Switzerland sadly leaves Euro 2016

The friendly footy crowd at Paddy's on Saturday afternoon

It was so sad to see Switzerland get beaten by Poland in the first Euro 'last 16 clash' on Saturday.

They went out in a heartbreaking 5-4 penalty shootout, especially miserable for the fans following the spectacular scissor kick of Sheridan Shaqiri in the 82nd minute. Wow, what a strike - for me, the best goal of the tournament so far. 

We were enjoying the game at Paddy O'Brien's Irish Pub in Winterthur and the whole place erupted, it was fantastic. And then the TV screen showed the square behind Manor in Winterthur, just 500m down the road, jumping up and down with delight. It was a great moment.

I am going to miss cheering the Swiss team on. It's just not the same supporting England in public here. Although I am looking forward to seeing the England game from the comfort of my on home later on tonight. Come on England!!

There may be hope for us insomniacs

I’ve suffered from pretty chronic insomnia over the past few years and it’s got me down, real down. The only thing that keeps me going (apart from my gorgeous family) is the fact that I’m not alone. Apparently a whopping 25% of us suffer from sleep disorder on a regular basis.

With my particular ‘disorder’ I have no problem getting to sleep but I often wake up at either 2am or 4am (on a good night) and then I am completely unable to get back to sleep. When the alarm goes off I drag myself out of bed and the morning routine of getting my two young daughters ready for school is pure torture. However, it constantly amazes me that by mid-morning I am feeling so much better and can manage the day adequately (although I’m sure it would be a different story if I had a full day at work) Evenings are a write off though – I am desperate to crawl into bed soon after saying goodnight to my daughters (c 8.15pm) I worry that my body will one day conk out from a build-up of sleep exhaustion and also stress about the affect it will have on my mental health in the long run.

However, there seems to be reassuring news on the horizon. Research now suggests that sleeping for a continuous eight hours is a recent invention and our body clocks are much better suited to two shorter bursts of sleep each day.

In an article published in the Conversation, Dr Melinda Jackson, a psychologist who specialises in sleep disorders at RMIT University, and Siobhan Banks, sleep researcher at the University of South Australia suggest that so-called segmented, or bi-modal sleeping actually used to be the norm.

“Interestingly, the appearance of sleep maintenance insomnia in the literature in the late 19th century coincides with the period where accounts of split sleep start to disappear,” they explain. So perhaps striving for eight hours could go some way to explain why 25% of us suffer from some sort of sleep disorder.

This isn’t the first time a two sleeps a day regime has been suggested as an alternative, potentially more beneficial sleeping pattern. In the early 1990s, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr conducted a month-long experiment to test the theory, where a group of people were left in darkness for 14 hours each day. By week four, a distinct new two-phase sleep pattern had emerged with the participants sleeping for four hours, waking for one to three hours and then falling into a second four-hour sleep. Wehr concluded that people were much better suited to a split sleep pattern.

Experts argue the research suggests segmented sleeping suits our body clocks better. And it could even make the mid-afternoon flop a thing of the past because ‘it provides two periods of increased activity, creativity and alertness across the day, rather than having a long wake period where sleepiness builds up across the day and productivity wanes.’

So next time you can get away with a sneaky little afternoon nap, go ahead, it's good for you – the scientists agree!

Deutsch Welle - a great way to learn German

I’m in love with Harry on a fantastic new website I’ve found called Deutsch Welle. Well, I’m not in love with the man himself because he is arrogant, bad tempered, rude and ignorant. But he is teaching me German. Well, his story, Gefangen in der Zeit is teaching me German. And all the people he meets as he has a multitude of accidents, gets arrested and ends up in a psychiatric hospital!

This is the second great story I have been following on Deutsch Welle – the first was equally entertaining, called Mission Berlin about an English speaking girl who learns German on her way to save Germany’s history from the Time Terrorists.

As well as all these fab stories you can also follow general big news stories at your German level, with a translation in English and a host of many other resources, all made possible with the support of the European Union. As far as I understand there are also similar websites to teach other languages which I will explore when I have finally mastered German.

Seek out and enjoy!

http://www.dw.com

Learn German with Harry here.

Switzerland breaks records as Gotthard tunnel opens

The world's longest and deepest rail tunnel has officially opened in Switzerland with a flamboyant ceremony.

The 57km (35-mile) Gotthard tunnel, which took almost 20 years of construction work, will provide a high-speed rail link under the Swiss Alps between northern and southern Europe.

Goods currently carried on the route by a million lorries a year will go by train instead and Switzerland has said it will revolutionise European freight transport.

View today's amazing opening ceremony on the Beeb here.

A clip of the tunnel as it was created from January:

The tunnel has overtaken Japan's 53.9km Seikan rail tunnel as the longest in the world and pushed the 50.5km Channel Tunnel linking the UK and France into third place.

Rocking Winterthur Half Marathon

I love to run. But I don’t run in races. I’ve never understood running in a race I will never have the chance of winning. My hubbie seems to think this is a crazy notion, ie it’s not about the winning, it’s about the taking part (although we all knew that wasn't true when our parents told us as kids)

So, anyway, this leads us to spending lots of time at running races – hubbie running in them and me watching them. Which I actually don’t mind because I love the atmosphere at these events and so do my girls. We've been to a few in Switzerland now and they are always very well organised - and the majority of those taking part are pretty fit - even the seniors, So you may find yourself in a different overall position to that which you are accustomed to - and you may find yourself being overtaken by a surprising number of sprightly runners who are 20 years or more senior than you. But don't let that put you off, you'll still have a blast.

