After a very long journey, including two nights in Edinburgh to catch up with our house swappers, me flying down to London, to have lunch with my parents and “hand over” the children who would be spending a few days at the beach in Kent, one lovely and calm night on the ferry to Amsterdam, and many frustrating hours in traffic jams all along the German motorways, we arrived well in Wil on Thursday night.


(us with Mim, just before we leave, and us on the ferry enjoying the beautiful evening)

Then we had set three days aside for unpacking and reorganising our house, but, luckily we also had some lovely visitors including my parents and my sister and brother and family. So it was not all work!
Also, I went shopping, which I found quite an unfriendly experience. I knew nobody at all, nobody chatted to me and nobody smiled at me! What a difference to Orkney!

Also, we have not emotionally quite arrived here yet, sometimes we can’t find things we’re looking for or they are different from what we had expected (either because it was changed by M&J, which is ok, because we changed some things in their house, too! Or we thought it would be the same as in Orkney...)
Tonight we are invited to our neighbour’s party, which will be a good opportunity to meet all the neighbours again. But everyone we see here says “Isn’t it lovely that you’re back?!!” - and the honest answer would be “No, not really, we would have loved to stay in Orkney for a while longer!” But, of course we smile and nod!
BUT I must admit, there are some things which are nicer here! First, of course, our wonderful family! It’s great to sit there and receive mudcakes from my nephew and chatter to my sister-in-law or my sister, while her son drives our cars all over the terrace. And we are also looking forward to seeing our friends again. But, there are also some material things we’re looking forward to:
Gipfeli (which are Swiss Croissants) and about a hundred times better than any other in the world!
Our automatic hoover, who will work, while I have a cup of tea
Our other hoover, which gets all the dirt when hovering the first time!
Mohrenköpfe, which are sweet delicious chocolate cakes
Delicious Swiss Pasta, which we missed dearly in Orkney
Our Pizza Takeaway - and the Chinese one, too! We do not use them often, but it’s great to know we could - and on very stressful days we do - and it’s great!
A long hot soak in our big bath!
The skylight in our bedroom! Lying there, watching the house martins is amazing!
Our figs! Yesterday we ate the first (of hopefully many) figs growing on our tree and it was absolutely delicious!

But, the list of things we will miss is equally as long:
Everyone having time for a blether, whether I’m zooming past on my bike or popping into the village store for a pint of milk
The smell of the sea
Seeing the sea
walking along the sea
making hot chocolate by the sea
collecting shells by the beach
(plus fifty other things connected to the sea, which I will now not mention no more)
buffalo burgers
Bremner’s chickpea burgers
walking through the field of buffalos for a cup of coffee and a chat
watching the Bremners in their every day life through our windows
baked tatties wherever we go
really good chips
flap jacks
going into a pub and ordering a cup of tea, well, actually, going anywhere (including a friend’s) and getting a good cup of tea...
BBC iplayer


But, I am sure we will get more adjusted to Swiss life again - and find many more things we had forgotten about and which we really love! So there will certainly be one or two more blogs letting you know how we’re adjusting...

First of all thank you all for reading our blog! We sometimes hear about people reading it but we have no idea how many people have been reading it... So if you’d give us a short feedback we would really appreciate that! Either at blog - at - gabathuler.org, or with the contact sheet on your left.

As you can see in the title, this will probably be our last blog from here, but we will give you an update once we are back in Switzerland... We are in the middle of packing, cleaning and saying our goodbyes, eating cakes, tatties and crisps while drinking tea, wine, Prosecco and Shloer...

Despite not having found a roof rack Matt has already managed to get everything we’ve had packed into the peedier car, which belongs to our house swappers. We will swap it against our larger car in Edinburgh. The children and me will fly to Edinburgh with three large suitcases - and if need be we can take a fourth on a stand by basis.
Every time I walk through the house (well prepared with a bag) I find more things we need to take home - so it will probably be chockablock by Monday morning!

