Grizzle ctd.

Just as I was recovering from the cold, along came a dose of Montezuma's Revenge, which clipped my wings somewhat over the past couple of days, and left me feeling thoroughly out of sorts.  Still, rehydration and the usual capsules seem to have worked, and after a thoroughly lazy day yesterday (I cried off art class), I felt up to attending an AGM in the County Town in the evening.  Dreadful traffic on the way there, heavy rain, thunder and lightning on the way back.  One survives.

Having slept badly on Monday night, it was not a pleasant surprise on Tuesday to meet someone, in the course of the hobby, whom I've already met twice since April for similar reasons.  My comments were a whisker less moderate than usual.  Fortunately, there were a lot of blood-curdling matters before the professionals this week to fill the columns of the local rag, so my remarks seem to have gone unreported.

We had a delightful afternoon on Wednesday with Sunrise colleague Rodd and his wife Lesley, who were taking a break from their nomadic existence to get some repairs done to their caravan, and to visit family.  They arrived to something of a fanfare - as they pulled on to the drive, their automatic parking brake sounded like an attempt to engage first without benefit of clutch.  So their vast vehicle is also due for a spot of work. 

Barbecue after ZIWA treasure hunt, 1998-ish

We three plus another colleague and his wife did a treasure hunt in and around Zürich one day in 1998, organised by the Zürich Internation Women's Association.  One of the things we had to produce at the end was a pink elephant.  Evidently there was a bunch of them - paper cut-outs - hanging from a lamp post in the station car park at Oerlikon, where we started, but we missed them.  Back at the flat, where I think we went for sandwiches at lunchtime, Lesley fashioned one out of pink paper with the help of a pair of nail scissors.  The next thing that nearly stumped us was a portrait of the composer Arthur Honegger.  We spent quite a while dashing into every church where we thought there might be a handbill for a chamber concert until someone thought to look at the CHF 20 bank note.  We had a pleasant punt round the countryside in the big barge I drove at the time, finishing up at the Katzensee for a barbecue.  To our surprise, we won.  First and last essay in the genre. 

Those who deprecate social networks should live and be well.  But had it not been for facebook, I wouldn't have been back in touch with old friends such as Lesley and Rodd, Patricia and Martin and quite a lot more.  So I'm in favour.