what we've got

Up at five, we leave the house for Lake Geneva for the sunrise concert. We’re all tired and share a sense of unreality that being awake so early brings. To keep us going, we pack flasks of coffee and ‘l’escargot’, those delicious snail-shaped breakfast pastries.

When we arrive, there are already dozens of people there. The concert is free, but it’s still a surprise to see so many people. The conductor taps his baton on the music stand. The audience settles down. We wait…

This has to be one of the most serene moments I’ve spent amongst a (albeit smallish) crowd of people. The bains des paquis, on Lake Geneva’s rive droite, is usually quite lovely but this morning it was more tranquil than ever. We had promised that one day we’d see the sun come up over the lake. Now here we were.

At first the lights of Geneva and the moon were still visible on the left bank.

The dark before the light: the moon is top right

But soon the sun began to rise and swimmers took to the lake.

Swimmers in Lake Geneva, early morning (sunrise)

After an hour or so, the sun had risen completely and set that dazzling column of light in the still water.

Sunrise over Lake Geneva

The concerts take place most weekends during the summer; there’s no doubt we will be back next year. Like Le Tour de France, and the various beer and cheese fêtes, these concerts will remind us of the long sunny days we’ve spent here.

It’s been a year since Jennie and I left England to move to Geneva Switzerland, and later to nearby France where we live now. I won’t go into the sentimental details of the ‘anniversary’ – suffice to say that there was a little reminiscing over a glass of champers last night, thinking about the year that has passed – so instead here’s a list of how French life is great and the things I miss about the UK. In no particular order…

Why I love France

Weather. It’s hotter here in the summer than the UK, there are more days filled with sunshine, and it’s relatively consistent and predictable too. Summer last year was like the feted one in 1976 in the UK, the one we think all summers should be like. Since meteo.fr is particular to my specific area, the forecast seems always to get it right. There are some indifferent days, of course, but generally it is less damp than England, less gloomy. The barbie gets more use. Conversely, when it snows, it is colder than the UK, colder but a dry cold. What this means is there is a greater range of…

Outdoor activity. In the summer you can plan days out because it’s likely you’ll get decent weather. Since we live in the countryside, more or less, we have some excellent hiking, golf, cycling, climbing, swimming… the list goes on. We have a tennis court and football ground at the end of the road. The key thing is, as the winter comes the sports only get better: when it’s snowing, we go snowboarding or snowshoeing. It’s this kind of year-round activity that is one of my most favourite things about this place.

The mountains and the water. We live in the Rhône-Alpes region, so as you might expect there are lots of mountains and there is lots of water. We live around an hour or so from some of the best Alpine locations anywhere and I can see the Salève and Jura mountain ranges from my window. We have Lakes Geneva and Annecy, which we plan to boat on soon. What’s more, we have Geneva on our doorstep, so we get to do all the city things, too – and there are the all-important opportunities for work.

Food and wine. I’ve done some independent studies* on this and, in short, food is better in my part of France than in the UK. Much better. Even local stores have local produce, lovingly laid out and presented. (There is one exception, as you’ll see.) Even the small fact that France loves whisky, as do I, seems as if it is just the right place. The aisles dedicated to cured meat and cheese found in the hypermarché should be enough to convince you of its culinary superiority; if it doesn’t, try some of the local wines from Satigny, or the Rhône, or…

Secular, liberal, republic. So far, I’ve counted the physical things, like weather and mountains. But there are political or philosophical things, too. One of the latter is the fact that France is a modern, democratic secular, liberal, republic. This generally coincides with my approach, my politics. It doesn’t mean that France is without its issues. But nor does it mean that these high ideals are completely detached from public life either. You’ll find them in bars and restaurants and in the fabric of life out here. I even found a copy of Camus’ ‘L’etranger’ at the local supermarket.