Apart from having cakes and meals with friends the Commonwealth Baton was another highlight this week!
We were impressed with the organisation and all the police vehicles - especially as Nanouk and Maleah were allowed to sit on the police motor bike. Also, one of the baton bearers came over to us to let us touch it which was quite exciting!


The other really exciting thing that happened this week: The first buffalo calf was born! It’s just outside our window and we are happy that we were here to see it! Of course, we’d love to stay even longer, and see many more being born - and celebrate Russell (the buffalo farmer)’s birthday next week. But, unfortunately we will just miss it. Just as we will miss the East Mainland (and many other) Shows! And we will certainly miss all our new friends here!


The other exciting farming news (for us) has been the farmers mowing the fields and making silage! They all work together and the fields are mown and cleared in no time. Someone in Orkney made this video
(It is well worth watching till the end, as the helicopter is attacked by a gull!)

Ok, I think that’s all! More cleaning awaits me and the children are slightly cranky after so many special late nights. So let us know if you’ve enjoyed this blog (or not) and we will keep you posted about our further Orkney plans!

Last Saturday we finally made it to Copinsay. It's was a bit like man's quest to the moon. You see it every day and you are desperate to go there, but it's not that easy. Fortunately it is much easier to get to Copinsay than to get to the moon. We were taken with the boat of a local man and he took us all around the Horse of Copinsay, Copinsay itself and the smaller islands around it. I especially loved the view of the Horse from the East. It's absolutely stunning and rough. He dropped us off at Corn Holm. Just before we were dropped off, we saw some Puffins fly by. We really hoped we'd see a few of them here. And there was one of them swimming right next to the boat. But when I tried to take a photo it just took off. What happened then seemed to be straight out of some surreal movie. For once we didn't look out of the boat on the right towards the shore but on the left and suddenly we saw dozens of Puffins swimming right next to the boat. An amazing experience. On the islands we also saw a lot of young birds and almost stepped on some on our way to Copinsay. One Fulmar started a sick attack on us, but luckily we were not close enough. We then walked over the Isle Rough to Copinsay just in time before the tide started going over. The weather was great and at times we wished for a bit of shade. We pick-nicked at the lighthouse (which of course included hot chocolate from the Kelly kettle). And then slowly made our way back along the cliffs. All in all one of the most memorable days here in Orkney. Photos of our trip left under 'Our Orkney Photos'.

Another memorable moment was the wedding the day before that we were so generously invited to by a friend. We especially loved the dancing and even took part in one of them even though it took me some time to figure out how to move around.

Monday was out farewell party with loads of friends and acquaintances. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, while it rained heavily in the rest of Orkney. We had delicious buffalo burgers and loads of cakes and breads of which we will be eating until we leave. The rest of the week is quite busy with packing and also visiting loads of people whom we have not visited before.

Also I have injured myself slightly. Yesterday there was a long jump competition at the Athletics and since I had not used my spikes I thought this would be the opportunity to get some Orkney sand on them. My Achilles tendon started acting up even before the first jump. I still managed a fair jump and then a huge one which went over 5.60m but was just slightly over the board. I called it a day after that and maybe I should bury my spikes now so I won't get tempted to do it again. Still I was quite amazed at how well it went (aside from injuring myself ...) without any training to speak of. It really seems like doing the long jump is like riding a bicycle, you never forget how to do it.

We’ve been invited to a wedding, which is tomorrow and we’re very excited, but also a bit nervous about that! It will be at the Deerness Hall, but the Dance only starts at 9pm, so that’s way past our bedtime, but it will be great to see a wedding! Also, Maleah and me went on my favourite bike tour (long way round to the shops) and after our shopping - this week’s paper (with a mention of our children in the Chess report!) we had a hot chocolate, watching the cars go by and the starling feeding it’s babies, who are hidden in an old petrol pump!

We’re slowly saying goodbye to people, which is very sad! There was a huge beautiful concert for Thelma Holt, the marvellous head teacher, and we got a very long and nice mention! A little embarrassing, but also very touching. I don’t know how Thelma managed not to cry - I was very close various times.
But it was also impressive to see how musical St. Andrews is! The orchestra was amazing, playing a part of Beethoven’s 9th symphony and several teenage boys standing up and singing amazing solos!

