Guest Blogs
Knowitall.ch often invites local experts in their field to contribute to their own blogs on our site. This means not only you will benefit from the useful recommendations that we make on our News pages, but you can also profit from some of the great advice and tips that these experts have to make on their favorite subjects. Whilst each of these bloggers has been recommended to us at some point during the evolution of Know-it-all passport and knowitall.ch, obviously we are not able to test out all the suggestions they make on their blogs, nor do we necessarily agree with all their opinions. So if you do find one of their tips useful (or not!), do let us know!
To make these blogs more accessible to you, we have now decided to group them altogether in one section, entitled Guest Blogs, accessible from our main menu bar. We will also post the most recent blogs on the home page of our site in the right hand column.
We are still building up this area of the site, and are looking for bloggers in a number of sections, including Your Home, Travel, and Leisure, so if you feel you have a useful contribution to make in either of these areas, and have the time to submit blog entries approximately every month, then please get in touch!
By Tara Lissner, Swiss Gardening School
I guess it is fair to say that the April drought is behind us – so much rain! Not that we didn’t want or need it of course just not all in the same week. To keep us on our toes the ice saints “saint glace” have also been busy working their magic with really chilly overnight temperatures frosting the new growth on everything from grape and fruit tree crops to eager gardeners with their tomatoes and basil already planted. Local advice from everyone, including the nice lady in the queue at Landi this week, dictates that nothing tender should be planted outside unprotected until after the days of the ice saints. These ice saints, Saint Mamertus, Saint Pancras and Saint Servatius, celebrate their feast days on 11, 12 and 13 May each year. This past week I saw early morning commuter cars covered in snow heading towards the autoroute – I remind you we are in May – keep an eye on the forecast and cover up your seedlings and tender summer bedding with horticultural fleece on nights when the forecast is for colder temperatures. The fleece should be removed in the day to harden off the seedlings and tender plants so they become accustomed to the temperatures.
With the arrival of May the plant market season is quickly upon us. From the small village “marché des plantes” to the bells and whistles of the wonderful “Jardins en Fête” this weekend in Coppet now is the time to get out and about and see what is on offer this year. Keep your eyes peeled for small posters advertising local plant markets, often short on notice they enliven village squares on a Saturday morning at the beginning of the season, Versoix, Trélex and Mies all are regular locations. The town greenhouses of Divonne will be open to the public on Saturday morning 20 May 09:00-12:00. Get a behind the scenes tour of the work that goes into making Divonne such a beautifully floral town. Click Divonne for more information.
I’ve been busy in my vegetable garden dodging the torrential rain. The beans and beanpoles are in, the potatoes are almost ready to be earthed up, the strawberries are flowering and will soon need their fruit lifted from the soil with straw, the raspberries are mulched and I’m waiting to buy my tomato plants at Coppet this weekend. I fear with all of this rain the slugs will be back in force very soon. The most effective way to deal with slugs is to use a nematode drench; a powder-like substance containing tiny nematodes which is mixed with water and applied to the soil, once in the slug the nematode releases a bacteria into the hosts which kills them. An effective product on the swiss market is made by Andermatt Biocontrol and is called bioslug. If you can’t wait to order by all means use whatever system works for you.
On to more pleasant subjects. I’ve been very happy to see my wildflower meadow is coming gently back to life, not least because our puppy decided to dig a trench through the middle of it. As it is on a slope I hadn’t noticed the damage until it was too late – a repair job of refilling the trench has now been completed and the area concerned reseeded, needless to say puppy is being more closely supervised in the garden.
Things are really taking off in the perennial borders. Peonies with their tight buds eager for the sun to reappear to help them open, the delphiniums are reaching for the sky ready to impress. While you still can still get into your borders give some support to your perennials, with days of rain and wind the new stems can be damaged and may well snap. Wire stands and supports are ideal, bamboo and string also works very well. It is best to do this staking before the plants get too big especially if you are using a cage, I’ve recently wrapped a delphinium in newspaper, secured with tape and carefully placed a tall wire cage over it, pushing the cage into the soil and then very gently removing the newspaper. The delphinium survived.
The good news about lots of rain is that the weeds come easily out of the ground. The bad news about lots of rain is that there are now lots of weeds! I’ll be busy this weekend pulling weeds and buying plants at Coppet. Enjoy the weekend and perhaps I’ll see you there.
What's On
Les Jardins du Château de Vullierens - until 18 June
The wonderful iris garden above Morges is now open for the season until 18 June from 09:00-18:00 every day.
Jardin des iris
Jardin de cinq sens, Yvoire
This delightful walled garden has now reopened for the season, always a delight, see their website for full details.
Jardin de cinq sens
Arboretum du vallon de l’Aubonne - until end October
If you have not yet discovered the Arboretum now is the perfect opportunity to do so. Their new website is packed with activities from three family brunches, Sunday guided visits and other special events and activities. Well worth a visit.
Arboretum
Courses
Our new look website is up an running with a number of garden visits and courses before the end of June. Don't forget to sign up and register via the website.
Garden visit – Jardin des Vullierens, Wednesday morning 17 May
Expore the iris garden above Morges with us.
Garden visit
Perfect Pots & Clever Containers - R. Jaggi, Tuesday morning 23 May
Learn how to get the best from your pots this summer and go home with one.