People work to live, not live to work. Shops are closed on Sunday here (some large supermarkets are open in the morning) and often closed on Monday, too. Many more close for a long lunch, between 12.00 and 14.00. It’s annoying sometimes and takes getting used to, but it illustrates how the French try to put living before working. It’s not perfect, and we’ve been affected by strikes and so on, but it’s something I can believe in (and not just because I’m lazy, either).

Before you get on the plane (or not, as the case might be) to leave it all behind, there are some downsides, at least as far as I’m concerned…

What I miss about England

Family and friends. You have to leave your family and friends behind. That is, unless you can take them with you. I’m working on the latter. You get more popular when you live in a nice place and I try to convert every member of my family who comes through the door to move out here. France isn’t a million miles away, either, and it’s only a short plane flight to go to the UK. We all do a lot of social networking stuff, too.

Newspapers. The quality of newspapers here is very high. Le Monde, Le Figaro and even the free or cheap newspapers like 20 Minutes focus on more on news, not just gossip. But since I’m still learning French, I can’t read them effortlessly, which is how I like to read a newspaper, especially at weekends. The French Paper is quite good but it doesn’t have the frequency or sheer heft of a good old weekend broadsheet, stuffed with magazines and reviews.

Marks and Spencer. There’s plenty of good shopping out here, but there’s nothing like a Marks and Sparks. It’s the corduroy, you see – the cardigan. There is one in Geneva but it sells only clothes for women and food. However, I can order online, and it’s fairly cheap at around £5 to ship to France, so all is not lost.

Curry. Despite an ongoing fervent search, I still haven’t found a convincing curry house. The curry in Geneva, even in what appear ‘authentic’ places, is adapted (read ‘made innocuously bland’) to a Swiss and French taste in the places I’ve been. It’s just as well my wife Jennie is a great cook. On a related note, you can get Marmite and baked beans (other staples) but they are often horribly expensive.

Language. It’s hard sometimes to know that everyone around you doesn’t understand what you might want to say, that you are divided by a language, even if you might share common interests and beliefs. The answer is to learn French. If you’re like me, you might find this tough. But when you get a moment of breakthrough – perhaps you listen to the radio, and understand what is being said, at least in part – it is completely rewarding and worthwhile.

I can’t say I miss UK culture – music, tv, movies – because we get them all here. Without them it would be difficult, I think. And I can’t say we’re completely immersed in French culture, either. Some of it, especially some of the pop music and comedy shows, I’m happy to leave aside for now.

If you think these lists amount to my succumbing to the temptation (common in other ex-pats, I’ve found) to criticize their home country when they leave it, then think again: I love the UK and always will. A move away from home can mean that you love it just the same, not less. I’ll be supporting England in the football World Cup. It’s just that I now have another couple of teams to shout for, too – France and Switzerland. Addition doesn’t mean dilution.

But the biggest thing I’ll take, though, is not necessarily to be found in either the UK or France and is this: we feel good because we took ourselves from our relative comfort zones and tried something new and challenging; that we developed a new confidence and broader outlook that comes with the huge upheaval of moving to a country with a different language and culture; that we’ve not just sat and thought it would be nice to move, but actually gone and done it.

It’s not that people don’t do this kind of thing every day, or that it’s particularly unusual or daring or brave. We’re none of those things. It’s just that it is unusual for us, a challenge, something that has allowed us to be different from ourselves and one we’re lucky to say has worked out wonderfully. And who could not love an area like Haute-savoie when it has the motto: ‘In tartiflette we trust!‘ This is a place I’m happy to call ‘home’.

*I mean I’ve eaten in both France and England quite a lot.

On Friday morning before the day started I had a coffee with Jennie, in the roof garden to the World Health Organisation’s building in Geneva where she works. It was a lovely sunny day and unusually clear, so there are some good views around Geneva and the surrounding mountains.

I planned on taking some photos, but ended up doing some impromptu video instead. The quality isn’t great – it’s taken with an Ixus 80 pocket camera – but I think it does the job. Next time I’ll take the Canon XM2 up there and the tripod – but there’s no replacement for my terrible narration and faltering voice. That we’ll just have to put up with.

