire's currently working on a painting for her bedroom based on some of the recurring patterns she saw here and immediately answers 'Alhambra' when polite adults ask her what the highlight of her holiday was.

A slight whinge about to occur now, but nothing to do with the all-encompassing amazingness of Alhambra.  I try to be a nice person and hopefully succeed in this endeavour at least fifty one percent of the time. If a couple are taking photos and one poses in front of the monument/silly sign/tower/river/ski field/castle, I'll wander over and ask if they'd like to me take their portrait together, as otherwise it's likely they'll end up with an album full of selfies (see above) or of each photo featuring just one of them.

"Yes please," they'll eagerly reply, but here's my beef: why don't they ever offer to take OURS for us?  I can count on one bloody hand how many photos of The Lockett Three there are in existence.

Fingerprint smear, flash bouncing off the glass and someone scraping the side of my eyebrow with their passing umbrella be damned: this is the kind of garden I'll have when the lotto gods smile upon me. 

And orange trees.  I eat an orange every single morning before breakfast (it's true: ask Love Chunks or Sapphire) and smelling their spring blossoms even in the down pour made the relative lack of chocolate an afterthought.

You haven't seen the last of us Locketts, Spain.

Area avoided often

I'm participating again in River's Sunday Selections event that invites bloggers everywhere to post up photos they haven't yet published, consider linking them with a theme and write something about them.

...this will help me get over the fact that Love Chunks, Sapphire and myself had a bog-ordinary Burger King meal at a roadside stop near Rolle, Switzerland that cost us Seventy Seven Francs.  That's fancy eatin' money!

On with the meme.

A bit after 8:00am on weekdays and weekends, Milly and I trot happily over to Parc de Trembley to stretch our collective total of six legs.  All furry, if I'm to be brutally honest.  It's a slab of land with a busy street that carves it into two segments, one considerably larger than the other.

We owe a lot to this humble park as it allows Milly to run free and keep her post-arthritic body in better shape than when she was first diagnosed with two irreparably wonky back legs over six years ago.  A sniff of a squirrel or the opportunity to snuffle around bench seats has resulted in a sleekly fit dog who can jump up into the back of the car with ease when she was completely unable do so in Melbourne.

With a paddling pool, ornate flower beds, ponds, ancient trees and friendly gardeners who know us and greet us, we both feel as though we know this little part of Geneva like the back of our hands/paws.

And yet there is one section that neither of us want to enter.  That's probably a good thing, because the sign outside this section already forbids entry to dogs:

The sign always leaves me feeling slightly offended on Milly's behalf as she should NOT be compared to disgusting urinators, vandals, noise polluters or litterers.

Then again, she's a beautiful and intelligent beast who hasn't shown the slightest interest in venturing into what I can only call - wait for it - brace yourselves - Pedo Playground.....

These creepy 'animals' are presumably meant to be cheery creatures intended to invite children to climb on them, play on them and generally enjoy themselves, but I have never ever seen a child - or adult - in there.  It seemed long past time to break the rules stipulated by the sign and have a whizz, sorry, take Milly in for a closer look.  She'd protect me if she had to, I'm sure.....

With a shaking dog so close to my legs that we tripped up several times, we tentatively approached this yellow abomination; a filthy chunk of butter with a tangible sense of unwholesomeness about it.  Made by a angry person with an old box and no artistic skills or is there a more sordid meaning behind the nubbin for a tail and the demonic blue ears?

Smile or not, the purple 'up yours' horns did not conjure up any innocent joys of childhood.

And these....?  A creepy looking camel and a half submerged pervy pincered crab? No way!

F-words aren't usually my go-to words, but what the phark is this pink thing??  A par-boiled testicle??





















Milly whined several times as I nervously snapped away.  If this was supposed to be a dog with antennae for ears, porn star breasts for eyes and nose and a distinctly un-PG tongue lolling out lustily, it was a challenge getting her to pose next to 'it'.....

It was a relief for both of us to get the hell out of there.  A-poo-behind-a-bush-relief for Milly, and a thank-god-we-have-wine comfort for me.

That is, until the label revealed that it too wasn't offering real comfort....

But dear old LC did.

Snow surprise

Lovely River from Drifting Through Life runs Sunday Selections. Participants can put up photos they've found from years or minutes ago or ones that run to a theme.  We had snow here in Geneva this week - the first of the winter - and I decided to take my big Canon SLR down to the Dog Forest* to catch Milly's reaction.

To preface it, we had already been for a big walk earlier in the morning. It was -3C and the sky was dark, but there was no sign of snow.  No sooner had we returned to our apartment upstairs than Milly flopped into bed and had a long and contented snooze.  Three hours later it was time to wake up, stretch and indicate to me with a wet-nosed nudge to the knee that a whizzer in the Dog Forest was in order.

The world, as Milly understood it, had strangely disappeared, only to be replaced by fluffy, cold white stuff.

This wasn't here this morning....

.... and the smells have all changed.

Hang on a second.....

SQUIRREL!

Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod it's still ON THE GROUND

Look behind you! 

Is it there?

Aw poo.  Ran up the tree.

My back is getting a bit cold.

...nothing a good flap of the ears won't remove.

Hey, hey heeeeeeyy..... there's another one!

There! See him - he ran under the hedge!

Come out wherever you are...

Please?

Oh sod this for a lark, I'm cold now...

Alrighty, now that we're inside and it's warm, I'll now sit still and pose for you. Is this close enough?

* Dog Forest - our term for the side of the garden that Milly is allowed to play and poop in. The fancy manicured side is only for looking at. No-one - human or dog - is permitted to sit on the grass or eat there, let alone contemplate having any fun.