So Switzerland is weird, no I mean really weird. I feel completely safe wandering down deserted streets in the middle of Nyon at 8pm. There’s no fear of being robbed cause I think that I am seriously the poorest person in the entire country. Oh yeah, did you catch the deserted streets at 8pm thing. I’m not exagerating, they really are deserted. So are the restaurants (of which there are hundreds) and bars (again…hundreds). There are also hundreds of houses, all with dark windows and absolutely no noise eminating from them. I am starting to thing that all Swiss migrate to tunnels under the mountains as the sun goes down.

Can there be any other explaination?

So the other day Bert was wondering what Dutch flight attendants do on small planes (Dutch women typically being very tall). Well Bert, at least one Dutch flight attendant hits her head…a lot. On my flight from Amsterdam to London we were on a rather small plane (although not as small as you would imagine for a one hour flight). Anyway the poor woman just couldn’t seem to remember the placement of the overhead compartments. Practically every time she bent over to hand someone tea that was tepidly cold or coke that was tepidly warm she would throw her head back seconds before straightening up. The resulting collision between head and overhead compartment sent her bun clip flying which, in and of itself seemed disturbingly painful as she was wearing one of those crocodile-like clips with clasping teeth/talons. The worst part was, she just kept doing it.

And that, my dear readers, was pretty much the most interesting thing that happened on my voyage out here.

A close runner up was the taxi I took from the bus station to my hotel.

After a red-eye flight, a stopover, and a complete losing track of what meal I was supposed to be on, I got in the line at the taxi stand. Some evil weaver of fate decided to saddle me with the ‘disco taxi’. Yep, after a string of ordinary people climbed into a string of ordinary black taxis I looked up from my dazed half-asleep state to see this great hulking van – the disco taxi. It had a strobe light on the top and, rather more depressingly, British disco music blasting from a speaker on the roof. Any hope I had of muffled noise inside were quickly dispelled by the sight of two huge speakers wedged under the seat. What made matters worse was the fact that, in order to be heard over the noise of bad disco music, the driver attempted to make small talk through a head-mounted microphone. I was tired, cranky, and not yet used to British accents so I couldn’t understand a word that he said. I did however answer him: ‘Yes, but I brought an umbrella anyway – it’s blue’, ‘No they served smoked salmon on the plane’, and ‘Canada’. I had no idea what his questions were but I thought those might be appropriate answers…apparently not, he stopped talking to me after that.

Welcome to the first in a series of posts which will likely be written from the airport. I wish I could say ‘airport lounge’ but I am on one of only three flight segments which will give me access to these paragons of pleasure (three out of a total of eight flight segments so you can feel my pain). Anyway since I will be entering a new era of airport blogging, a few observations on airports:

1. When airports annouce wireless internet on shiny plasma screens every three feet what they really mean is ’spend money on me please’ would it really be such a trial to offer free internet access this day and age.

2. The new restrictions on liquids has, thankfully, not affected my ability to have a glass of red wine in the lounge before departure - only now there’s someone there to pour it for me which makes me feel ever so posh.

3. Airports are the only place I feel comfortable deeply kissing my husband in public. I’m usually a peck-on-the-cheek kinda gal when it comes to PDA’s but in airports I’m a veritable slut.

4. It is not unreasonable to carry two books even with restricted carry-on luggage sizes. You never know how long you’re gonna spend sitting on the runway or circling the airport, and I learned very well from girl guides ‘always be prepared’

I’m back at work now after a glorious break in Vancouver (with sun all but one day). I don’t have much time to write though, 200 emails in my in-box, 5 ‘urgent’ phone messages, and two papers requiring updating coupled with a departure tomorrow evening for my European business trip mean that…well I get a head ache just thinking about it.

I promise I will be back soon.

Meeka loves Deep Cove. She loves running around in the woods, she loves staring down at the water, she even loves the black squirrels that are far more athletic and more impossible to catch than the lazy city-dwellers she’s used to.

Last night on our way back from our walk Meeka stopped to say hello to a little black and white cat. She got within about six feet before the cat swished its tail which was enough to send Meeka running (our dog is a wimp)..

Perhaps mollified by her own wimpiness, Meeka walked along with her head down towards the next house until she saw another flash of black and white. This time, it seemed, she decided to be a bit more brave. I caught up just in time to see this black and white fur ball swish its tail and Pssst…Meeka was skunked.

Whatever you’ve heard about the stench of skunks, it’s all true- it really does smell that bad.

Two rinses of skunk shampoo with a conditioning coat of Orange TKO later Meeka smells fine but we did have to wash the clothes we wore to wash Meeka in, the towel we used to dry her, the leash we used to keep her pinned under the hose, the rug she shook herself off on and, oh yeah, ourselves.

All’s well that ends well but, if Meeka was afraid of the hose before, she has now developed a full blown phobia. Skunks, however, she still likes to chase.