One of the (happily few) disappointments of living in France is the difficulty and expense of buying an English newspaper. In time, I hope to read Le Monde and perhaps even Le Figaro. But until then, I’m happy to be reliant on ‘journaux anglais’ – a phrase I know well because I’ve said it in many tabacs in both France and Switzerland to little avail.

We live a little out of town, so the local tabac doesn’t sell an English language newspaper. We could go into Geneva, where several shops sell them – but not as many as you’d think, since the Swiss enjoy a Sunday free from shopping, and even smaller shops close. And it’s the weekend newspapers I miss most. I’ve used the web for news, and WRS (World Radio Switzerland) is in English, and both have served me well. Accepting that I wouldn’t have something to read in the garden away from a computer, I thought I’d try the digital editions offered by The Times and The Guardian.

Both use a more or less identical engine for the main functionality of the paper, provided by NewspaperDirect.inc. You can turn pages, zoom, copy articles, email them, all the things you would expect in a front end that does its best to approximate the real thing. What’s striking is the difference that the format makes. Sure, you could get more or less the same content via an RSS feed or through the newspaper website. But seeing the news in high-res spread across a large-ish screen is very satisfying and it’s one of the reasons I’ll subscribe.

The Times e-edition front page

The right-hand navigation panel gives useful previews of pages and means you can navigate the paper quickly. If it all looks a bit busy, you can minimise the clutter and just look at the pages. I found moving within the page a bit difficult and the mouse movements counter-intuitive. It just takes getting used to and others might find it suits them. You can open an article and read it in a non-newspaper box, which looks more like the website and undermines the illusion a bit. There’s lots of other things you can do with an electronic newspaper, too – like search, or just look at the pictures.

Where The Guardian group’s Digital Edition adds further value (The Times call it their e-paper) is the ability to share content through a variety of social networking tools. Articles can be saved to Delicious, shared on Facebook or blogged and so on. The latter function has it for me: it makes sharing the content much easier, something that I hope will prompt a some sharing on this humble blog. It is illustrative, I think, of The Guardian Group’s growing embrace of the web, although the sticky subject of how old media will survive or not is still unresolved.

The Guardian Digital Edition frontpage with share icons

Both are relative cheap services, too. You can pay a whopping 7.50CHF (Swiss Francs) for a bonafide paper copy, which is about £4 for a Sunday paper that’s sometimes incomplete, with often the best supplements are missing (meaning it lacks the heft of a Sunday paper and therefore one of its most attractive qualities). It will cost only £4.99 a month for The Observer; £3.99 for a month’s worth of The Sunday Times. I guess the extra pound pays for all that social networking goodness. Both have mobile-friendly editions, so you can use your mobile device for the odd read although like many things the screen might be too small for prolonged reading. You can also download if you plan to be offline.

Despite this, I’d really like to see some of the excellent multi-media material we find on both news websites (and especially The Guardian’s) integrated into the editions. Although you can listen to the Guardian’s stories (a function I’ve been unable to get to work), in an ideal world both could follow the example of ‘electric!’, a rich media publication from Virgin Media, which uses the Ceros engine. Superb interaction, although quite unlike a conventional newspaper reading experience and appealing to different markets, a hybird which incorporates existing audio/video from the sites seems possible (from this distance). The image below offers video playback embedded in the publication, and there’s audio too. Try ‘electric!’, you might like it, if not the name.

electric! is a rich media publication from Virgin Media, powered by Ceros

So, I’ll have to compromise: I won’t be able to shape a paper copy to my whim, read it in the garden or at the cafe. Lamenting this, in the never ending pursuit for that elusive hardcopy,  I ventured out to the Swiss / French border near Perly following a rumour that they sold English newspapers. Success of sorts: I did find a single copy of the Sunday Mail. It may still be there for all I know: there are standards.

