Back home in Geneva

I’ve been back less than a week. I’ve already seen many of my friends, had the final (I hope) interview for my Swiss nationality, had Jean-Pierre cut my hair and gone to the dentist and attended a weekend writing workshop.

I’ve spent special time with my writing mate who is on her way to Austria via Australia and steeped myself in the beauty of the lake and the mountains.

The corn fields and sunflower fields of summer have given way to turned over soil, rows of large clumps of stone-filled black, rich soil. Some of the cow statues have disappeared, but a few remain.

Only one chestnut stand is open and I still have not smelled the roasting nuts nor held them in a paper cone to warm my hands. In lieu of that, I have bought my first pair of gloves for the season, cheap so I won’t feel badly when I lose them. I still remember the beautiful $75 pair of fire engine red leather gloves with delicate scalloped edges bought from the Sunday leather market in Florence. They were soft making me want to caress them. They smelled of sweet tanning that new shoes have.

RB2 and I were on one of our exploratory routes in France and stopped for coffee. Only a couple of hours later when we were back home (Môtiers, Neuchâtel at the time) did I realise I had left the gloves in the café. We couldn’t even remember the name of the village we had stopped and since we tend to travel by lets-see-what-happens-when-we-take-the-second-left-and-third right, there was no way we would ever have found it again. Whoever ended up with the gloves, I hope she enjoyed them as much as I would have.

At Manora there were some beautiful gloves, some costing less, some costing more than those red gloves. I settled for CHF 9.50 pair. They are classic. When I lose one, I will buy another identical pair. Hopefully I will alternately lose right and left hands and can create new pairs.