“Time goes by so fast; people go in and out of your life. You must never miss the opportunity to tell these people how much they mean to you.”

I love the above Quote. Unfortunately, loving and living are 2 entirely different things and I must try harder – could do better. Over the past few days I had the opportunity to observe people who take time. Not even time to save the world but time to stop and listen. Time to notice that a smile wasn’t real, time to help, time to give advice, and I saw what a difference it made for the people the time was spent on.


I went on a training day for Worship Leaders a couple of days ago. We looked at different aspects of Worship leading, both from a musical and a theological point of view. I felt a bit baffled because there were people there who had so much more experience in both aspects and yet they were quit happy to have me there too. At one point all the different bands went to different rooms to work on a song, creating different intros/outros, trying to find a different way to interpret a song etc. The person leading the weekend went round from room to room, listing in and offering advice where it was wanted. Now our drummer is quite young and although he knows a lot about music he doesn’t have a lot of experience of playing in a group. Now the person leading the whole workshop, certainly having so many different things on his mind, 2 other bands to check up on, maybe even having to prepare for the next session listened to us for a bit and made some general observations regarding our whole group – but in the end he just stood next to our drummer, showing him a certain beat and just remained standing there, tapping his foot to help keeping the rhythm. Until the drummer got it right and got confident enough to play it. He didn’t get impatient when the young boy couldn’t get it right, he didn’t roll his eyes when he fell back into his old was of playing – he just stood there until we all got it right. I know that to our drummer that bit of time – it wasn’t ages, it was maybe 10 minutes – meant a lot. Because the next day at the hall he proudly showed the “different” beat he had learned. All it took was someone to take a little bit of time out their busy schedule.

Today I received an Email I wasn’t very happy about. An Officer felt that SAGIC weren’t doing a good job and he felt our ways of doing business weren’t fair. My first reaction was to reply to the E-mail in a bit of a sarcastic manner, asking how he would do it if he had to deal with approximately 1000 schedules in a very short space of time and the people who should support you in that task where not giving you the necessary information? Luckily I thought twice (that doesn’t happen often) and I gave him a ring, asking if he could point out what exactly had upset him. At first he was quite strong about how badly he had been treated (he was surcharged for not having kept a deadline despite having been warned about it on at least a couple of occasions). But once he had said everything he had to say, telling me how wrongly I was doing it all I tried to explain my view and why I was doing my job the way I do it he started to understand my view and we parted in an almost friendly manner. I was on the phone for about 15 minutes, the 5 of them not being very nice for me as he was clearly quite annoyed with us. I could have written an E-Mail in 2 minutes (I’m really fast at typing – hence the typos!) but the extra 13 minutes mean that he has now promised that next year he’ll be in time and even though he wasn’t declaring undying love for me (a) he’s married and b) he’ll still have to pay the surcharge) he even had a friendly word for me and thanked me for my understanding and patience. Not that I was either of these when I was dialling his number – in fact I thought that he’ll get a good piece of my mind.

A few days ago I got a text saying: “I know you tried to hide it but you weren’t very happy today, were you? I hope you are feeling OK, thinking of you, xxx”. Now I suppose we all notice when people close to us are unhappy or upset. I also suppose we let people close to us know when something’s wrong so I was quite surprised at that text because it wasn’t from someone I would have considered particularly close – certainly not close enough to share anything that would upset me. And I know that this person would definitely have had better things to do than to watch me – but they took the time to notice that I wasn’t happy and more than that, they took the time, a couple of days later, to check up on it.

I suppose none of these things, considering that a day has 24 hours, took up much time. But all of them meant that someone had to stop for a minute and take time for someone else - I suppose in a way telling them that they are important enough to notice.

And sometimes I’m so wrapped up in myself, my problems, my issues, my thoughts, that I just forget to stop and tell “my” people that they are definitely important enough to notice, to take time, to realise when something upsets them, to listen to their worries. So I wanted to tell you that:

You may go in and out of my life. And sometimes time may go so fast in-between you entering and leaving that I forget to tell you how much you mean to me… if I do, please pull me up on it, will you?

Just so you know...

Switzerland managed to get 9 Medals at the winter Olympics this year. Yes, my little country, the one you all make fun of, little innocent Switzerland managed to get 9 medals. And the UK? Well… they were there too… they even managed to get a medal. Yes, a medal – as in 1. Well done.

Anyway, teasing aside, I thought as you all enjoy making fun of Switzerland so much I’ll tell you a little bit about it. Mainly about the political system – to prove that it does make sense, even if you don’t know the name of the President.

Where most countries have a single person to be their president, Switzerland has 7. 7 people work together for a period of 4 years to represent Switzerland (it’s rather unusual for a person to be elected only once – the average President stays on for 2 to 3 periods). Each one of them is head of a department with exception for the one that gets chosen to lead the 7 – this person changes every year, in fact, it’s almost like a rota system. The 7 people who work to lead the country come from different political parties – the left wing (2 reps) is as much represented as the right wing (1 rep) and family oriented Christian parties (2 reps) get a say the same way business oriented economical parties do (2 reps). This has the benefit that most decisions have been thought through thoroughly, taking into consideration the effect each decision would have on various groups of the Swiss population. If the people still disagree with a decision made they have various ways of making the presidents re-think their decision, they can start initiatives and write petitions. But I won’t bore you with details.

The fact that all the “main Stream” parties are part of the “reigning power” makes it impossible for a lazy opposition whose job in most countries consists in attacking ever decision made by the president and blaming all the bad things that are happening on the incapability of the leading party. There is no time for this in Bern.


Not only do all the parties have to work together to get to a decision – once the majority of the group has made a decision, all of them have to represent that decision even if they personally disagree with it. That means as long as 4 of the 7 agree on something, the other 3 have to go along with it – even if the “leading” one for that particular year is against it, he or she will have to represent the decision made. This is called the principal of collegiality. It's what nice people do :-)

So yes, we are a sweet little country with some great winter sports people, lovely mountains, four national languages…

…and, oh yes, a Libyan threat of Jihad spoken against us.

And you guys still think we sit on the fence… go figure.

Have you all had a happy Easter?

That was just a rhetorical question really, as I know that most of you must have had an awesome time in the Philippines (Katie), the Dominican Republic (Stacey & David), the Faeroe Islands (John), France (a group of people) Switzerland (Glyn) and Lowestoft (Ok, not as glamorous but still, Andy &V).

A few weeks back, when I first realised that so many people were travelling, I thought this Easter was going to be quite boring. Not in the spiritual, Christian sense of it of course, but just, you know… But I was wrong.

A few months back, just after Christmas, Tracy and I were asked to organize a play for Easter. We thought that surely it couldn’t be that difficult, after all when we did the Christmas Play there was so much material that we were spoilt for choice and that we should easily find something that we could do for Easter. We were a bit wrong. There are a lot of scripts around but nothing (and I mean NOTHING) seemed to be doable for us – we looked at so many different ideas (thanks by the way to everybody who kept telling us where/how/trough whom we could find more scripts or ideas) but I think we really weren’t easy to please with this.

During all this searching I too had to give in to the flue in January. And while I was at home I made the most of the excellent day time TV shows that make me proud to pay for my TV licence. I now know more about DNA Tests and why one would need to have one done than is good for me. And in all that the idea of a play was born. I will post the play in my other blog (www.anna-scribbles.blogspot.com, I'll find the fancy way of adding hyperlinks one day)– it might be the only thing to ever be posted on there but that’s OK.