Men and women, I should say

How did people emigrate before the web? With difficulty, surely. It’s been useful for almost every step and some of our move would have been impossible I feel without it, at least in the time we had. Of course, underpinning all the technology were two people filling boxes, completing forms, driving miles and pulling the levers and pressing the buttons. But the web has been outstandingly useful for several particular reasons. Here’s a quick fire list in no particular order – I’m certain I’ve left some things out – but like Kane’s gang (as if you’ve forgotten!) it’s what we’ve got:

Interviewed for job online. Without Jennie getting a job for the UN none of this would have happened. In her application she sent all documents online; underwent a test that was performed over the net; was interviewed via web-based video conferencing; and finally sent the medical / admin documents in PDF form to Kuala Lumpar for processing.

Google Docs for a to-do/resources list. This was invaluable and still is. It’s not as complex as something like specific to-do collaborative tools like RemembertheMilk, but it worked beautifully. Simple crossing things out with strikethrough was enough to say they’ve been done. We also collected resources, figures, phone numbers and so on here and worked on independently and together.

Synchronising weblinks using FoxMarks. We independently found various links as we browsed the web, hungry for a fix on our new country. I set up all computers with the favourites tool Foxmarks, regardless of operating system, to synchronise the links we dropped into a ‘Moving on’ folder in our browser. Worked well when Google Docs (eventually) became swamped. Sometimes we used Delicious, but not as often as I thought we would.

Sign-up service for moving. There are a handful of agencies online who make it easier to move by you entering some details and they doing some work for you, like letting the gas company know you need a meter reading and so on. We used these with partial success – sometimes the manual way is best.

Royal Mail’s redirection service. We have mail redirected and using this service meant we didn’t need to trundle down to the post office and take our identity documents, they check details online. We’d need the legs for the thousands of times we climbed the ladder to the loft to pack its contents.

Skype telephony. We bought a UK online number, so our friends and family in the UK would only need to call a local (to them) phone number. Skype has worked really well so far and since we’re not settled for a few months, goes where we go. It also works nicely on my iPhone, which saves us a fortune. We were able to stay in touch with our regi (estate agent) easily and without incurring further mobile phone costs.

Keeping the social network alive. Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, this blog – all are things we use to share our experiences here and keep in contact with others. This is important when you’re away from home, and I’ve found it really useful to have some sense of continuity in terms of who I’m speaking with (especially when discussing the cricket, which is only available online here via the BBC’s wonderful TMS – this feels like I’ve never left!).

Transferring money. We now have to work with several currencies – US dollar, Swiss francs, Euro and GB sterling – and so being able to transfer them quickly online (and often without charge) helped us enormously. Of course, this isn’t just something you need when you move. What’s more, currency conversion rates online are always up-to-date.

Checking in online when flying. You’ve used this already, maybe, but printing out a boarding pass for flying seems novel still, and helped get things going when we were a rush: Jennie flew to Geneva and back the same day to secure our place in France.

Google chat. Sometimes email isn’t enough, and you need to make decisions through synchronous discussion. Google’s online chat, via GoogleMail, was vital for the hundreds of discussions we had when not together.

Removal quotes online. You enter your details and you get quotes from multiple removal companies. This helps get the best price of course, and is also a necessary part of claiming for expenses.

Google Maps and Google Earth. Knowing where you’re going to live and its local amenities used to something you needed to find out when you turn up. And although it’s still a thrill to find new restaurants and bars, knowing where the bank or petrol station is not so much fun. What’s more, we used Google Maps to find directions. If only it plugged into…

Satellite navigation. We bought a TomTom One XL, and this has the advantage of connecting to the web and downloading changes that users have made to the maps. In short, it corrects the errors that sat navs are annoyingly prone to, especially in areas under construction. Worked like a dream, although I wouldn’t say that it’s perfect even now.

