For Art Lovers

Peter Bergmann is 70 years old. He is also a renowned Berner Oberland painter from the village of Oberville, which is only a short drive from our village along the Simmental, down towards the town of Thun. Back until a few days ago, i had no idea who Peter Bergmann was, but since he turned 70 recently, the local paper printed an article about him which mentioned that a special exhibition of some of his work will be held in Steffisburg until November 25th to commemorate his birthday.

I haven't mentioned this before but i do possess a great appreciation for art with an emphasis on paintings. My favourite theme is nature with autumn and winter pieces in particular and just about anything that has to do with the Christmas season. Well, Mr. Bergmann's exhibit happened to feature just that. So you can imagine my excitement when i found out about it. Steffisburg is a small village next to Thun and we just happened to be heading down that way last weekend anyway, so it worked out great.

The exhibit was held in Villa Schüpbach, which is a big old house with all the rooms emptied out and the walls decked with Mr. Bergmann's works. Each room had its own theme, including the stairs to the lower level, and the cellar which was the actual atelier.

As i mentioned above, most of the pieces were autumn and winter scenes, but there were many featuring summer paysage, flowers, and animals, the majority of them donkeys, sheep and cravens. Room V was something of a Christmas theme and that one was, of course, my favourite room which also happened to contain my favourite piece shown above in this blog. The piece is called "Chlausentag" which translates into "Santa Clause Day", painted in 2007 on acrylic. I fell in love with it so much that my husband decided to buy it for me as a Christmas gift. That would have been so wonderful had it not been sold already! I was quite disappointed especially since all my other choices were also sold away. I was prepared to leave empty handed until we reached the atelier. There, in one corner, was an over sized folder containing numerous loose pieces. We were just leafing through them when a beautiful black and white winter scene caught my eye. My husband looked at me and i smiled and nodded.

I left Villa Schüpbach very happy holding my Christmas gift in my cold little hands. My handy husband will make me a frame for it and i plan to be able to enjoy it by Christmas.

As a bonus, i happened to see a mini version of my favourite piece in the form of a card by the entrance as we were leaving, which i promptly purchased and after framing that one as well i hope to be able to enjoy it at my desk.

Above are photographs of the pieces that moved me. Taking photographs at the exhibit was permitted, so i captured the ones i wanted to bring back with me.

Ski Season 2007/2008 Opens!

So here we are in mid November and already we got half a meter of fresh new powdery white stuff covering the ground. It's beautiful and it's early. I guess that is "making up" for last winter when we hardly got any snow and it came very late in the season.

The ski slope operators are thrilled. So thrilled, in fact, that they've decided to officially open some of the slopes early this season, namely, this weekend. My husband is on cloud nine and brimming with excitement. He could hardly contain himself today. He reminded me of a little boy on Christmas Eve waiting for Santa.

Speaking of Christmas, all this snow has put me in a cheery Christmas mood. I hum Christmas tunes in my head, I add every single Facebook application that has to do with Christmas on my profile and I have started to check out Christmas cookies recipes because, drum roll, are you ready? I will attempt to bake Christmas cookies this Christmas! Ta-ra! And not to forget one of the very joyous aspects of the Christmas season - Christmas shopping! Music to my ears!

Speaking of Christmas shopping, that is exactly what we are planning to do this Saturday in Thun before heading out to a Christmas dinner party hosted by a dear friend who has been so kind to invite us for yet the third time after we've had to cancel the last two times. We are very excited to be attending this year since our friend's Christmas dinner party has an outstanding reputation for it's excellent food and drink as well as excellent company which combined makes for an excellent evening.

I will be making a Mediterranean style roasted vegetable salad with olives and feta cheese to take to the party. How inappropriate for a Christmas dinner. But i thought i'd bring a little sunshine to a cold, snowy evening. And it goes so well with red wine and grappa.

I may have hated winter before, but i seem to be developing a certain liking to it slowly but surely now that i live in a winter wonderland. In the years past, winter used to mean cold, wet, ugly, grey days and freezing nights and horrible driving conditions. Now, winter is still cold but it means something very different to me. It means beautiful, white, crisp days and magical glistening starry nights and cozy, pleasant train rides. As i look out my window now, i can see the snow under the light of the street lamp falling gently and quietly over the empty street. The ski slopes will be nice and crisp tomorrow morning awaiting their first eager skiers. My husband will be one of them. I promised to drop him off at the slope early in the morning so he can squeeze in a couple of hours of white pleasure while i go grocery shopping and make my sunshine salad. Then we're off to a fun winter evening with good company, good food and good drink.

Winter is here and for the first time in my life......i'm actually happy about it!

Taxed!

I have been unaware of this till a few days ago, but apparently, i've been paying "church tax" and i didn't even know it!

It came out the other night as my husband and i lay in bed just before falling asleep. That is when our most enlightening conversations happen, by the way. My husband expressed concern that bad weather's coming and snow's coming and he will need to put his bicycle away, inside somewhere as opposed to just propped up beside the house, so it wouldn't get snowed under. I jokingly suggested he puts it in the second hand store that our landlord keeps on the ground level of the chalet. My husband laughed at that and commented on how much "junk" there is in that store and that there would be absolutely no space for his bike in there. I asked, just out of pure curiosity, if he thinks our landlord gets a substantial income from all the stuff he sells or is it just to pass the time. Oh, no, my husband replies, the money he gets from selling the stuff does not go to him. It goes to the Salvation Army.

Our landlord is a priest of the Salvation Army. Some Sundays he holds church service up in his house. We can hear them singing. Every Friday, he opens up the second-hand store and puts all the stuff out on display and the people come and maybe buy something. The wife of our landlord does not work. Well, that's not exactly correct or fair to say. She does not have a job. She works though. She vacuums the house every, and i am not kidding here, every day! I hear her. She's a good, Swiss housewife. But she earns no income.

So here is the question i posed to my husband that night in bed: If the landlady doesn't earn any money, the landlord earns very little from our rent and some events he might host (but hey, village Saanen is not that big, and we already have another priest living across the street. Yes, we live in a 'holy' area indeed!) then how do they get the money to live? The answer was simple. From our "church tax". Church tax? Yeah, church tax. Do I pay this church tax too? Yes. Do I pay it because i'm married to a Swiss or did i pay it before also? No, i pay because i'm Swiss. Aha, i see. Does every Swiss person pay church tax? But of course, what for a question is this? Well, do i have some sort of say here, like could i not pay church tax if i didn't want to? Sure, but why would you want to "go out of the church"? Huh? You know, that's not good really, you might not be able to get buried when you die. HUH? It's just not good, ok. Ok, so i pay church tax so i can get buried. Any other benefits? Well, we didn't pay a cent for our wedding ceremony, did we? No. Ok. Ok.

"Now i lay me down to sleep......."