So Tracy and I spend hours sitting in her car at the seafront working out how to turn this idea into something that made sense – Tomas the Disciple went from believer to Doubter to Traitor, Defender and finally back to Doubter. Poor bloke.

After hours of writing, rewriting, rephrasing and deleting we felt we had sort of stitched something together. I would just like to say that we have taken ideas from other people and the Professor was completely based on books that have actually been written by clever people who did their research, the idea to have a gardener was “stolen” from the “Glyn writes” blog.

There were several occasions were we felt that it wasn’t going to happen – when people we asked to be part all said no. But slowly it started coming together and there was a point when suddenly it wasn’t “Tracy and Anna are so excited about this and we don’t want to be the killjoy to tell them it’s rubbish” to “we are all together in this one”. It was great – great to see people coming to practise saying: I wasn’t comfortable with my lines, I thought we could change it… what if wore… how about having the chairs… and if I came in trough that door… and the lights could then… maybe if you spoke quietly…
It was so cool to see this turn into a group thing with everybody supporting everyone. It was as if everybody brought in their own knowledge about different things, like Darren giving tips on the acting, John correcting some Biblical facts that weren’t accurate, and Phill, spending hours to create our very own, very big tissue box – to make sure people could see what the Tissue Lady was doing.

And you know what amazes me most? That at the point where I felt that everybody that was involved with the play one way or another was getting excited about it I lost faith in it. Completely. All of a sudden I thought: This is never going to work. We need a big name in it because I can’t do my part so I started asking people if they could do my part, people who are known to be good with this sort of thing. I felt we needed someone to come along to our practices to try and safe what there was to safe, to tell us what to do because at the rate we were going… and anyway.. and it was only us, how did I EVER think it could work? (Un) fortunately none of the people asked could make it. And now looking back I am quite annoyed with myself because everything we needed was right there: People who weren’t involved but who still kept asking how it was going and supporting us this way. People who offered to sew all the costumes, people who gave their time and talents and worked really hard.

The day before the play I was absolutely useless because of my nerves and it was lovely to go to the cinema and just think of something else because at that time nothing could be changed anymore anyway. I was only slightly concerned about Paul – he seemed to enjoy a movie with Zac Effron in it (although he told me if I ever said that to anyone he would deny it – but we know the truth, don’t we.)

So when we finally played it out and everybody was perfect with words, cues and actions that all felt great. The congregation/audience joined in right from the beginning. It was pretty cool to walk in and have everybody clapping before I said the first word. It was awesome to see some of the shyer people really raise above their inhibitions, those who were struggling with lines to be word perfect and all our desperate last minute changes were in place as if had had millions of rehearsals. People even came from Dartford to see it 

But that didn’t make it the best Easter ever. The best Easter ever was when my Dad said to me: I’m really proud of what you did here. But I would have been really proud anyway.

...and when I'm old I shall wear purple

After having taken some time off bloggage I thought it might be time to make some efforts to keep my readers. Mainly those who get bored at work without my entertainment.


Those of you who know me know how excited I get when I have visitors from home coming. It's great to have people round and even better if they are people you haven't seen in a while and whom you've really missed. I think it's just the coolest feeling when you get a text saying: I have a weekend off - have you got a spare bed and a little time for me? And I'd do anything to be able to say: YES!!!

So just before Christmas Annemarie had a few holidays left and she decided to come and see me. It was funny but it was only at the airport that I realised that I had never ever seen Annemarie without her husband David. I had been friends with David and we used to lead the youth Group in Thun. I remember when we once went to some sort of event as a youth group and Annemarie was there. That was before they started going out. He said: Don't look, but it's her, over there... That's how it all started and it was really cool for her to come and see me so that we could get to know each other more. We had a great time and I look forward to catch up with both of them in Mai.

In February I had Martina (right) and Sonja (centre) over. The best thing ever is when you have friends whom you haven't seen for a long time but when you see them it's as if you had never been apart. When I first came back to Switzerland from Brazil Martina was going out with my Cousin and I couldn't stand her. Now you may tink that it's a bit silly to write that in a blog but she knows that and basically everybody does and this story still makes me the root of many jokes so I think I'm allowed to tell it here. Anyway, because she was going out with my cousin and I was living with my aunt we were forced to spend time together, like meals etc. And somehow all the disliking slowly turned into liking and there was apoint where I staretd to look forward to seeing her. So since then we had pick nics in her car, random car trips trough the hills, loads of swimming in lake Thun and Spagetti. I really miss her!

Most people who come to stay with me are friends. But in some rare cases I get a random message saying: I'm so and so, I'm related to x or friends with z. One of these People was Pamela (centre). She is Jasmins sister and we had only met briefly. It was a lovely idea for her and her friend Lara to come and spend the day with me when they were spending some time in the UK. I was really worried that it might be awkward to spend a whole day with someone I don't really know but I couldn't have been more wrong. After about 10 Minutes of walking down the high street it was as if we had been friends for years. Lara and Pämi hed the great idea to bring me some Swiss Chees Fondue. I didn't have the right pots to prepare it so we had to stand in the kitchen while eating to enable us to keep it stiring etc but it was one of the best meals I had.

Now I had great times with all the people who have come so far and I look forward to have loads of more people staying for a night, a weekend, or how ever long they think they can bear me. But I know that a lot of these visits have been made possible or at least been made easier by Andy and Tracy with endless drives backwards and forwards to Airport, Stations, Busstops, carrying suitcases and chasing bookings up online. THANK YOU GUYS!!!!

..and the next one is in sight already! 2 weeks until la bella arrives - the fact that in the last picture we took together you can still see Zavvi prooves that we have been appart for way too long and I had to live without random serenades at lake Thun, hot Chocolate around cheesy bartenders, impulsive decisions to get a piercing and sneaking into empry churches to sing the greatest version of Amazing Grace EVER sung!

On other notes my Tracy has graciously taken me to see Wicked. I loved the Music and, considering that usually stories where people die but then miraculasly (is there a word like that?) end up still being alive for whatever reason makes me want to poke the writers in the eye I quite liked the story line too. I was most amazed at the voice of the girl in the wheelchair and the guy in the ubertight trousers. And I won't even have time to digest all thismusical pleasure because my Tracy will also soon take me to see Sister Act - YAY!

If you happen not to be as lucky as I am to have Tracy who takes me to see all tehse shows then I thought I'd just mention taht on Easter Sunday evening there is a little play going on at Southend Citadel. It's nothing big, but it's the first thing I've wriitten (with loads of help of course) and if you have time then please come along! It's absolutely free and you get a free Songster Song and Band piece and all of that PLUS we have our own jingle so it would definitely be worth coming along.

Picking out the raisins

You might have heard that the world economy is not at its best at the moment. In fact, if you have turned on the TV, logged on to the Net, listened to the Radio or read a newspaper (even The Sun counts) you will be aware that times are not easy. The news of the Credit Crunch have invaded our everyday lives so much so that small talk is no longer about the weather but about the financial crisis. Even the question that you’d ask when you first meet a Swiss person has been changed from: “Do you yodel?” to “And how is the Franc holding up?” (They usually ask about the Euro – but I understand what they mean).