Also, we’re planning a farewell party at the Deerness Hall. It will be great to see all our friends again, and then we will have to start packing seriously! Matt is very nervous about getting everything in the small car we are using. Once we are in Edinburgh, we will exchange it with our house swappers for our larger car. But getting all our things there might be tricky... I’m going by plane with the kids and hoping to take an extra suitcase so hoping we will manage!

Unfortunately Matt’s not on holidays yet, as there’s just too much work to be done for his work and he’s too good a guy to just let his colleagues out in the rain... But he still takes some time out to fly kites with us, which we all love!





We cannot believe that we forgot to bring our kites out earlier! Nanouk’s getting very good at flying it and Maleah is just learning to guide hers. Unfortunately we lost Mim and Jeremy’s kite! I was ripped out of Nanouk’s hands at the beach and blew out onto the ocean. Nanouk tried to catch it but we called him back, so we had to watch it fly towards Scotland Mainland and are still waiting for a newspaper report about a UFO sighting...
Luckily it’s Maleah’s birthday soon, so the postman is being awaited eagerly!

Something else that fascinates us is the speed at the mowing of the fields. Matt’s hay fever really caught up with him, which we understood, as all the fields were full of grass, but now, all the farmers are working together mowing it all at an amazing speed! Fascinating to watch! And the hay fever is getting less with every tractor we see taking the silage away!

This might be our last (or second to last) update from Orkney, depending on the stress we feel next week! We’re loving all your comments about our Happy in Orkney Films! And whenever we watch them, it makes us happy - which we can really use, when we get sad about leaving or stressed about packing!

So many things we do now might be the last time we do them: cycling the scenic route to the shop, talking to the nice man, who is always in a rush to get home as he’s left the washing out (but always has time to chat), watching the curlew following me, ...
But, even if it is the last time, the happy feeling of Orkney will follow us for a long time - and we’re hoping to come back soon - maybe even another (shorter) house swap?

But, among all these lasts - there is also a first: When you go on youtube and look at all the happy videos from places all over the world, now Orkney is among them, too!
Just put ORKNEY and HAPPY in (or click on the links here and here) to watch our happy films of Orkney. You’ll probably figure out quite easily which one is mine and which one is Matt’s!

Nanouk was part of an amazing concert at the St. Magnus Festival! I’m sure you all know who Sir Peter Maxwell Davies is and Nanouk was part of the concert celebrating his 80th birthday! We had front row seats and enjoyed the evening enormously!
Even the Telegraph wrote about it today. Read the article here. Luckily, althought the Telegraph just cut off Nanouk from the picture, we’ve got some (many...) with both of them:

(Can you find Nanouk?)

Maleah also had a very emotional last riding lesson on „her pony” Rosie Gold and was allowed to brush her afterwards, which she did for nearly an hour, enjoying a bitter sweet farewell...


Apart from that nothing really interesting has happened. Luckily we had planned our last month with loads of “free time”, which we are now cherishing, meeting up with friends, playing outdoors and enjoying life!
We’re also trying to plan a little farewell party, which has not been easy, as we’ve had to postpone it twice due to the Swiss Football Team being so good :o) but we’re hoping to see a lot of people and get a chance to blether a bit, before we leave...
But, of course, we’re also planning a return trip - maybe even a (much shorter?) house swap again? Just to meet up with our new friends and get back into the “Orkney Feeling”, which we are afraid of losing when we get back to busy hectic Switzerland...
Maleah has given her address to all the children of her class - and many other pupils, too, and she is hoping for a lot of mail! Nanouk only wanted to put our skype name onto his cards, as he doesn’t really enjoy writing :o)

And as the sun has just come through the clouds, the sea is sparkling in the distance and the oystercatchers are calling (even that sound has become dear to me...) I think I’ll take the paper and a cup of tea outside and enjoy one of the many hidden (from wind and sight) secret places in the garden and enjoy some afternoon peacefulness!