It has helped me learn a new language. There is an embarrassment of excellent online resources for learning French. Some of the best are About.com‘s guide (with the inaptly named – for a grammarian at least – Laura Lawless); and the BBC comes up trumps again. Although not an online app per se, Genius (for the Mac, free download) helped with remembering verbs.

The web helped us find a place to live. We searched a variety of sites to find somewhere temporary in Geneva, and later, more permanent in France. In the case of the temporary accommodation, the website came with an interactive 3D tour of the apartment. Whilst this is pretty advanced I admit, all the websites we used to find a home had pictures. The difference was that we could save time and money using this process.

Hi-resolution floor plans. Houses in many European countries – alas, but excluding the UK it seems – come with detailed architectural plans, even those you just plan to rent. They locate plug sockets, light switches and so on and give precise details of every measurement both interior and exterior. Not sure if your sofa is going to fit? The plans will help tell you. These took seconds to send over email and illustrate how the communication between people in different countries is made so much easier.

Shopping. Inevitably we had to buy several things, oddments which we’d never got before or those things we needed to replace and pack. Ikea figured heavily in equipping our new place. Their website – intuitive, well-organised and with clear illustrations, it’s a good example of how we saved hours browsing online rather than visiting stores. What’s more, it provides real-time stock levels, is an example of how you can use the web to plan your deliveries or visits.

Freecycle. Even if you’re moving up the road you’ll still have a lot of stuff you’ll want to recycle. We used Freecycle online to invite people to collect some of the stuff we didn’t need or couldn’t find room for. They came in the night and collected, as if whisked away by recycling fairies, without us even knowing.

It would be no surprise to learn that one of the first things we did in Geneva was buy a 3G USB dongle to get us online (expensive but very fast).

Do you only use these things when emigrating? No, we use them now for a variety of reasons. It’s only together that they make sense as vital tools for moving country. Did we still print stuff out? Sure we did. Somewhere we’ve got a file with print outs of architectural plans, photos and the like. But this was as much as habit and security than anything: some lay untouched and unread. Is there anything I’ve missed – I expect so – even as I write I think of all the music and podcasts I’ve downloaded, some of which are about Geneva, or local news programmes and such. And booking tickets and… well, all those things we use the web for all of the time.

Now, if the BBC can get iPlayer available outside of the UK I’d pay the licence fee happily…

Yesterday I went out – to avoid the cleaners of the apartment, who are friendly but inevitably want the freedom to clean without me here – and had a walk along the banks of the river Arve, which runs nearby. This simple act turned out to be remarkable for three reasons.

The first is that I smoked my pipe outside with impunity, for the first time. Everyone smokes here it seems, and even when I eyed a young couple who passed me, they were no more non-plussed of me than I of them. I integrated perfectly, quickly unworried that I might be judged. Not remarkable in the scheme of things, but for me a moment I’ll remember. Similarly, I’ve yet to venture outside with my new trilby. The idea, I think, is to do so immediately on arriving in a new place, lest your neighbours think it is an afterthought, an affectation.

Second, on the other side of the street the immense trees were shedding their pollen, creating what appeared to be a snow-storm in the middle of a sunny day. I tried to photograph it, but the slightness of the pollen is all but missing in the photos. It had an unnerving quality, not least because of this fleeting and insubstantial quality, but one of wonder too, to find this unseasonable ‘weather’. It quite set my up for the third event.

As I basked in my new-found pipe-smoking freedom I was surprised to see a man – not unlike me in dress, shape and age – on a manual scooter (that is, without an engine, like a child’s plaything) being pulled along by his spotted dalmatian, attached by a scruffy rope. They moved at some speed and unselfconsciously, bold even. I whipped out my iPhone to take a picture but alas I was too late. You’ll have to trust me. I felt a unity with a woman who spied him too, and we shared a moment laughing before moving on. It was so memorable I felt an uncanny sense that I had seen this before, but I had tricked myself: instead I had misremembered the closing paragraph to Carson McCuller’s unnerving short story ‘Wunderkind’, which ends with the scene of a dog running backwards:

An hour later, Mr. Brook sat looking out of the window of his office. The trees along the quiet Westbridge street were almost bare, and the gray buildings of the college had a calm, sad look. As he idly took in the familiar scene, he noticed the Drakes’ old Airedale waddling along down the street. It was a thing he had watched a hundred times before, so what was it that struck him as strange? Then he realized with a kind of cold surprise that the old dog was running along backward. Mr. Brook watched the Airedale until he was out of sight, then resumed his work on the canons which had been turned in by the class in counterpoint.

Rather than ‘cold surprise’ I was left with the uncanny sense that these three events would somehow reappear again, in a perhaps altogether configuration, and not just in their writing here.

un pantouflard

I’m supplementing my French language learning through a combination of audio and print (ie, through television and newspapers). This occasionally culminates in exposing the locals to my awkward grasp of their beautiful language. I enjoy learning, but it can be quite formal and detached.

But it isn’t always learning how to say: I want to take their book to them tomorrow evening. Today I came across a new word which comically sums up what some accuse me of doing all day in Geneva since I have left my day job and my part-time lecturing.

The term un pantouflard means a ‘slipper wearer’ and metaphorically one who stays at home or leads an uneventful life. An uneventful life it isn’t, but I do work from home and slippers are occasionally involved.

Here’s a definition from About.com:

Definition: (inf adj) – uneventful, quiet

Nous avons passé une journée pantouflarde. – We spent an uneventful day.

un pantouflard – stay-at-home person.

Related: une pantoufle – slipper; pantoufler – (inf) to laze/lounge around at home

I understand that it’s terms like this that mean you’re really getting to grips with the intricacies of commonplace language – although I’m far from that – and a reminder that a new language will bring its idiosyncrasies and new expressions. I’m looking forward to learning more.

As well as learning French and finish my Masters degree in educational technology, I hope to work in Geneva as a freelance consultant working with the web, education, and editing and writing. So I could hardly be called un pantouflard but if some people persist, well, I’m too busy loafing to care.

I’ve been living in Geneva, Switzerland for a few weeks now and I’ve grown to love this city, despite our brief acquaintance. We drove here via the Eurotunnel, arriving after several hours excitedly chatting in the car. The spell was broken when we struggled to find our street, and had further difficulty getting into our apartment on a late Sunday evening when Geneva is sleepy – but we made it in the end and we were pleasantly surprised.

We live just off a busy street in small apartment amongst about about 10 others. Two minutes away, and I am at the river Arve, one of two rivers which cross through the city (the other is the Rhone). There are dozens of restaurants to choose from and part of our ambition has been to find our favourites; our favourite coffee, the favourite Italian, Thai, and so on. My friends tell me it’s one of the rites of passage when living in a new place.

Our apartment is perfect for us. I shall be sad to see it go, and I know that to enjoy living here will be short-lived: we stay here for a few weeks and then we move to France, in the Haute Savoie area, which I’ve written about elsewhere. In the meantime we get a taste of city life. When it all gets too much I take myself to the chair by the window, have a beer and reflect, which is where I am right now as I write. When you move home and country, there’s a lot to think about.

My chair by the window

It’s been an amazingly busy, all-but overwhelming few weeks. Now as I am quietly ensconced in the chair by the window, I think back to what we did on our first few days here. Mostly, we wandered about the city, still in the honeymoon period before the inevitable humdrum tasks began. The weather was fine, and I caught the sun. At first we felt cheated – the wind had kept quiet the giant water jet that is the star of Geneva’s lakeside – but eventually we were rewarded with the spectacle of hundreds of tonnes of water shooting high into the air. It’s pointless (which in this rich country might be the point) but it’s hard not to find it impressive. Like the mountains that surround the capital of French Switzerland, you can see the Jet d’eau from miles around.

Jet d'eau from the Rive droit. The alps are in the background.