Fact is, the world is in a crisis. People are loosing jobs and houses and even the most basic things are getting more and more expensive. It is not a nice time.

Thing is though, that over all this, God is still in charge. He is so to speak, Master of disaster – however disastrous times may be, he is still the Master. And I’m sure that, if he can use good times, how much more will he be able to use bad times to show people that he is there, just waiting for them to come to him in times of need.

Thing is also that this is our time to stand up, to open doors and "shine our lights". I am convinced that people who would in normal circumstances not eve think about asking questions about life may now be wondering if there shouldn’t be something bigger than Wall Street, something more honest. And cool, in a time where demand is on an all time low, we have the one thing people might still be asking for!

Now with the Economy lying on the floor in defeat we can take the opportunity to look at all bad things it has done to people (by the way, have you ever stopped to think about headlines like: greedy bankers are to blame for all of this? As if the bankers where the only greedy ones! I only need to look in the mirror to see someone who’d love to spend more than she’s got – and I’m definitely not a banker).

But that wouldn’t help AT ALL, would it, really? So why don’t we look at all the good ideas the Business World came up with, and maybe use them in our favour? Most of them are no big new ideas, just basic stuff really!

- Customers won’t give you a second chance. How true –true for church people too! If people come to your place once and they don’t feel welcome they won’t come back. And I’m not even worried about the figures we like our Corps to show but about the number of seeking Souls that feel they have been looking in the wrong place. How sad would it be if your hour came and you got to spend eternity with the Lord and while you walk into Heaven you see all the poor wicked people who have been to your place of worship but you were too busy to have time for them.

- Don’t sell what you have – sell what they want! No explanation needed really. Except of course, we don't sell. We just give.

- Make them feel loved. Do you know the advert with the Top ups where this couple runs after the guy because he didn’t say Good Bye and the slogan is something like: with longer between the Top Ups, you are going to be missed. People appreciate when they are missed. It’s nice to get a Text or call asking where you’ve been if you didn’t make it to a meeting or so.

-Don’t be stereotypical or fake. Again, think of the advert of the fat banker guy with the introductory biscuits and introductory niceness? How many people come into your place of worship with ideas and prejudices – have fun proving them wrong.

I don’t know about your church (if you have one) but I, despite all the moaning about things (read: people) that annoy me because they are wrong (read: don’t do what I think they should), love my church. Despite the horrid Carpet. Because I can feel they care. They must do, or why else would some of them be at the hall on Saturdays at 8 to prepare for X-Stream Club, for Kids who wouldn’t hear of Jesus otherwise. People who get up early to pick up the elderly, people who spend their free time in the drop-in to feed the hungry. People who, however much I could make lists and lists about their shortcomings, are made in the image of God. And I hope that we can go more in this direction and less in the one that we sometimes feel more drawn to. Where we feel the need to “teach each other lessons”. Where we fight our little internal wars and forget the ones just outside the door.

So here it is: If you think that your life might be worth a little more than FTSE then maybe check out your local church. With that I don't mean the building. Or the Service. It might be a young peoples' group in your area, an open choir (I know a good one ;-)) or a drama group (we need you!) A parents and toddler group or a housegroup. There are many people out there who would love to welcome you in.

And if you are part of a local church, make sure you keep your doors open!

My Happy List

It has been indicated that people think I should be updating my blog. And they are right. The thig is - I don't know what to write about. So I thought I'll just tell you about all the little things that made me happy lately. As inspired by Colins "bad things list", please welcome here my "good things list"

- Going to the Lake District. I did take some pictures but I can't load them on the PC at work. Just take my word for it, it was lovely. We left Southend friday night and drove to Birmingham. Because of my silly legs I was treated like a princess (or a bit like a dog who needs walkies all the time) but I was given loads of legroom which was nice. We slept in a travellodge wich was really nice except for some reason the rooms we were given were on opposite sides of the hotel. Even on different floors. So I had the nice room and Tracy and Andy had the loud room. After that we drove up to Windermere which was just absolutely breath taking. We went on the boat and drove around all the cute little villages while Tracy kept chasing sheep to take pics. Apparently sheep don't appreciate being on Facebook, they all ran off which was funny for Andy and me in a nice warm car. Not sure Tracy thought all that running was great though. My favourite part of the whole weekend was when we walked up to the waterfall - it was so much like home! I got a bit carried away and started skipping and left the Peases to explain to the shocked tourists that I wasn't British. On our way back we stopped at Lynley and Stephen for food and a tour of the hall in Manchester, which was really lovely. They now say the 'all, experience 'ealing and eat pies - nothing else but pies.

-The Singing Company. Although I am convinced (and with me many others, I'm sure) that there would be more suitable people to lead a kids section in the army than me I have decided that I'm really happy doing it. I only decided that last sunday. The kids sang out greatly and they got applauded twice, firstly for the song and then because they did so well being only 4 of them (3 kids and Louise). I even got some (very small) smiles out of them, which was lovely and made me feel a bit like some weird old proud grandma - which most of them probably think I am anyway. After that I just walked away which left tha kids unsure about what to do and the poor group just stood there on the platform while the leader had fled back o the saftey of being hidden in my seat. OOOOPS!

-My Cornet. I'm sorry to be very off-show-ish here but a couple of weeks ago the Cornet section was highly diminuished. As it happenes there were only 2 of us, and one of us was feeling ill, leaving me to play the tune by myself. And I did it. It was an easy tune with no high notes, I knew it well and you may think that there is nothing special to it and absolutely everybody could do it. And of course you are right thinking that. But those of you who have ever been to a bandpractise where I played know that, as soon as my part would be remotely audible, I just stop playing and start smiling at Keith. Because, well, I figure if people could hear what I play they'd realise that I can't play at all. And that is why I'm quite pleased about having stood my ground and played out my guts.

-My home. I have not been home very often over the last few days and I find that coming into my flat now truly feels like coming home. It is the best place on earth. Of course its a pitty that this best place is far away from some other very nice places and people but it feels truly like the place where I wanna keep the fridge clean and make sure the towels get washed every week.

-Hot Chocolate. I can't imagine that one could need any further information about this point but a little tip: Try the hot chilly/cinamon one. hmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

-Guitar Hero. If ever I have too much money and am bored enough to spend it on a game it would be this one.

-And my one spiritual growth point for this month: Forgiveness. I realised that there are 3 kinds of people who hurt you. Those who happened to be part of a missunderstanding of some sorts and who are usually quite easily forgiven. Those who are shallow and don't realise as to how they make you feel, and they are usually easly forgiven because it wouldn't be worth the hassle otherwise. And those who are hurting themselves (themselfs???). Knowing that makes it all loads easier, doesn't it.

-ALOVE. We had a great evening, thanks to all of those who gave their time to come and be part of it.

And some others, like jazzy christmas music, friends wanting to come over to see me, heels that get stuck in gutters minutes before I should be ready to march, dresses that still fit, stormy seafronts and snow on the roofs. All good and ready for Christmas!

Train Rage

When I started working in London a few months ago, many people told me that they wouldn’t like to commute because of the train journey. But I have to say, out of all the commuters I am probably one of the luckiest ones. Living 2 Minutes from Westcliff station and working 10 Minutes from Fenchurch Street Station my journey can hardly be described as hard work.