And last weekend’s Marathon/Half Marathon event in Winterthur certainly didn’t disappoint.

We arrived just under an hour before I expected Gourmet Gray and his brother Paul to finish and the atmosphere was buzzing. There was rock music playing loudly, the perfect musical accompaniment to any public, testosterone-led get together I feel. We squeezed into a space in the crowd of people lining the last 100 metres before the finish and started ‘hop, hop’ hop’ (ing) the runners as they headed for home. The lovely thing about this race was that every runner had his first name on the front of his vest so the audience could shout encouragement to each runner by name, which I think is a lovely touch.

The music went off and a band started playing just as there was a frisson in the crowd and the first Half Marathon runner came in (Dadi Fikru Abera at the amazing time of 1:06)

It was of course a little while later before daddy arrived but I was over the moon for him breaking his PB in under two hours. I love to witness the elation among the runners as they cross the line on a high and feel a little stab of something – who knows, perhaps one day I can also run a race without the need to win.

www.winterthur-marathon.ch

Details of Sunday's Winterthur Marathon competitors here.

Spring Inspiration

I love to see the flowers spring up all over our village, it is so very beautiful at this time of year. I began buying flowers to paint but that turned out to be a little too expensive - and they often died before I finished my picture :( So I have now resorted to taking photographs of beautiful flowers I see in their natural state all around my village and Winterthur city. And then I paint them in the comfort of my own home at leisure. Here is my latest effort in watercolours. What inspires you at this time of year?

A lorra laughs at Winterthur's Comic Slam

At the weekend we experienced Winterthur’s first Comic Slam event which brought together nine of the city’s talented illustrators and cartoonists.

The stage was set in the atmospheric Alte Kaserne on Teknikumstrasse (why have I never come across this amazing place before) in the ‘heart of Winterthur’s comic scene.’ Cartoonists taking part were: Lilian Caprez, Schlorian, Daniel Bosshart, Zea Schaad, Caro Rutz, Rina Jost, Frida Bünzli, René Lehner, Beni Merk.

After first emailing the very nice Daniel Bosshart, president of the club behind the event, to check it was suitable for children and being assured it was, I took my 9-year-old daughter who is a huge comic fan (she became really interested in comics on our arrival here as the libraries have buckets of them and I now happily attribute this to her being an avid reader and picking up German so easily) 

After paying our 15sfr entrance fee (10sfr adult, 5sfr child) we had out hands stamped and were given a red strip of paper each on which to write a word. This required thought – what word would give a cartoonist potential for a great cartoon? And, out of my fairly unsophisticated German vocabulary, which could I spell correctly with some degree of certainty?  I finally settled on Überraschung – surprise – (but did have to check the spelling with my daughter) who spurned my suggestion of elefant – pretty self-explanatory - and instead chose geschenk (present)

We were early enough to bag a good table in front of the main stage and sat down with a glass of red wine and a coke purchased from the small, well stocked bar inside. A lovely lady artist from Henngart also sat at our table and told me lots of juicy facts, for instance, one of the artists taking part - Lilian Caprez – has recently won third place in the Fumetto International ComicFestival Competition in Luzern.  

Just then the show started, ably and wittily compered by René Brügger & Andrew Wolfensberger. I only understood sections of the chat but that didn’t matter as it wasn’t too long before a word was being drawn out of the pot and the first three artists were busily sketching.

I think they had just three minutes to complete each drawing – and it wasn’t easy, as some members of the audience had submitted horrendous words such as ‘winter jacket’ ‘ahoy’ and ‘national anthem?’ And the comperes ended up chucking more than a handful away over their shoulder in disgust. But then, to our delight, my word was pulled out, along with the word ‘Eule’ (owl) and three very entertaining sketches ensued. 

The atmosphere was buzzing and I especially loved the countdown music and clapping for the last seconds of each sketch. There were nine illustrators and graphic artists competing against each other in all (three rounds) And the audience voted for the best in each round, with much applause, and finally Caro Rutz, all the way from the French speaking part of Switzerland, was crowned the supreme winner.

There was a disco afterwards with a DJ but it was 11.15pm and it was time to take Poppy home although she was still amazingly upright and buzzing with the thrill of it all. On the way out, I spotted Beni Merk who had made one of the ‘owl surprise’ sketches and asked him if there was any chance I could have it as it featured my word. He said somebody had already taken it and on seeing my crestfallen face offered to redraw it just for me! How amazing is that? So I had a super fab entertaining night – the event was very well organised and ran extremely smoothly - and I came away with an original sketch to boot!

The Club Comic Panel Winterthur was established on 7^th October, 2013, when eleven comic enthusiasts came together on the back of the city’s anniversary project which involved many of them sketching an illustrative street plan of Winterthur (which is available to buy) The association aims to promote comic art and provide a way for professionals and enthusiasts to network, as well as promoting their work to the public.

The next big event at the Alte Kaserne is an all hours marathon art session which begins on Thursday (26^th) and lasts until Sunday (29^th) After this, the exhibition of all the creations is on view until 8^th June.

www.comicpanel.ch

www.echtpunkt.ch