When I’d been to Paris I loved the idea of the rive gauche and the rive droit – they seemed so much evocative than their English language equivalents – and so taking a long stroll down the rive gauche here in Geneva was a real highlight. The city is split about the lake, and the rive droit is known mostly for the many international organisations that have offices here. The rive gauche, with the artisan and longtime independent area of Carouge, feels more cultured if less bohemian than its Parisian counterpart on the left-bank. But the strongly multi-cultural area of the Paquis is on the right bank, so there’s less of a clear divide between the two sides in terms of which has dibs on being the arty side. Remarkably, for a lake, Lake Geneva (Lac Leman) has its own beach – albeit a very modest one – and the the parks by the lakeside of the rive gauche are especially lovely, too.

The Parc des eaux-vives, on Lac Leman's rive gauche

Spending time in the chair I’ve  grappled with trying to summarise the flavour of city. I can’t hope to do it of course and would never really want to distill and classify such a various place. But I lean towards a piece of homespun philosophy that tells me this: it’s a city full of contrasts. For example, on the one hand we live near Plain Palais, which has at its centre a large scruffy patch of ground which normally houses funfairs or the like. At the moment it’s more or less empty, haunted only by drinkers on park benches, lonely dog walkers or smokers. It’s got what you might generously call ‘atmosphere’ despite this; and surrounding it are many of the best – and least expensive – bars and restaurants around, befitting of its status as a student centre.

I like it for very different reasons than Carouge, which lies over the block and could hardly be different. Carouge is one of Geneva’s most affluent areas (which is saying something in an already affluent city) and is full of one-off craft shops, narrow and quiet streets, and old-fashioned charm. It has a square of its own, which is lined with wine bars and eateries. It’s altogether more genteel, untouched on the whole by the kinds of things that make the Plain Palais appear less well kept, but no less well loved.

Parc des Bastions

What is striking is that the identity of one area does not merge imperceptibly into the other, as you imagine it might after decades of cross-pollination and entanglement. Rather, a geographical boundary – in this case, a road, the river Arve, a block of houses – sharply divides one area and its concomitant atmosphere from another. You can almost feel it as you cross from one area to another.

And if I were to extend my analogy further, I’d say this may represent the cultural identity of Switzerland on the whole. It is not the melting pot of America, where identities merge under the flag, but here cultures observe and retain their own sense of self within the great many different peoples that pass through this crossroads at the centre of Europe. The four languages of Switzerland – French, German, Italian and Romansh – reflect this restraint to some extent. This doesn’t mean that its people don’t get on – it’s one of the most peaceful places you can imagine, held together by a people-centred democracy. What’s more, I don’t know if my idea holds water – it’s a theory unsubstantiated by further observation as yet – but I think there’s a germ of something in it.

To some extent where we live lies in the midst of all this. The Rue de Carouge, which I can see as I write, is a busy main street with restaurants, bars and stores below the ubiquitous and unremarkable apartment buildings. If I walk north towards the lakeside, I’ll find the quiet haven of Parc des Bastions and the granduer of the Place Neuve, with its national theatre and statues. It’s a great place to immerse myself into the local ways of living. I’m learning French, too, slowly.

I can say nothing more revealing and no less banal than Geneva is a mix of the great and prosaic, the humdrum and the magnificent, of grandeur and grime, of sardine-packed apartments and wide open spaces. And if all these photos here look like postcards rather than realistic documentaries of city life, that’s because right now that is how it feels – like a wonderful escape. The grit and grime can come later. But until I can find nothing more profound to catch this city, then it’s back to the chair by the window…

Leaving Milton Keynes was tough but not just because of our emotional ties and the people we were leaving behind. Packing up and moving a house is hugely disruptive as you’ll know, despite us having the services of a removal firm to take it all away. Unlike many movers, we were spared ushering it all back into a new house several hours later. That time will come, but for now most of our worldly possessions are being kept in a warehouse somewhere for when we’re ready for them.