Of course it would be nice if could sleep an hour longer in the morning and be home just after 5 in the evening, but because my train goes trough Chalkwell and Leigh I have the lovely view of the boats and the seafront. And at this time of year I can see the sunrise on my way to work and the sunset on my way back home, which is really quite spectacular, even when it’s cloudy.

Of course I am aware that for some people commuting must be hell, especially those who are not as fortunate as me to be in the capable hands of C2C. Sometimes I hear opinions on how bad the public transport is in the UK and I have to say, compared to what I hear I think the Shoebury – Fenchurch Street line is really well maintained.

But there is something that does annoy me. A Lot. It’s the people on the trains. Honestly! It was all right in the beginning, I didn’t know which wagon would be the best one to get in and where to stand on the platform to get a good seat. After I while I settled for one of the wagon at the end of the train and I fond the perfect spot to wait, exactly where the doors of the train would be when it stopped.

Every morning I would wait at that spot and just a minute or two before the train arrived I would be joined by pink tie. Pink tie is about my age and wears dark suits whit pastel coloured shirts and matching ties – quite often pink. He would usually arrive at the platform at the same time as I cold spot the train approaching in the distance. We would wait for the train to stop; he would press the button that opens the door and make a gesture with his hand for me to get in first. I’d get in and take a seat to the right of the door and he’d get in behind me, sitting to the left of the door. We became friends. Not real friends, but as friendly as you can become when standing next to the same person every day. We went from ignoring each other to acknowledging each other with a slight nod and in the end we even half-smiled (move only one corner of your mouth up, only a little bit,. Don’t break into a proper smile – that would be intimidating for the English commuter community).

Or little friendship was going ever so well until one day, out of the blue, greasy hair appeared. Greasy hair has longish and, as you may suspect, very greasy hair. Despite his suits he always looks scruffy and he does smell rather intense. Not in a good way. He started to turn up just in time for the doors to open and instead of waiting next to me and pink tie he just pushed between us and started to wait in front of us, at one point fiscally pushing pink tie away when he wanted to press the door-open-button. The three of us kept repeating our little morning ritual for a few weeks but after some time pink tie must have gotten tired – he now has moved on the front wagons.

Not meeting pink tie in the morning is sad enough, but having to put up with old smelly guy who wears leather trousers and jackets on Fridays really is not the best start of a new day. I started to adapt to him a little bit, no longer waiting exactly where the doors of the train are but just slightly to the right, so that at least he doesn’t have to push me aside when he arrives. And with time I got used to him, of course still silently sending him the evils every morning when he arrives.

But now a funny thing is happening – white coat joined our little “team”. She is even worse the greasy hair! Unbelievable! If she doesn’t push hard enough to be the first one the train she still manages to push you out of her way when you are already inside the train, thinking that you are safe! And, I kid you not, I started to feel a bit as if greasy hair was my ally – and I think he feels the same way because the other day he got on the train and stood in the door in such manner that I could climb in but white coat couldn’t get past him. And, even more surprisingly, he smiled at me – proper smile! I was so taken aback that I forgot to smile back. We are now basically us against her. (They probably have a name for me too, like old-fashioned-handbag or ginger-frizz-head).

Now while I’m sitting here with nothing better to do I was just wondering if there could possibly be a person rude enough to make greasy hair and ginger frizz feel more charitable towards white coat in order to have another ally to fight the newbie rudie.

The Truth

This is the truth

if you turn things upside down

You cannot hope for your life to change

I would be lying t you if I said

That you have a great future ahead

That you can recover from your past mistakes

That your life could be filled with Joy

That your children could be safe and healthy

More than anything you must know

Human beings cannot accomplish these thisng

And I am convinced of this because

I know you

(And) all that you are capable of is failure

You have made a complete mess of your life

And I refuse to believe that under any cicumstances

that you can turn things round in the coming years

You may think your life is bad now

But there is more to come

You have only one destiny

And whether you like it or not

This is what is real

I am the Lord your God

You should know I believe exactly the opposite!

Now read it starting from the bottom line, working your way to the top. This was given out at some sunbury court weekend a few month ago by Ira, from http://www.sermonspice.com/

That's all. Except that after the death of Rich's blog there was space for a new one on my V.I.P list, so now there's Andy. Good, innit?

A little Homage

This one is for people who will probably never read this – they probably wouldn’t know what a Blog is if it hit them over the head. Still, I think they are great and nobody ever tells them.

Every Sunday morning Andy picks me up with the Corps Minibus and we go on our little tour to pick up those who are not able to make their way to the meeting without help. Our little group is amazing.

There is for example Mary. After having broken her hipbone, a bone splitter got stuck in some nerves and she can’t walk. Will never be able to walk again. Now her head is very quick and agile and she’s such a loving person. As she is the first one we pick up on our round she has to wait while Andy gets out of the car to help other people to the car. While he is out I sit in the back with her and we chat a little. She tells me every week that unfortunately this week the staff in the care home didn’t have time to take her out, but maybe next week her son will come to visit, and he will take her out, or maybe next week the weather will be nice and she can sit in the garden or maybe, maybe next week… I never once heard her complain.

Then there’s Frank. Now Frank is such a charmer. He refers to Tracy as “Andy’s lovely wife” and tells me every Sunday morning that I look “lovely” – in my “lovely” uniform. But he doesn’t only charm the younger ones, far from it: Oh, my dear, what a lovely dress (hat, coat, or handbag) it comes from the back of the bus every time one of the ladies gets on. Frank will be moving soon, leaving behind the flat he has lived in for many years and his wife, whose Alzheimer’s disease is so bad she can’t remember that she has a husband. He visits her every week, not knowing whether she knows that he’s there or who he is.

Then we pick up Audrey. Audrey is a very smart woman, always dressed for church and I’m pretty sure that she invests at least the double amount of time in her short white curls than I do with my red frizzy mess. And I spend hours trying to make something out of all that hair. Unfortunately Audrey has a problem with her hands and she can’t put on her seatbelt herself. When I try to help her she always tries to be very helpful by holding the belt and trying it herself, which I used to find quite a pain as it makes the whole thing so much more complicated. But then I realised how much I hate it when people do things for me that I think I should be capable of doing myself (try and carry my instrument!) and how hard it must be on her to not being able to do such a basic thing like putting on a seatbelt. And whilst carrying my instrument only proves a problem because I don’t want anyone to think that I’m week and need their help, putting on a seatbelt means that Andy or I have to be really close to her, invading her space.

And then there are all the others, Betty who is trying to see the good side of leaving behind your house and with it your independence, your memories, your garden to move into a home, flirting with Andy about meeting him in her yellow swimsuit (which she can’t wear now because it has got a whole). How awful did we feel when she moved the date or her Birthday celebrations to be able to bring her tins of beans to the hall, thinking it was harvest when it fact harvest had been the week before. And Joan, at 86 not having much time for nonsense, calling her friends in the morning to make sure they get up in time. And Fred, almost jumping on the bus with his long legs, telling me off on the rare occasions where I didn’t go on the bus. None of them get out often, or have a great social life or expect anything extraordinary. Just expecting that on Sunday morning around 10am the blue bus stops in front of their house where they all are invariably ready to go, the brave ones waiting on their drives, the others looking out the open front doors, wearing shoes and coats to avoid delays.

