June 2018
Thursday, 21st June 2018
For several weeks now the air has been carrying a subtle but pleasant smell. It’s the smell of lime blossom. I first began to notice it in the avenues of lime trees in Zurich itself, and only later out here in Hombrechtikon. We are lucky enough to have a splendid one just opposite the living room window of our apartment.
The lime tree
The lime tree – Lindenbaum in German – is very much part of our landscape. The countryside around here is scattered with small roundish hills, or drumlins, deposited by glaciers long ago in some ice. And on top of many of these drumlins stands a single lime tree. The lime-topped drumlin is a familiar feature of our region of Switzerland.
But lime trees are not nearly so well known in the UK. I can only remember one tree of this kind in the village where I grew up. Luckily, when urban sprawl began to swallow up the village in the 1980s, the council placed a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) on the tree, so I suppose it’s still there.
But lime trees are not nearly so well known in the UK. I can only remember one tree of this kind in the village where I grew up. Luckily, when urban sprawl began to swallow up the village in the 1980s, the council placed a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) on the tree, so I suppose it’s still there.
But I don’t think the average passer-by would be able to tell you that it’s a lime tree. One of the problems, of course, is the name. The name “lime tree” conjures up a picture of a fruit tree covered in little green lemons – a different tree altogether.
In fact the name “lime tree” in English is derived from an early form of the word, “lind”, just like the German word “Linde”. That word has nothing at all to do with the citrus fruit “lime” whose name is related to the word “lemon”.
To avoid confusion between these different trees with the same name, reference sites like Wikipedia use the Latin name Tilia instead.
In fact the name “lime tree” in English is derived from an early form of the word, “lind”, just like the German word “Linde”. That word has nothing at all to do with the citrus fruit “lime” whose name is related to the word “lemon”.
To avoid confusion between these different trees with the same name, reference sites like Wikipedia use the Latin name Tilia instead.
The blossom of the lime tree doesn’t only smell good, it also looks good and tastes good. The flowers can be used to make a gently aromatic “herbal” tea.
Sunday, 24th June 2018
Hombi singt
This weekend all the choirs in Hombrechtikon—nine of them, in fact—came together in the Reformed Church to give a concert. At the beginning and end of the concert all two hundred or so singers sang together. We sang two anthems by the English church music composer John Rutter and the popular song You raise me up.
For the rest of the concert each individual choir, whether male voice choir, mixed choir, women’s choir, youth choir or gospel choir, sang something from their own typical repertoire. It made for a very enjoyable and varied experience.
Tuesday, 26th June 2018
Catching crabs, catching a seagull
We’re having a spell of hot weather at the moment and a lot of ice-cream is being sold and eaten. When I spotted an advertisement for Mövenpick ice-cream recently, I remembered a very strange thing that happened when we were on holiday in 1999.
Shortly before travelling to Gabon, our family went on holiday to North Wales and in the small harbour town of Porthmadog we went crabbing. For crabbing all you need is a bucket and a crabbing line – a length of strong fishing line on a simple bobbin, with a hook and a weight. You go to the nearest fish an chip shop – never far away in a British holiday resort – and buy some raw fish to use as bait. The idea is that you fix the raw fish onto the hook and drop the end of the line over the edge of the quay into the water. Almost immediately the crabs start to grip tightly onto the bait and you can pull them out and very soon you have a bucketful of assorted crabs (which you can return unharmed to the sea later).
In practise it’s not only the crabs that want to get at that nice tasty fish – the seagulls want their share too. When they smell that there’s fish about they fly around overhead, screeching noisily. Then, at the moment you cast the baited line into the harbour water, they dive and try to get the fish before the crabs do.
In practise it’s not only the crabs that want to get at that nice tasty fish – the seagulls want their share too. When they smell that there’s fish about they fly around overhead, screeching noisily. Then, at the moment you cast the baited line into the harbour water, they dive and try to get the fish before the crabs do.
Sometimes they miss, and sometimes they manage to snatch the fish off the hook. But on this occasion one of the seagulls caught not only the fish, but also the hook, which pierced its beak. The unfortunate bird soared up into the sky again, still attached to my crab line and I found myself slowly reeling it in to land, as an angler does with a fish. It’s worth mentioning here that this kind of seagull, the herring gull (Silbermöwe in German), is not a small bird. At 55 cm long, it’s a lot bigger than the black-headed gulls we see around lake Zurich. So the difficult part was controlling this great flapping, screeching bird while we got the hook out of its beak. A group of tourists came to our aid and somehow wrapped the bird, including its vast wings, into a large beach towel, and I managed to get the hook out, but not before the gull had pecked me, leaving a long thin surface wound across the back of my left hand.
So I came home from that particular holiday with a rather unusual souvenir: a seagull peck (in German, Möwenpick, like the ice-cream) on the back of my hand.
And the gull? Well, it must have been a painful experience for it, but as soon as it was freed of the hook, the bird immediately flew up and joined the other gulls flapping around over the harbour, and probably dived for the next piece of fish that was cast into the water.
So I came home from that particular holiday with a rather unusual souvenir: a seagull peck (in German, Möwenpick, like the ice-cream) on the back of my hand.
And the gull? Well, it must have been a painful experience for it, but as soon as it was freed of the hook, the bird immediately flew up and joined the other gulls flapping around over the harbour, and probably dived for the next piece of fish that was cast into the water.
Front page story
Look back to 1665: the Plague Year
Contact
If you’re interested in English lessons or translation and checking services, please feel free to contact me in the language of your choice - English, French, German or even Lingala!
Here are my details:
Here are my details:
Mobile
078 609 56 51
+41 78 609 56 51
+41 78 609 56 51
Location
Tödistrasse 9, 8634 Hombrechtikon
(New address from 24th March 2018)
(New address from 24th March 2018)
If you are travelling from Rüti / Wolfhausen, drive past the Hombrechtikon place-name sign for about 300 metres and turn right into Tödistrasse, just before the Tobel bus stop.
Approaching from Hombrechtikon
If you are approaching from the centre of Hombrechtikon, follow the signs to Rüti. At the Tobel junction (the Methodist Church is on the left) turn left. Tödistrasse is the next turning on the left, just past the Tobel bus stop.
The entrance to our new flat is about 100 metres from the junction with Rütistrasse, on the left-hand side of the road.
The house number is number 9 and we are on the first floor.
There are a few visitor’s parking bays a short distance beyond the entrance, on the left.
There are a few visitor’s parking bays a short distance beyond the entrance, on the left.
Arriving by bus
If you arrive by bus from Bubikon, get off the bus at Tobel and follow Tödiweg until you get to Tödistrasse. Our house is on the right.