This and that!

There's not much going on here at the moment. My big meeting was over at the beginning of the month and now I have time to (leisurely) prepare for my next meeting in March. That basically means getting the five sections of the report ready, edited and off to the translators in plenty of time to allow them to plough through it. Otherwise, it is pretty much winding down with many people already heading off for the holidays.

The weather is pretty weird though. Last Saturday we easily got five inches of snow but with glorious sunshine. After that it bucketed down rain for about four days - which is fine by me as it means the snow stays up in the mountains and the roads in the towns lower down stay clear. It has been like this for the last two weekends actually and again forecast the same for this weekend. It really messes with your body temperature gauge though. I mean, yesterday morning it was -3° when I left home. I almost pulled the door handle off my car trying to open it (I did do that once), and when I tried to roll down my window to badge into the parking lot the window blocked solid. Then today, as I left for work it was +7°, so a difference of 10° overnight. No wonder you don't know what to wear!

For some obscure reason (I've given up trying to figure it out) traffic into work was again dreadful this morning. As I got to about 2 km from the Swiss border traffic stopped completely so when I actually got through the customs about 30 minutes later there must easily have been a good 10-15 km tail back. Then, while I was sitting waiting to get to the park and ride I saw a truck coming alongside me down the hard should but driving the in the wrong direction - down the motorway! It wasn't a works truck or anything like that, but assuming no-one hit him coming up the hard shoulder (they shouldn't do that but they do), I don't know where he thought he was ever going to be able to turn around. I mean, he could maybe make it to the previous exit but there was no way he was going to be able to get off there!!! I can only hope the motorway cops caught up with him!

When I finally made it to the park and ride I thought I had better use the loos there as given my luck goodness only knew how much time it would take to cross Geneva on the bus. As I was trying, without success, to badge myself into the toilets a women came running up to me, hopping about on one leg and almost in tears, she was that desperate to use the bathroom. Well my badge wouldn't work, her badge wouldn't work and another man had no luck either, so she pushed the emergency button and yelled through the intercom for them to "open the bloody door". Whereupon she pushed straight past me and charged into the disabled toilets! Poor thing actually, because I suppose we have all been there and just how embarrassing would it be to pee yourself (or worse) in a situation like that!

Still, the good weather (when we get it) gives us fabulous views of the mountains on the ride in to work.  Geneva is surrounded by the Jura mountains to the north and the alps to the south, with the lake slap bang in the middle (hence all the traffic problems caused by the local geography). Below is a picture of the Jura mountains (I used to live on the "Jura side" when I was single) and the lovely hotel where we spent our one-night honeymoon in 1985. Yep, that was it - one night - and then he had to be back to work the next day.

The Jura

View from our hotel across to the alps - I live on the  "alps side" now!

Hotel La Mainaz

The hotel was lovely, but as you can see it does look like something out of The Shining (I guess I should have known the ex would eventually go mad)!

Anyhoo, last night I finally got round to putting my Christmas tree up. I hate putting the bloody thing up but I have to admit it does look very pretty when it is all done. When my youngest and his gf were living with me I used to leave them to do it but no such luck anymore. Oddly enough I have never minded taking it down. I'm sure there's some Freudian significance to that somewhere!

Oh, and I just read in the news that the French are going to ban mobile phones for children in primary and middle school as from September. It doesn't concern high school students but for the others they will not be allowed to have their phones on them in class (obviously) but nor will they be allowed to take them out and use them during break/lunch. As they have quite rightly said, kids should be out  playing and running around, not glued to a screen all the time! I think it's absolutely right and good luck to them, but I guess we'll see how that works out won't we.

And finally, what can we say about the vote in Alabama except well done Alabama! Finally some people with sense!