Fact is, when I started to go on the bus it was for mere convenience. Because I could get a free ride and give Andy a little hand with opening doors etc. I always figured that the age group I want to work with are the teenagers – I still think that is what I’m good at – but I have never expected to receive so much by giving so little.

So when my bus people say thank you for offering my arm to help them get on or off the bus, hold their bag, fasten their seatbelt or walk them to their seats in the hall I really think that I’m the one who should be thanking the for trying to take part in my life… (How is the flat? Have you seen the Air show? And the new job?) and for letting me see a little bit of their life’s (my son came, I’ll be having lunch with my brother, when I move I’ll show you what I’ll be leaving behind and you can have what you need).

If you are wondering what the point is on this blog, there isn’t any. I just have been thinking about them a lot lately and didn’t know whom to talk about because it’s not a talk-aboutish topic. So I figred that it wont hurt anyone if I write it on here :-)

...still walking...

I am sure that after my last post a few people tought: Why is she posting THAT? Well, the answer to that is quite straight forward. I noticed that I can KNOW what would be the right thing to do in theory but still not do it for absoluetly ages. Maybe because otherwise I mights have to goive up the comfort zone or maybe because I'm just lazy or because sometimes the right thing to do is so awfully hard and difficult and it could go wrong (wrong as in "not fulfil my expectations). Anyway, after bloging about my dad I had to take action because otherwise I would be hypocritical which is quite a bad thing to be. So I texted my brother, who has made up with my dad long ago and said: Can you arrange a meeting? And he did. So I when I went to Zurich with my younger sister and brother to meet my dad and his new wife. Of course it was awkward etc but all in all it went well and I'm glad i did it.

I really wanted to say thanks to some of the people who have not only encouraged me to go but also have shared their experiences.

Of course seing my dad was not the onlything I did with my holiday. I went to see Astrid who has turned from

into

and the best Baby who has grown from a yawning Baby

into a happy little Anna (Im the tired looking one)

I had a great time cooking with Isa, seing some of my old classmates, going out with Clicko, admiring my sisters new flat and catching up with all my people. Again I got applauded when I went to the Army meeting and I had to explain where I worked etc.

With Tracy coming to pick me up from the airport the coming back wasnt too bad and it was great catching up with all the gossip :-)

On another note I went to the Fish & Chips Harvest Dinner. It all started off great and our team didn't do too badly at the quizes until Danny and Sam felt they had to go home. Which left, well, not much:

We fought really really hard but unfortunately I didnt know in which year the railways came to southend. We also kind of didn't know which language is spoken in Turkey (who would have thought it might be turkish?).

So that was my holdiay. Maybe I should now get some work done to deserve my next holidays soon.

about long roads and first steps

I am not a good preacher. That's why I try not to preach. But i do strongly believe that we need each other's testemony because we all have good days and bad days in our everyday lives as much as in our realtion with Jesus. And when we have a down day we need something to bring us back up on track - and testemony of others who are going trough similar things can help us with that. Those of you who read my blog (yes, you!) know that I hardly ever post anything serious. I just never have any deep thought that seem to be worth sharing with others. But I had one now (yay!)

Yesterday in our meeting we were talking about the 5th commandement of honoring our parents. Now for most of you that is probably just a given. For me it's... well, it's an area where growth is still possible. When people ask me if my parents miss me when I am over here I usually say in a quick sentence that I don't have parents and then draw attention to how much I miss my younger siblings. I do miss them a lot. People usually assume that my parents have died and, altough I don't confirm, I don't do anything clarify the situation.

My mum died when i was 12, but my Dad is still alive. I was 13 when I last had a decent conversation with him, 15 when I last spoke to him at all. When I was 19 I had to go to court for financial support, the judge decided that trying to save our family would be a waste of time and since then we had been able to finish our studies only thanks to funds and people helping us. That was the last time I saw my Dad. In my teenage years some pretty ugly stuff happened that is not really worth sharing here and I blamed my Dad for most of it. Looking back now I see things maybe a little differently and there are some situations where I know I acted stupidly, or where I can now see where he was coming from when making decisions. Still, things went badly wrong. After the day in court I wrote my dad a letter. I then saw it as giving him the opportunity to explain himself, but looking back - awwww, it didn't make the situation any better. It was a list of accusations and of telling him how much he was to blame for every unperfect moment in my life. Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about him giving me a bit less pocket money than my friends used to get, things were really bad. But still, how would you have reacted to a letter that was so full of hate and anger from your daughter whom you haven't delt with for about 5 years?

Then I went to an arts camp and attended the drama course. One evening we had a pause for thought led by the group leader of the improvising drama group, a real fun guy, all proper mad professor with curly mad hair and withe socks and sandals. He talked about how people hold on to old grudges and how that keeps them from moving on and how often he speaks to really talented people and they say: I can't do this or that because of my parents, they never supported me etc. I was so angry with that guy, how dare he standing up there saying that we can't blame our parents for all that goes wrong in our lives??? He doesn't know how hard it is to look after yourself because nobody cares, he doesn't know that Dads are supposed to carry you until your old enough to walk yourself and if they drop you too early, well, then they are just not worth the air the breathe. I stormed out and later the guy came to find me and I yelled all that rubbish I was carrying at him, didn't even give him time to answer...I friend said afterwards that I was a lovely sight, all my makeup running down my face. Oh well. He just sat there and took it all in and then he said that I was behaving like a stupid spoilt little girl. He wasn't angry or anything, just calm and it really left me speechless. He sent me away and told me to think about exactly how long I want to be a failure in life just so I could blame my Dad. Exactly how log did I plan not to be the best I could just to nurrish my anger. How long did I intend to go to church sunday after sunday while bearing all that load and not giving it to Jesus.

I went home and sent my dad another letter. I told him I had friends and that I went to that dramacoure. That I shared a flat with my sister who works hard for school. That I am trying and that I wish him well. I got an answer back from his lawyer, asking me why I wrote this letter. And I said, well, I'm a leader in a youth group, I sing in a worshipgroup, I go to church - what kind of example am I setting? To that I got an answer from my dad... It's not all good now, don't get me wrong. It hurt me sometimes when John sais: I'll ask my dad this and that. When I graduated my sister and my brother and a bunch of friends came and Jasmin even did the standing ovation thing for me... but it hurt when some Dads jumped up and and applaused being proud of their kids. There are things that are not good. But these are the things that can still get better. We Email each other on Christmas and Birthdays. I wrote him about my new job and he replied. We are very polite (which is against my nature in the first place) but we are talking. Yesterday after the meeting I went home and sent him a text. The first one that was absolutely random. No Birthday, no other event to justify a text. And he replied. That was good.

As I say, it's along road, and maybe we never quite make it to the all happy family. But I will do my best to get as close as I can. Now I am not writing this to make you feel sorry or anything. Those of you who know me well will know that I am not sorry - I've grown. I am 25 and I am working in London (check me out!), have my own flat and I am happy. I am writing this to encourage those of you who should maybe write a letter/text/email, or pick up the phone. I know that it is usualy the one who was wrong who should appologize. So if you are wrong, go and appologize. But if you are the "victim", don't expect people to say that they are sorry. Just forgive anyway. It's hard, and it's probably a try and error thing, there will be days when it's easy to love the whole world and there will be days when it hits you badly. But trough it all, it's you who can decide exactly how long you wanna hold on to old grudges.