Perfect pots & clever containers
Author's bio
An enthusiastic, self-taught gardener, Tara Lissner is passionate about gardening and eager to share her zeal and knowledge with other gardening fans.
In 2012, she joined forces with Hester Macdonald, a British-trained landscape designer, to launch the Swiss Gardening School.
(Photo by Jean-Luc Pasquier)
Swiss Gardening School
www.swissgardeningschool.com
People often joke about Swiss punctuality and visitors may be somewhat surprised when apologies for a 2-minute delay are voiced over a train’s PA system. However, for me, this should be the norm, whatever the mode of transport.
Our leisure time is precious. In Switzerland, the minimum annual leave entitlement for a full-time employment position is 4 weeks (or 20 days). In addition, there are between 7 and 15 paid public holidays which vary from canton to canton. Under EU legislation, all member states must grant all employees a minimum of 4 weeks paid vacation. The UK has a statutory minimum of 5.6 weeks (or 28 days), which may include the 8 public holiday days. The US has no statutory minimum paid vacation, although according to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics, full-time employees become entitled to, on average, 10 days holiday after 1 year of service.
Using part of your annual leave in order to travel to another country takes some planning. Flights are often booked months in advance and timings selected to maximise use of your time and minimise cost. So when your flight is delayed by a few hours or, worse still, cancelled, inconvenience is the politest way to describe the impact felt.
Holiday insurance can often help to compensate, but there is another route for compensation which shouldn’t be overlooked. All airline passengers, irrespective of nationality or residence, may be entitled to compensation in the event of a flight cancellation or delay of more the 3 hours, when flying within the EU or departing from the EU on an EU or non-EU airline, or arriving in the EU on an EU airline.
By Sunita Sehmi, Walk The Talk
John Tomlinson is the founder of Trainer Tools and the main contributor. He has worked in training and change management throughout his career. In 2014 he joined the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) as a Learning and Development Specialist. He is now Head of Learning and Development (Europe/Central Asia) at the FCO and is the global lead on Change Management.
Frustrated at the lack of industry recognition for Learning and Development professionals, and a keen listener of podcasts, John decided to launch Trainer Tools as a collaborative podcast project for trainers to share their tools and tips in the hope of benefiting the entire profession.
What is really unique about his podcasts is the level of caring and sharing amongst the L&D professionals and John has a knack of handpicking talented and kind professionals who are willing to support and give to others. I was lucky enough to interview him, hope you enjoy the interview!
Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you, where are you from, etc.…?
I'm a Change Manager and L&D professional who loves podcasts ... I travel a lot, so listen to a lot of audio and read a lot of books. I'm originally from Leeds, and have lived in a few different places, but currently settled in Madrid in Spain.
By Claire Doole, Claire Doole Communications
My colleague, Jean Milligan, and myself, have just come back from Bangladesh where we were handling the local media for an event organised by one of Geneva’s international organisations.
For the organisation’s President, who is himself from Bangladesh, it was an opportunity to show that his country was open for business, able to successfully organise an international conference attended by more than 1200 people from 126 countries.
As this was the first international conference in Bangladesh for decades, there was a massive local press corps following the proceedings in great detail. Several national TV channels even broadcast the press conferences live.
I realised during my stint there that it is not easy to parachute into a complex local media environment, and manage the challenges and opportunities that arise. Looking back on my experience in Bangladesh and in numerous other places, I have come up with some tips on managing local media in an unfamiliar context.
The first thing to keep in mind is that many local media work to the highest professional standards. You may find that doing an interview with them requires much more knowledge than with the international media. However, do be aware of the constraints that some of them work under.
By Hiba Giacoletto, Wiser Humans
It has been six months since the end of my 11-year marriage and I wanted to share my personal experience of getting through the past six months in the hope this might help others, too.
I have room for it all
I learned that I could feel deep sadness about the end of this chapter, this identity, this relationship - AND ALSO excitement, gratitude, anxiety, doubt and regret all at once. In the past I would have denied some of these emotions as not being ‘real’ because I thought they couldn’t co-exist. And yet they can, and even more: They always do when we are honest with ourselves.
I learned that I had room for all of these emotions, that I didn’t need to reduce my emotional experience to ‘just’ grieving. That it was OK to feel whatever I was feeling - that I could hold all these experiences at once.
Grief ain’t linear
One of the most important experiences I had was realizing just how un-linear emotions are. One minute I would be feeling OK, and then BAM - a painful pang of remembering would show up. Or just when I thought I was reaching the end of it, a new realization that of this is really over would bring on a whole new stage of grieving. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
It all felt more like waves than a linear progression of feeling better. Again, being OK with this, even expecting it, made all the difference.
Peaceful turmoil
I have not cried or grieved as much in my life as I have in the past months. And yet, there has also been a sense of peacefulness because I was not fighting my emotions. I was neither trying to repress them nor allowing them to explode all over the place. As much as possible, I was simply allowing them to be, to hang out.
I noticed that inner peace is not about not having emotions or difficulties in life and being permanently zen. That isn’t realistic. It isn't real life. Instead, it is about bringing an OK-ness with whatever we are experiencing in all its messiness.