The first of many: boxes accumulate in the kitchen

When you leave, even the most banal moment, object or place takes on monumental significance – at least for a sentimental old fool like me. Playing tennis in the local club, smoking my pipe in the garden for the last time, turning the key in the door and joking ‘I’m home!’; these things and those we do most days were the source of sadness for me before leaving, since I doubted I would do them again there, or in quite the same way. More than once I thought something silly like: ‘This is the final time I’ll come down these stairs’ or ‘How odd that I won’t be walking this path again, the path I’ve taken unthinkingly so many times!’ It was saying goodbye to the banal, the everyday ritual and place that pricked the eyes and brought me up short: would it ever be the same again?

The excitement of doing these things, and others that were impossible or very difficult, in a new country, a new home, tempered the sadness and it’s true that for every moment of looking back there is one of looking forward. That would characterize the experience of leaving; an ambivalent one, swinging pendulum-like between excitement and concern, expectation and nostalgia, and security and challenge.

And so the more we said goodbye, the more we said hello. Buying a one-way ticket gave me a frisson of excitement; as did closing the car boot door on our possessions, a distillation of what we thought was essential to live and work in a new country. Later, when we had spent a week in Geneva, Jennie would gently rebuke me for bringing only a handful of underpants at the expense of including the Complete Works of Shakespeare and Wisden’s Cricketing Almanack.

We left not because we didn’t like Milton Keynes, or Buckinghamshire, or England come to that. We left because we felt that we had, at least for now, and for us only, exhausted their possibilities. That is – there is nothing wrong with any of those places, save all those things we love and hate about them. I love them all. But that it was simply time to taste a new life, to embrace a new culture, to shake us awake from our too-comfortable life and see what it was like to live elsewhere, fresh and new, with all the challenges, problems, differences, energy and hope as anywhere else; but new to us and we new to it.

The move to Geneva continues quietly in the background, inexorably marching on. This is the plan: we spend six weeks or so in serviced accommodation and use that as a base to explore the region in more detail and find a place to live, hopefully for the remainder of our stay. We are having our possessions shipped via courier, so we’ll only have with us what we can squeeze into our car. That in itself might require a blog post: it feels like one of those “If the house was burning down which book / instrument / gadget would you take?” kinds of questions, which clearly requires some serious thought!

Anyway, we’re not sure where we are going to live right now, either France or Switzerland: both have several implications which we haven’t fully explored yet. But I always thought it a good idea to begin right in the heart of Geneva, the city that will be a focal point for the near future.

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There are two rivers – The Rhone and The Arve – nearby, and Lake Geneva is around 15 minutes away too, so there’s lots of riverside walks and such. This location is close to the old part of town, too – you know the sort of thing, cobbled streets, little bistros, quiet parks lined with trees and so on. Lovely.

Geneva's old town and parks

It’s vital, I think, that we start well even though it might be a bit more expensive. I think first impressions last, and although we’ve visited the city before, it’s not quite like living there. Geneva has a relatively small town feel for a city that known for its international organisations and banking. There’s quite a bit of traffic at peak times, especially over the main bridge Le Pont du Mont-Blanc which links the Rive Gauche to the Rive Droite. Speaking of which, here’s the view across the Le Pont du Mont-Blanc – as you would expect, it’s dominated by one of the the mountain ranges which surround the city.

The view along Le Pont du Mont-Blanc, with the range visible

It feels like we’ve taken a big step: once you’ve got an address you can start believing you’re actually moving on: as well as the practical stuff, like getting mail (re)delivered and beginning to fill in the mountain of forms that require a Swiss address. What’s more, I’ve only one month or so of work left from today. Combined with the spring feeling in air, it feels like there’s a big change coming…

(I’ve yet to really take photos of Geneva in earnest, so I’ve snaffled these from Flickr: a link will take you to the original and the alt text has acknowledgements).