I feel a bit like writing "AMEN" now, but that would be odd in a blog.

fakebook

Having not much to do at the moment, I have taken the time to do all the facebook quizzes I have been sent. Considering that my name starts with "A" I am usually on top of all the friends lists...which means that I get sent a lot of invites. Within the last week I had 68. Is that something to boast about?

After the excitment of seeing that a friend of mine has become a fan of the "Kung Fu Pandas" and learning that Katie "loves Chicken Katsu Curry at Wagamama" I nosed my way into a deep converstaion between Tracy and Stephen regarding Andy and his love for Hooters. It was a deeply touching moment when I realised that I could share all my problems and thoughts with - eeerm, the whole world.

In the last few hours I have learned that learning to play the cornet and dreaming of one day being allowed to play the trombone was a complete waste of time. According to "which musical instrument are you (the best version)" I should be playing the french horn (more to this at the end of the post). I am now considering leaving the Band Sections and take some time off to evaluate wether its worth to keep on playing the wrong instrument.

To get myself back out of that emotional low I tried to find out "which celebrity husband is for you?". Apparently I would be a perfect match for Jesse Metcalf. He looks nice enough, and altough I have never heard of him before it seems that we would be great for each other, mainly because he is quite a romantic guy. Good for him.

Feeling more confident now I dared to find out "which fairy tale" I am. Whilst dreaming about dancing like Cinderella or swimming with Ariel i clicked on "submit", chose my 3 "best friends" (all beginning mit A for I can't be bothered to do the whole "who might acctually want to be invited to take this test" thing) and, tada: I am Beauty and the Beast. Not: Belle in the Beauty and the Beast. No: Beauty from Beauty and the Beast. No. It clearly states: You are Beauty and the Beast.

After that I fled back into the safety of the obvious, thinking that in "What kind of Brit are you" the only possible answer in my case would be "None". How wrong can you be? No, apparently I am: The lovable Brit (With a picture of Hugh Grant - after recently being confronted with Memories of Bridget Jones I am not sure if he is the right person to illustarte "lovable").

Finally I came to the one that made most sense: Which Jane Austen Heroine are you? I am glad that at last one of all these quizes could understand my innermost being: I am Elisabeth Bennet.

"You are memorable, lovely and clever, the life of the party... you always have the perfect thing to say in every situation. Your honesty, virtue, and lively wit enable you to rise above the nonsense and bad behavior that pervade your money-seeking and often spiteful society". I knew it. I do always have the perfect thing to say! And I am so above all that bad behavior! Truth to be told, I only copy/pasted in the nice part of the result (the rest was absolutely untrue!)

This is the reasoning behind the french horn:
You are very sassy! You have a high IQ and are not affraid to let people know it. You like to be different and have a few strange 'quirks' here and there, but are an all around good person. you can come of brash and blunt and sometimes people don't know how to handle your honesty. Try taking people's feelings into consideration more often. you will learn to live better with them if you think about what you say before you say it; like horn calls, Horn players have a natural tendancy to blurt out whatever is on their mind. They don't like to party but they do like small get together. You'd much rather have lunch with a close friend or two than to go to an extravagent party. You enjoy lavash things, and really love to help people and animals

(PS: Mainly animals. I am famous for helping animals. In Switzerland they acctually call me animanna!)

Rain at Lunchtime

It has been mentioned that I have not blogged in a while. The main reason for that is that, at the moment (and for many moments to come, unless one of you knows someone who is selling one real cheap???), I dont have a computer. What I do have is my very own Tracy who lets me sometimes use hers in order to upload pics n facebook. And i have lunchbreaks at work, and for the time being, that will have to do.

Since I last blogged I staretd a new job with SAGIC (or, according to Rich, TRAGIC) (Which is not true)(The Tragic bit I mean, it is true that i started a new job). I still find it exciting to get off the train in the morning with all them loads and loads of people rushing to work, all the posh ladies with posh high heels, clip clap, clip clap... and men with pink ties and people giving you things for free and people yelling into a mobile and, well, loads of rain. I have already developed the "I'm a very important person i a rush so dont you dare crossing my way" look, as well as the "I'm a young Business person comuting to London so dont you dare siting next to me in the train" look. And obviously the abillity to read my London Lite while trying to fall over in the tube. I even managed to win a tube race against time (and all other odds, considering my very poor sense of direction) going to trade in my lunch hour with Emma. We did have to call the office on the way there because we managed to get lost somewhere between Elephant & Castle Station and Trade.

Now those of you who read Katies blog will have read about my swiss friends coming to Hadleigh and all the fun we had finding a place to get a drink. I was so happy to see them again and thought that they felt the same because, when I entered Hadleigh Temple, some of them started clapping - later on it turned out that they didn't clap for me specifically, it was more an expression of their relief to see someone under the age of 178 entering the hall. Oh well. Anyway, i think some of the were a bit happy to see me too. I hope.

In the pic you can see Katie (the non-swiss one on the left) CJACK (standing), with whom I had to share a house when I was 19. The next one is Nath (who is quite handsome, still single and as of lately Katies friend on Facebook -> watch this space). And Boni. I just know him by name. But I'm sure he's nice.

Last week I had some more visitors from home, first my sister with her friend Doro

(This is a very very old picture but due to lack that will have to be enough). On their last evening in England Katie and Ben came over to watch PS I love you. They brought a DVD player but not the right cable, so Katie and I had to go to a friends house to ask if we could borrow his. He wasn't in but his french flatmate was. He tried to give us jumpleads, but we agreed that, at that very moment, that wouldn't have helped a lot. But Francois was lovely and kept looking for something more suitable (Read with french accent: It could be we 'ev uonn over 'eer....nono...I quite laik se idea of saatt! you can take se hol dvd player - 'ee wont notice until next 'eeer...).

Sadly enough my Sister and Doro had to go home but the same day Jasi arrived.

We had a great time together, mainly watching Sister Act and singing along and now they are all gone. How sad. But she will come back soon, so thats OK.

Anyway, my rainy lunchhour is over -> let me get back to safe the world (or at least insure those whom i fail to safe).

Stop the world, I wanna get off!

Last sunday my good friend Tracy gave me this really good advice: Anna, dont be hasty. I have to admit that I havent got a clue what hasty means. But according to her I didnt take her advice... She might be right, I dont usually listen to her :-)

Knowing that I was going to start a new job next week, I started looking for flats (because people with proper jobs dont live at home). We were invited to view a flat in Westcliff, between the *train station* and the seafront. When we got into the communal area (thats what posh people call the stairs I was told) we were slightly shocked... it was rather unnice there and I thought I dont even want to go all the way up to the flat. But I decided turning around and running away wouldnt cause a very good impression, so I climbed up the stairs to the 3rd floor and viewed the flat - which was rather nice.

What happened after that I dont quite remember, I just know that my bankaccount has gone from bad to dead and i'll be moving in next friday. As in the day after tomorrow. Which is not to bad because I dont have much to move. I wont even have a bed to move. Good, it will save me from having to carry it up the stairs. And who needs a bed anyway. On the other hand I was able to get hoover, telephone, iron,crockery, cuttlerie, microwave (green, stacey) TV, towles, glasses, tv chair and purple plastic flowers (nothing makes a home like flowers) within the last 3 days for next to nothing. Which is good.

