This is the deal

Seems as though Summer has ended with a jolt as we plunged into rain and single-figure temperatures over the weekend.


Although I am loath to compare life to a game of Solitaire, I found myself having a moment of 'Well isn't that typical' when I was idly playing 'cards' on my mobile phone on the train this morning. The deal was superb - aces, kings and queens in all the right colours at exactly the right time. But then the game plateaued, and so did the train's progression. We sat waiting for another train to pass (not uncommon: freight trains sometimes come screaming past, late, one can only presume, forcing passenger trains to wait - very un-Swiss).

And just as the train started up again, my phone told me, 'It looks like you're not making any progress. Press OK to play again.'

Where am I going with this? I'm going to the land of 'That's what you think,' of course, because a) the train will always start moving again, and b) there are things you can do in Solitaire (as in Life) which the program thinks you can't.

I wasn't able to shift my 4's around so I could start feeding more cards onto the Aces, but - lucky for me - I don't generally believe in messages generated by computer programs (don't tell InfoTech Central), so I was able to move forwards with my day secretly knowing that the Hausfrau could've come up trumps.

And so it was with the past week, where people started grumbling and 'oohing' and 'aahing' about the weather. One person even said to me, 'Gosh, there's so much pressure in Summer. You feel like you need to have done something, because then it's cold again, and you wonder what you can say you did!' Indeed, I understand wanting to make the most of the weather, but not just so I can tell someone what I did. Oh, alright, you might notice this is a blog - read: weblog, where I (ahem) tell people about what I've been doing.

But the end of Summer isn't the end of All Things Fun. No, Sir. It's time to ignore the hype, play out the hand, stay on the train.

So stand by for the next chilly installment as we launch into the Autumn holidays and celebrate one year of living on a Swiss Hillside.