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
Well we’ve been on a roller coaster with the weather over the past few weeks. The Indian summer lasted beautifully through the end of September and with the arrival of October the temperatures dropped and the bise wind rose. The tomatoes hung on to the bitter end but it is all over, the green ones are now in the kitchen in the hope that they may turn red but I predict an afternoon of green chutney making in my future.
This time of year is always bittersweet for the gardener, the glory of the summer garden has come to an end, the perennials have all gone to seed and while the seed-heads look wonderful the colour is slowly disappearing before us. Dahlias continue to perform and until we have consecutive nights of freezing temperatures they will continue to shine. It is a time to think about the future of course because this is the perfect time to add plants to the garden, trees, shrubs, hedges and perennials can all be planted until the freezing temperatures arrive. Have you got plans for trees, adding perennials? Take advantage of dry days to get out and make plans and plant them up, it is never nice to garden in the rain.
I’ve been busy this week, harvesting all the beans, I’ll be drying them out, shelling and storing them for use in soups and stews over the winter. I aways cut the plants to the ground, throwing them onto the compost, and leave the roots alone until the spring, this allows the nitrogen nodules along the fine roots of the beans plants to augment the nitrogen in the soil. I then cover the bed with about a 10 cms layer of mulch and leave that to work its way into the soil over the winter. Home made compost makes for a great mulch but it should be well broken down and at least a year old. If you don’t have any ready to go there are a number of places locally where you can buy it by the “big-bag” or have it delivered. I’ve used BGS Compost SA in Givrins, although closed on Saturdays it opens from 07:00 Monday to Friday.
Mild head injuries are common, especially in children and during contact sports. They can occur when the head is hit by a moving object (e.g. a ball, car or fist) or when the head hits a stationary surface at speed (e.g. the ground, a wall etc.)
The brain ‘floats’ within the bony skull in some liquid called cerebrospinal fluid. This liquid allows a small degree of movement of the brain. If the skull is hit, then the brain may bounce or twist inside the skull. This can lead to a disruption in the electrical activity in some of the brain cells, causing them to malfunction for a short while. It is this malfunction that causes the symptoms of concussion.
The symptoms of concussion can include:
- A brief loss of consciousness at the time of the injury (followed by a rapid, spontaneous recovery)
- A loss of memory of the accident itself or the few moments before the accident happened (amnesia)
- Feeling dizzy
- Nausea
- Mild headache
These symptoms will, by definition, resolve within hours to days in most cases but may sometimes last for weeks in a few. Once all the symptoms have settled down, then a certain diagnosis of concussion can be made. There is no permanent damage to the structure of the brain when someone has concussion.
By Sunita Sehmi, Walk The Talk
Seth Franklin Berkley, CEO of GAVI, is a medical epidemiologist by training and a global advocate on the power of vaccines. Seth has been featured on the cover of Newsweek and recognized by Wired Magazine as among "The Wired 25": a salute to dreamers, inventors, mavericks and leaders. Furthermore, TIME magazine mentions him as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World" in 2009. Seth Berkley joined the GAVI as CEO in August 2011, as it launched its five-year strategy to immunize a quarter of a billion children in the developing world with life-saving vaccines by 2015. Rarely have I seen such a powerful combination of passion, humility and drive..... It was a pleasure to talk to him.
How does Gavi work?
Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance (formerly the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization) is a public-private global health partnership committed to protecting children’s health by increasing access to immunization and strengthening health systems in the world’s poorest countries. As a public-private partnership, GAVI represents all the key stakeholders in global immunization: implementing and donor governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, civil society, the vaccine industry and private companies.
“Our force is warranting that our collaboration is a win-win for all involved.”
By Tara Lissner, Swiss Gardening School
It is true that most of us who garden spend a fair amount of time discussing the weather; too hot; too dry; too windy; too wet; too wet; too wet. Well this summer we’ve certainly had a lot to discuss, with the incredibly wet and cool start in May and June to the tremendous heat of August – never a dull moment. Our gardens are so quickly affected by the changing weather conditions especially when it is holiday time and we are not on hand to adapt our habits day-by-day or week-by-week. In my experience it is always best to err on the side of caution and this is a perfect example of why. Early this summer I left half a dozen newly purchased perennial geraniums amongst a group of larger pots hoping they would be happy (and sheltered) enough during my week-long absence – I came home to crisp leaves and parched soil. I was so sad I immediately moved them to a more shady spot, drenched them with water and have been nursing them back to their original state ever since. Note to self, always pay a teenager to water even for a short trip.
The hydrangeas this summer have been just spectacular and although they need quite a lot of water, if they are in the correct position in the garden they will have given you quite the show. There has been a renaissance of the hydrangea in recent years with more and more varieties becoming easily available, this year I found a very pretty new (to me) variety called Hydrangea arborescens “Incredible Pink”. As the name suggests it is pink but not the bright showy pink of my childhood. Each petal is delicately edged in pink giving an overall dusty pink colour (see photo above) – just gorgeous, now all I have to do is find a reasonably shady spot for it in my garden, no easy feat.
Exercise has always been promoted as an essential component for both our physical and mental wellbeing. However, exercise is a broad term and what works for one person may not work to the same degree for another.
Recently, I have taken up swimming again; not in a pool but in the lake. My target each day is to swim to a carefully selected ‘orange buoy’, and, of course, back again. This takes between 30 and 40 minutes depending on the conditions of the lake and the force of the current. As Lake Geneva lies on the River Rhône, the source of which is the Rhône Glacier in Valais, there is a current that varies in strength on a daily basis.
I have discovered a huge difference between lake swimming and pool swimming, and it’s not simply the absence of chlorine. The fact that I have no opportunity to rest at the end of each length has caused me to experience something quite exhilarating. I have a very active mind, and find it hard to ‘switch off’ and relax. Many of us experience periods of stress which prove a challenge to manage. Going to the gym helps me. However, at times I find myself lost in my thoughts between exercises, and although I indeed benefit physically, my mental state is still somewhat neglected.
When I swim in the lake, I am able to detach from my thoughts and simply focus on the activity: regular deep-breathing, coordinated stretching of the arms and legs, navigating my passage between boats and dinghies – in fact, I truly live in the moment. I am not worrying about the effects of what has happened in the past or what might happen in the future. Nothing stands between me and the environment in which I find myself; we become one.