But at the moment I cant really focus on the moving bit because I just had my goodbye party in the shop. Which was quite nice, mainly the part where people who have not liked me for the last year or so gave me cards thanking me for being an amazing friend (which I am). I know I have moaned and groaned about my job but i think i will miss it a bit. Mainly my best friend Truder (as in the male form of Trudy)... The good thing about Truder was that he never complained and nover objected to anything I said.

Seriously, i have to say that some of the Volies grew really close to me and im sure Im going to miss them loads. Mainly my John.

But as I say, I dont really have time to contemplain my love for humanity, as I should be packing now!

*train station*: If the Bangla Town thingy gets accepted in London than I will insist that Westcliff station gets renamed to swiss main rail!

...you'll succeed at last...

This is just a quicky update about all the very dramatic changes in my professional life over the last few weeks. It all begann with, well, sending out CV's. Surprisingly enough, nobody was inetersted in a Swiss Person, how ever much I pushed the fact that I DO speak fluent swiss.

Well, there was this one company that was really interested. They found me trough an agency and the fact that my swiss is rather good seemd to be quite important. The pay seemd allright and they said that moving to Reading sounded much worse than it acctually would be and that they were sure that Id find new friends easily... I tried to explain that Ive only just moved here (although to some of you it seems that ive been tormenting you for ages, its no more than 1.5 years). I had to give them a definate NO when they mentioned that they were looking for a salesperson to sell wine to Switzerland. The womam on the phone explained that I didnt have to drink it to sell it...she wasnt all that convincing.

Anyway, I kept sending CV's to agencies and I had the odd inetrview, even one with an agency where the girl who was supposed to test my german didnt speak german... she just ticked the box where it said "fluent". I suprised the girl who was supposed to test my french by saying real stupid things like: Toujours quand je vois le gehrkin mon coeur commence a battre tres tres fort! (everytime I see the gehrkin my heart starts beating really hard, that being the answer to the question: How much do you like London and how likely is it for you to become homesick and go back home...she didnt have any further questions).

After all that hassle I was ordered into my bosses office to be informed that I had the choice between being promoted to acting manager for the next couple of months, this promotion inclueding a payrise and a workinghours rise, or to remain assistant manager and do loads of overtime over the next few weeks without the payrise...it was a tough one and therefor I wasnt given any time to think about it.

I kept applying to everything I saw, including a position at SAGIC (Salvation Army General Insurance Coorporation Ltd) in Love Lane, London, near Fenchurch Street. I was invited for an Interview that took 2 hours and after that I was so exhausted that even had to say no to shopping. Bad bad.

I didnt hear from SAGIC, and decided to look elsewhere. Abbott estate Agent were looking for someone, and a copy of my CV found its way into their office (and apparently their hearts...LOL). The very next day I had a call t fix a date for an interview, a few days later the job was offered to me during the interview, which was rather surprising. I said I hadnt expected such a quick answer, if I could please have some thinking time. The position was in Thorpe Bay, 10 Minutes walking from Ninas house.

Only a few hours before the guy from Abbotts was supposed to call to hear my decision (which would have been "Yes" as there was nothing else around) I checked my emails to find that SAGIC was offering me the position! AAAAAAAAAAAAarrrrrrrrrrgggghhhh, why do they do that to me, the officially most indecisive person in the world???

Anyway, after talking to a lot of people who all were very helpfull (I dont wanna give an opinion on this one because I dont wanna influence you was part of all the conversations I had about the topic)I decided to go for the SAGIC job. I the called my boss and the area manager, who instantly offered me my own shop (who wants to be manager? You are working even when your off, everytime your phone rings you jump and think: what now??). I said that unfortunatley I wasnt interested and was then offered to be transfered to the BHF Headoffice if the only reason I wanted to leave was the money. Thanks, but no thanks.

So this is just to let you know: YYYYYYYEEEEYYYYY, I got a job. The excitment heleped me trough the tough time of Max's death (my cornet, even Paul and Darren couldnt safe him). My new Cornet is scotish and is called McGregor. He just looks the part.

the rest of the week

The rest of the week was quite predictable - I tried to spend
a lot of time with my little baby siblings (both of them quite a lot taller then me BUT obviously much less mature!). My sister had this very very cool thing in her flat, of which im not quite sure what it should be good for, but anyway, its a standing skateboard...it sound harmless, but guess who was still able to fall down and hurt herself, dispite there not even being any wheels involved.

My little brother has been promomted in the Army, which made me rather unhappy but I must admited that Ive grown so much on an intellectual level, I didnt mention it to him. But coz I know he doesnt read this blog I can say how I really feel about that: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Back to the fun things: We did some cooking in my sisters flat (Shes the headless in yellow). The guy in the background is Tobias, her male flatmate.

He took this next amazing picture: My sister kept quite a bit of my old stuff at her place, holding on to it until im coming back. As this doesnt seem to be the case in the very close future we went trough some of the boxes to see what we could dispose of. We found some clothes that were actually quite expensive - but just so much to big! We decided to take a picture looking like our grandparents (cant quite understand what the black hat on my sisters head had to do with it but she insisted...cant understand the youth!). Anyway, we asked lovely Tobias to take a very serious picture. There we were, standing while he was trying to find a good angle when he decided to bow down for a better picture - and farted really really loudly! We didnt manage to keep the seriouseness up.

One of the coolest people ever whom I obviously had to see was Clicko (hes name is Chrigu - I now tend to forget that - I am adapting to the english incapabillity to pronounce his name properly. He decided that we look like Pamela Anderson and David Hasslehoff in Baywatch - I think hes got a problem with his sight. Then we tried to be "Titanic", which didnt quite work either, but I like the picture anyway, so there.

Before I met Clicko, I had a friend called Mariette. Now Mariette was single and not very happy about that. We lost touch until one day, when I was in school with Clicko, I got a text from her, saying that she moved to a nearby town and if I would go for lunch with her. I went and we had a great time - except the fact that she still seemed quite unhappy about her singleness. The next day in school I told Clicko about that and he went: How old is she? I told him (But you dont expect me to write that in public, do you?) and he mentioned that he had a friend with the same "problem", a couple of years older than her. And there a plan was born:

I asked her out for coffe while he went shopping with Alex (his friend). Half way trough theyr shopping Clicko

all of sudden really wanted a cup of coffee...in the same place as Mariette and me were having our drink... They met and are getting married in June. Clicko and me then decided that we should open an agency for lonely hearts. Our second project was our mathsteacher with a friend from our choir - which failed because he was in a rather serious relationship. We decided to abandon the agency idea, but I think we werent too bad with a successrate of 50%. (The picture is Mariette with Alex in the Coffee shop where they first met).

There are so many other things I would like to tell you about, but I came to the conclusion that they are just not interesting to anyone but me - for example Astrid being rather pregnant, which is amazing and makes me really happy (and feeling a bit prgenant too).

Or Lilian, who gave birt to her second daughte, Anna Julia, just days before I went to see her. (Anna is the loud one - well done girl, you gonna make it in life! Learn from auntie Anna!)

