Switzerland ... where you can move house in the snow.

November 28, 2010

Switzerland ... where you can move house in the snow.

Giles, Ruth Jodie the Alfa and our new
apartment at the left, top floor.

I have always loved that song 'Winter in America' by Aussie folkie Doug Ashdown. Yesterday I touched on the feeling of where he mightt have been sitting when he wrote it.

Jo and I woke up to find snow softly kissing our bedroom window, and a frosty coating outside where last week I was saying goodbye to my leafy friends. By the time we loaded up the Alfa and the van to take our accumulated possessions to the basement of our new apartment in Pully (a suburb one stop from Lausanne), the flakes were ricocheting

from the windscreen and filling up the sidewalks.

The drive to Lausanne was absolutely transformed and unrecognizable. Our first journey in

a snow storm was like any of those Xmas movies you see on TV (not quite Trains Plains and Automobiles but I've got a pretty vivid imagination), a totally new and interesting experience. When we reached Lausanne it was difficult to drive by landmark recognition and somewhere between Ouchy and Pully I lost Jo (who was following).

After a standoff with the concierge (welcome to your new home!!!) about where we could and could not park the vehicles to unload them, with Giles and Ruth’s assistance (and Harvey yesterday) we managed to get all our stuff locked up in our cave (bomb shelter) until the apartment is inspected and cross-ticked on Monday.

We arrived in Switzerland four months ago with two suitcases (matching), two backpacks (matching) and two macbooks (one red, one pink) and now we have an apartment full of furniture. That is thanks to the generosity of the people we have met here who have given us the things they no longer have a need for which has exactly fitted the needs we have. The law of provision is an amazing thing and Jo and I are so grateful to all our new friends who have helped make this adjustment to our new life an exceptional one.

After a yummo lunch at our new local cafe/coffee shop/patisserie in old town Pully, Jo and I said au revoir to Giles and Ruth and headed back to Rolle in what I would describe as pelting snow. It was a pretty good trip until some nut in a speeding BMW lost control (rear wheel drives in the snow just don’t cut it) and wiped out a lady in a mini Citroen. Jo and I helped another couple get her out of her car and although it was totaled, outside of a bit of shock, she was unhurt.

Rolle was completely inundated by the time we got home. They are talking 15 - 20 centimetres in eight hours which in rain terms is a bit of a deluge. We took advantage of the whiteness by walking down to the shops for food and a dvd, just to soak it up (and my Adidas runners did just that).