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Wandering in the woods near Bruderhaus Tierpark today, the boys spied a partially built shelter and set off to investigate. They were quite impressed with the shelter, especially when they discovered it has every 'convenience'. As Jude is indicating, the architect has his priorities right and fitted a toilet even before the walls are up.

The boys then proceeded to use it for pinecone throwing target practice!

to throw - werfen - rüärä

to play in the dirt - im Dreck spielen - dräcklä

toilet - die Toilette - Aabee, Hüüsli, Abtritt, WC, Oertli

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I always wondered the purpose of the large 'hatch' in the pavement outside the Bahnhof  and today I saw it open and in action. It hides a hydraulic lift into which goods are loaded for the shops under the station. The lorry parks on the pavement, backs up to the platform and loads it, then it descends.

Rather clever I think!

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In view of the "petrol shortage" in UK, perhaps the police should take a leaf out of die Polizeis Büechli and get Smart.

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Jude needed a haircut so I took my life in my hands and took him. A dangerous thing as he is very attached to his incredible mop of hair, I was not taught much 'hairdressing' vocabulary on my German course and phrase books do not think to supply any such useful phrases.
Armed with a photo as back up, off we popped and this was the result with which Jude was and is very happy and relieved.
Jude ist sehr glücklich, weil seine Haare nicht zu kurz ist 😃

An interesting word I learned today from my Büechli - Tschuupi means hair above the ear!

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My favourite tree in 'my garden' otherwise known as Lindengut Park. All of a sudden it's in full bud and the brooms have turned yellow overnight.
Glorious sunshine which I have been assured is most unusual for March in Switzerland. I'm not complaining! I'm feeling buschpär - healthy and in good spirits!

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A funny one today. I bought this face mask in Müller. Unusually, the instructions are in English but out of habit I read the French and also the German. Imagine my astonishment when I discovered the following.

 The English instructions say 'Apply ...... and leave for 5-10 minutes.'

The French instructions say 'Appliquer ..... et laisser poser entre 5 et 10 minutes'

The German instructions say 'Auf Gesicht, Hals und Dekolleté auftragen. 10-15 Minuten  einwirken lassen.'

So, what is different about the skin of people who speak German, I ask myself?!

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A lovely day in Konstanz in the sunshine, and a visit to the 'beach'. 

Pebbles and paddling made us all very happy, albeit with rather cold toes! Jude had a go at skimming - not very successfully as the stones were the wrong shape!

And it was Verkaufsoffener Sonntag - Sunday shopping - in Konstanz too. Shops aren't usually open in Switzerland or Germany on Sundays so this was quite a treat.

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Another beautiful sunny day.
Rather than take a picture of us climbing on the bus with 2 garden chairs a table and 2 garden recliners (I was too busy carrying stuff!), here are some flowers in the park. Lovely to see them peeping through the grass.

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On the way back from school today we noticed that someone had been building towers with stones by the brook. Three perfectly vertical ebeneezers. I find pebbles very attractive and love walking on stoney beaches finding beautifully smooth stones.

Der Stein - the stone
Das Steinchen - the little stone/pebble

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I went to the theatre tonight to see Much Ado about Nothing.
This is on the wall outsideTheater Winterthur.
Hier bin ich Mensch, hier darf ich's sein! - Here I am Man, here dare it to be!
Interesting. I may need to go and read Faust again. Haven't read it since I was at Uni.

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The newspaper reminded me that the clocks go forward on Sunday. In English we say 'Spring forward and Fall back' to help us remember which way they go. I wonder if there's a saying in German?

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My Nan died yesterday so John bought me some flowers to cheer me up.
I'm glad that Coop had my favourite Fairtrade yellow roses.

Herzliches Beileid - sincere condolences
Unser herzlichstes Beileid. Unsere Gedanken sind bei Euch. - Our sincere condolences. Our thoughts are with you.

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I looked out of the window about an hour ago and there was an armed policeman outside my window.
By the time I got to the window to look more closely, another four had appeared and, along with someone dressed in a fluorescent jacket (think one of the men who works in the park), went through the gate into the park next door.

Mysterious! I'm intrigued. I had to go and fetch the boys at this point. All was quiet when I went outside and no sign of any excitement when we got back.

As you can see from their backs, the police are called die Polizei or Schmiär/Tschuggerej, and a policeman - ein Polizist - Landjegär, Tschuggär, Schürgä.

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Drinks today!

The Halden Krone is John's (although he's prefer Feldschlössen - see here ) and the Rivella is Isaac's. He is a big fan, prefering Rivella Rot, Blau (low calorie) and Gelb (energy) to Rivella Grün (green tea).

The Süessmost was Jude's but he doesn't like fizzy drinks (das Getränk mit Kohhlensäure) - so I drank that. He prefers Apfelsaft - ohne Kohlensäure!

Today's helpful phrase!

To be drunk - betrunken sein oder blau sein (thanks to A flavour of German for that!) - bsoffe, en Chaib ha, Oel am Huet

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Yes, two photographs today as I wanted both of my boys in today's post.

We went on a family trip to Uetliberg and walked the Planetenweg to Felsenegg for lunch and a cable car ride down to Adliswil and home. Apparently there are a lot of Planetenweg  Plantenweg is a walk on which scale models of the planets are placed in scaled relation to their position in space. So the sun at the start was huge followwed by a tiny ballbearing for  Mercury, a bigger one for Venus and so on. These planets were close together on the path, with each metre representing a million actual kilometres, whilst other planets were further apart. And Pluto appeared twice due to its orbit.

So, today's German - the planets - die Planeten

Earth  die Erde

Jupiter  der Jupiter

Mars  der Mars

Mercury  der Merkur

Neptune  der Neptun

(Pluto)  der Pluto - now officially a “dwarf planet” (ein Zwergplanet)*

Saturn  der Saturn

Uranus  der Uranus

Venus  die Venus

If you fancy labelling them in order they are :

Die Planeten - Sonnenordnung

The planets in solar order (outward from the sun)...

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, (Pluto)*

Der Merkur, die Venus, die Erde, der Mars, der Jupiter, der Saturn, der Uranus (der Pluto)

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In the words of a song I can't stop singing....
Heute ist so ein schöner Tag :0)

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Today's picture was chosen by my boys who met me for ice cream after school/German course today.
I think they're hoping for a chocolate rabbit that big for Easter!

Der Osterhase - the Easter bunny
Das Osterei - Easter egg
Das Ostern - Easter

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I'm very behind with my posts this week as I have a German exam. on Friday.

So short posts I'm afraid!

Schöne Blumen - pretty flowers
der Frühling - Spring

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More news and another picture from the Winterthur fire I mentioned yesterday. Thanks to World Radio Switzerland for the report - 

Winterthur fire costs millions in damage

A fire in Winterthur’s historic old town early this morning caused millions of francs in damage. 

Spokesman Marcel Strebel from Zurich cantonal police said an old town home caught fire at about 2:30 a.m.

The fire department responded three minutes later but the blaze had already spread to two other homes. 

No one was injured, and the cause of the fire is unknown.

The town’s old quarter has buildings dating from the 17th century, but it doesn’t yet appear those burned this morning were listed in the historic buildings register.

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Here's today's photograph. Great commotion and intrigue in Winterthur today with fire engines everywhere. Fire alarms alerted people at 0230 this morning to Restaurant Wilson in the Altstadt in flames. At 1700 when I passed and took the photograph, the building was still smoldering and the fire engines were still there.
More tomorrow when I've had time to digest the article (in German) in Blick am Abend that explains it all.

Word for the day - Notruf meaning emergency call.