While I was home we had snow! I mean real 20 cm snow! Amazing - we never have snow in March! It must have known how uch i missed my snowcapped mountains! Thank you! (Although my feet froze a bit...who cares)

I catched up with some of my dearest friends, like Jasmin (we took that in a restaurant, we got some weird looks from people...but we are used to famousness)

Or Martina, with whom I didnt get on for ages! I hated her coming to my aunties house, where we were living at the time, but it was unavoidable since she was my cousins girlfriend. But one day we decided to make our peaces for some reason (I think we both hated the same girl or something important like that). I cant imagine on how much fun and crazyness I would have missed out if I had held on to not liking her!

Luckily I had the chance to catch up with Steffu. When we left Brazil to live in Switzerland, most people avoided us...some people actually asked us if, after 4 years abroad, we still spoke the language, some probably just didnt know what to say, some were horrified about some stories they hear about us (yes, we are BAAAAADDDD!!!) and some just didnt care, which is fine. But Steffu cared. He walked up to me and said: Hi, Im Steffu, you must be Anna. If you had a house, what kind of furniture would you put into it? Bright or dark colours? He was so normal it was scary. And he remained scary, which is my main reason to love him so much.

Some of you might remember that the last time I went home, I went to attend a friends wedding. Now this friend was David. We used to lead our youthfellowship together and I think nobody will ever manage to have weirder meetings than we had. So now hes married, which is certainly a good thing excpet that now he says things like: I gotta go home now, my wife is waiting and she doesnt like me to be late...coming from the guy who used to proclaim: My wife has got to look good and cook good and mainly be quite and not interfere with my life... well well, David, seems that loves got to you...... shalala, shalala!

Being the sado I am, I didnt manage to stay away from the Army for such a long time. I went to see my friend Corinne in training college.

What made me a bit sad is to see how few people there are in our college: on the left you can see what is ment to be 3(!!!) sessions! 3 people who started in 06, 1 for 07 and 1 for 2008....

And then it was time to wave goodbye at the trainstation... you might not believe it, but I did manage not to cry until my siblings were out of sight - I deserve medal!

And now im completely back - whom of you english may I torment first???!!!

sunday, 2.3.

After a very very short night I went to the meeting in my homecorps in Thun. It was amazing, some of the reactions where just great...Like the Welcome Lady who didnt recognise me at firts, but as soon as she realised whose hand she was shaking she almost jumped. I must admit that I felt like the celebrity of the year, everbody wanting to talk to me and hug me and tell me how much they love me (even those who obviously dont love me, it was the kind of thing that didnt really matter) It didnt help that mrs. Major announced me as a "special guest". I liked it. Could I please have that kind of reception every sunday in Southend citadel? With clapping and the full program of aaawwwwing and oooohhhhing about how good I look? Thank you, much appreciated :-)

Some people just completely stood out for me, not because I like them more than others, but because they have changed so much since I last saw them. For example Chris. Chris used to belong to the Corps of Bern (Our capital, about half an hour from where my corps is). We she used to sing in the same choir as me (Shelomith) and we always got on really well, dispit not spending much time with each other. Now since I left Switzerland she felt that her way would be to become an officer. Now I have to say Ive never ever in my whole live seen a woman who makes the Army uniform look so absolutely sexy like she does. It helps that in Switzerland we dont have as strict rules as in england, so she gets away with her black boots.

(The lady on the right side with the white stripy blouse is my aunt, nice to know :-))

In my corps, there is probably more "older youth" than in Southend...I mean the people my age. The other thing is that people leave home much earlier, most of them move in with friends. Therefor sunday dinners dont have the same family-air about them than here. What we do is we hang around the coffee machine in one of the halls until somebody says something along the line of: Do you wanna come to our place for dinner? How many? Who brings what? or: I have such and such at home, what do you think? Now on that sunday it happened to be my sisters place we all went to. Its really realxed, you come and go whenever and however you like, maybe your asked for a little financial contribution or they ask someone to go and buy dessert.

The lovely colorful pic on the wall was a community thing they had in my sisters flat...everyone who went there had to draw something...my sisteris the one sitting right underneath the picture. She shares the flat with 2 girls and a guy - (un)lucky Tobias!

In the afternoon the sun came out and we had lovely weather, so we decided against the movie idea we had earlier on and went to a school playground (our schools dont have fences and the playgrounds are accesible to the public) to get rid of some energy. The young people go trough phases opf which sports they like. It used to be volley ball, then football...at the moment it seems they are all more into basketball - im well good at that!

Luki, the guy above, is coming to see me in April... finally someone I dont have to look up to, as we are the same height :-) And yes, my team lost! yes, it was my fault, coz im a sportish desaster - but - I did buy a hacky, and im gonna convert southend into the capital of the young people hacky players! (I dont know the english word for hacky, but its something i can play even wearing heels :-))

Some things made me really happy - like seeing Daenu. Before I left Switzerland over a year ago I had a minor argument with him. It didnt seem to be minor at the time, but looking back, it was really silly (mainly of him, he could just have accepted that i was absolutely right as usual :-)). He then sent me a message saying: I hope this stupid argument doesnt affect our relationship. Ever since we are having a very profound relationship that even survived the one he had with his girlfriend and which is mainly based on going out for bowling and kebab. The only thing that chanegd between us is that he grew a tiny little bit obver the last year and he is now officially taller then me. How sad.

Someone else who has changed a lot over the last few month is Matt. When I left he was a little teenager, someone I always thought of never growing older than 15. The day I left and said goodbye to everybody he just gave me a bored look and kind of half lifted his hand to wave bye. When I saw him there that sunday i just had 2 thoughts: Hes tall and Should I botter going there to say Hi? He took that difficult decision off me coz he came running as soon as he spotted me. That was really really nice! Hes now a proper grown up!

Now someone who hasnt changed at all (well, not in an obvious way anyway) Is Rafi. Hes number 3 of the majors 5 sons and one of the most peacful and easyest to please people you could imagine! I once told him that he was one of my favourite people and he blushed! How cute! As opposed to Paul who said: Am I really and then walked away to talk to Josh. Anyway, what I wanted to illustrate with this little story is that Rafi is rather shy. As you can see on Facebook (Those who can) in most of the picters its me huging someone. Its like the normal thing to do. Camera=Hugs. Not with Rafi. When I said: Would you mind if my sister took a picture of me and you he said: ja, but didnt move an inch closer! How funny! Well, maybe its not as funny for you as it is for me ;-)

In the evening we decided to go and watch the movie we had planned for the afternoon. So we went to our youthfellowship room and watched drummline.

One of the main things you need to surcice in the Corps of Thun is the abillity to stay on top in pillowfights...this is mainly because pillows is what we most have in our room. As you can see, I havent lost my skills :-) And now for all of you who think just because im a pictionaryal desater (which I am) i cant be called artistic, please look at the pictures above and tell me you wouldnt pay loads for them! I think they are amazing! And i hate doing it but I think I have to take the biggest part of the credits! Those of you who have seen princess diary may remember the scene where her mum throws arrows on a white wall on which she pinned colorfilled baloons. Now, when I was a youthleader we were given a budget to do something with our room. One of the things we did was painting the room pink (its not really pink, but I am trying to shok you, its just a very tiny bit of a pinkish shade. We thought that would be the best thing coz we couldnt agree on a colour so we took the one nobody wanted...that way at least nobody was happy with our decision). Then we told people to bring poster, but obviously they would never have agreed on anything we put up, there would always be someone who would want something different. So there I went, bought a bag of baloons, bins, dart arrows and colours...we had so much fun, it really worked...well...till the rain came...