Swiss National Day

 

Yesterday was Swiss National Day, celebrating the country's 732nd birthday.

In 1291 the leaders of three cantons met in a field to form a mutual protection bond. 

It was Rick's first as a Swiss citizen, my 17th.

Its president changes annually, always from one of the seven cabinet members, often called the seven dwarves. Multi parties make up the parliament, based on the U.S. congress.

We'd checked the various celebrations in villages around and those around us for things like raclette, sausage, alpine horns, speeches, singing of the national anthem,and parades, deciding our village was the one. 

The day was blessedly cool after the days and days of canicule, with many rain showers. On our morning dog walk, we noticed the different Swiss flags decorating the houses. We had put up four small ones in the garden.

Tuesdays are the farmer's market, but because of the holiday it wasn't there. Stores close to celebrate holidays, which are not an occasion for shopping and sales. 

Restaurants were open, We ate at one of favorites.

As writers, words don't stop entering our heads and we did spend the day on our projects, keeping an eye on the weather. We also watched the American news, hoping for an announcement of Trump's indictment. 

Changing nationalities does not mean that we stopped caring about our birth country and we've watched in horror at what we see as the internal destruction of the place that bares little resemblance of what we where we were raised and believed in.

A Facebook call came from my daughter  saying she was at Brigham and Woman's hospital after a fall at the Park Street Station in Boston.

In the end we opted to not face the potential showers nor did I want to miss hearing the results of my daughter's X-rays. We know the evening went ahead when we heard fireworks, much to Sherlock's concern. He didn't freak out, just went on alert for the potential need to protect us as if seven pounds of rescue pup could.

Today Switzerland starts its new year as a country that's far from perfect but works more than it doesn't. My daughter is in a sling and cast for six weeks. My dog knows he protected us from fire works. Rick and I are back to our projects.