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Today is my birthday so prior to running a half marathon, we went to Freitag to get my birthday present. There are a few things that I have vowed I must do / have whilst I live here, and having a Freitag bag is one of them. Made from lorry tarpaulin, and with a seatbelt for a strap, it's recycled, cool and very practical. I love it! Thank you boys xx

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Today's 'new Swiss experience' was visiting TopCC, the cash and carry, in search of provisions for the snack stand at the ISW football tournament tomorrow. Thanks Krislyn - that was fun!

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Whilst I was in the UK last week, the boys and John had great fun. Friday night was Late Night Winti when all the shops stayed open until 11pm and there were various attractions - fire eaters, competitions and these alpaca. Jude was rather taken with them.

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Isaac introduced me to a new game when we were on holiday. Called Stadt Land Fluss, it's a category game in which you're given a letter of the alphabet and have to think of a word in a number of categories. Apparently Isaac plays it in German lessons at school when there are a few minutes to fill. I'm used to playing it in English but we had fun on holiday trying to play with our sometimes limited German vocabulary.

So we were amused to see these placemats in Wachter! Very tempted...

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We went to GLATT today to get John's iPod touch sorted - we love the Apple store ;o) - and saw that LEGO have a 'play area' on the ground floor. There's a giant yellow car being built but I liked the animals best!

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Every time we go back to England John insists on us/me bringing back sugar. He's very particular about his sugar you see and doesn't like it refined.
Hurrah for Aldi as today i found this bag of sugar which is exactly what he wants.
That's 2kg more for me next time I go 'home' to fill with books...

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Today my Mum go married to Ray. It was a lovely day and much fun was had by all.
One of the biggest hits of the day was my shoes. Purchased from the Geox shop in Winti, they are gorgeous and very special. Very spring-like, and also very high but wedgey so I managed to walk! I can't see them on the UK Geox site so well worth the investments - and they certainly created a wow!

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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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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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Jude wrote a letter to his friend Joe today so off I went to the Kiosk to buy eine Briefmarke für England.
Here is d'Briefmarke.

Why does it say Helvetia?
Helvetia is the female national personification of Switzerland, officially Confœderatio Helvetica, the "Helvetic Confederation". (Wikipedia)

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Two photographs for the price of one today; a BOGOF which is an acronym never heard here, obviously as it stands for Buy One Get One Free in English, but also because that's not the way offers seem to work. Prices are reduced but there are very few 'give aways' like that.
Anyhow, back to the pictures. I really love running and particularly like running in the wooded hills around Winti where I quite often come across wood sculptures like these nestling but the path. No signposting to guide you to them - they just... happen!

Ein Kaninchen / Chüngel oder Haas - a rabbit
Ein Vogel - a bird although I think that this is ein Reiher - a heron.

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The Swiss take the idea that people like window shopping quite seriously. When shops are shut, you often find a selection of goods artistically displayed in the entrance area of the shop. This is today's (very cute!) display in Franz Carl Webber (or Karl Heinz Rumenigge as I keep calling it)

So - what do we have here?
A panda with a hat and a horse with sunglasses.
Ein Panda-Bär mit ein Hut (Huet) und ein Pferd (Paggu) mit eine Brille (Brülle)

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Continuing the theme of 'street furniture', today we focus on a stationery/mobile phone shop in Untertor. Papeterie Schoch sells all kinds of items including art supplies, moleskin books and some lovely pens just like the one above the front door.

Papeterie comes from French - Switzerland is multilingual after all! - in German the word for a stationer's shop is eine Schreibwarenhandlung. You might buy d'Föllfädere, s'Blisteft und d'Poscht-Charte or ein Füller a pen, ein Bleistift a pencil and eine Postkarte a postcard.