Netherlands - Another Visit

Figure in One of the Canals at s'Hertogenbosch (Frog is the City's Symbol During Carnival)

I’m continuing on the “same old, same old” theme, in a way. One reason why I was too busy last week to do my blog was because I had spent the weekend in the Netherlands visiting Idette. I did this two years’ ago, although of course this time it was a little different because we did other things.

I arrived easily enough, despite the threat of a “work to rule” at Amsterdam airport. I flew with Swiss and took advantage of the fact that they still offer free alcoholic drinks en route; I was sitting near the back, so by the time they got to me they only had cheese sandwiches left (the meat ones had all been taken). Since I don’t eat cheese, I had to decline (so didn’t get my money’s worth on that score!).

The only thing that went wrong is that I left my kindle on the plane and it hasn’t been found yet (well, I have had a message to say that it hasn’t been found; I’m not sure if that means they delete my notification now). However, the kindle is a few years old and I don’t lose the content, so it’s not too much of a burden (although it’s quite strange to be reading a physical book now).

Anyway, I was met at the airport and Idette had planned a lovely itinerary for me, which she revealed when we’d arrived back at her house and were eating the Dutch equivalent of apple turnovers. We had a bit of a discussion about this because they thought apple turnovers were peculiarly Dutch and had been quite surprised to find a British equivalent. I’m not too sure if either they or we have a particular specification for an apple turnover. It’s not actually a word I think I’ve ever used before, although I know what they are, or at least I thought I did. I think in the UK it’s just apple wrapped in pastry; I’m not entirely sure if it has to be a particular type of pastry or a specified shape. Looking it up on Wikipedia seems to indicate that there are no such strict demands!

Idette has a beautiful garden with a lovely round table around the trunk of a tree for dining. We sat there for a large breakfast on Saturday morning (not too early, I was relieved to hear!). I enjoyed the chocolate sprinkles again and a lovely selection of bread. Of course, the summer this year has been fantastic, so it was wonderful to sit outside in the shade and enjoy the weather.

In the afternoon we went to s’Hertogenbosch. I was surprised to discover that it was actually a city (I should have known!). Even though I came from Switzerland, which is notorious for being clean, I was struck by how ordered and free from litter or graffiti the city was. I had the impression it was cleaner than Switzerland.

We went on a trip on the canals (this is the Netherlands, after all!); a surprising number of statues (maybe better described as comical figures?) were hidden at various places. I chose one as a photo for this blog since that will explain better than my writing! The boats navigated through some very narrow tunnels running under some of the buildings, but it was also surprising at one point to come out into quite a large expanse of water.

The journey took an hour, which shows just how many waterways there are (and I don’t think we did them all). Afterwards, we went to a café to enjoy my favorite Bossche Bollen, which I’ve mentioned when I was there before.

In the evening, we sat outside to have a barbecue in the garden with food aplenty.

The next morning, after breakfast/lunch (again, not too early, phew!) of the Dutch version of a sausage roll (also very tasty – the Dutch do pastry things par excellence!), Idette, Fabienne (her daughter), and I went for High Tea in a local café/restaurant. It was a fine combination of soup (garlic soup!), some wraps, some sandwiches, and then a plate of desserts. And, of course, tea (only I had coffee).

It was then time for me to go home. The whole family was incredibly kind to me and our new-found yearly visits to each other are now a fine tradition! Thank you, Idette and the entire family. You are all wonderful.

Zurich - Busy Bee

Busy Bee

I've been a bit busy over the last week, so am granting myself a week's holiday from the blog. Back to normal service next week All is well!

Zurich - Same Old, Same Old

English Marigold

I’ve written this blog for so long now, it’s hard to find something that I’m doing that I haven’t reported back on before. It’s open-air cinema season just now, so I have tickets booked for both the Allianz cinema (by the lake) and for FilmFluss (by the river). I’ve yet to visit the open-air cinema at Uto-Kulm, so I should look into that. There’s also one at Xenix, I think. So, it’s not as if I’ve done absolutely everything before ; there are some new things for me to try out even now.

I went to Basel to meet up with Steph (been there, done that) and had brunch at the Uto Kulm (but with Candice and Hye-Youn rather than with Geraldine this time).

I seem to be having a bit more luck with my balcony plants this year. Last year, I bought them as ready-grown plants, but for some reason, all the ones in the built-in planter on my balcony shriveled and died. Maybe they had some kind of insect attack?

This year, I planted from seed. I realize now that the seed packets show very magnified pictures of the flowers; they aren’t exactly misleading, but the plants that grew also weren’t quite what I was expecting. I suppose reading the packet more carefully might have helped because some of them were predicted to be 60cm tall, which isn’t really what I wanted.

Moreover, I was a bit surprised that two out of the three plants were marigolds. I had no idea that I’d effectively bought the same thing twice or that marigolds were so diverse (or the English language so poor!). In German, one was called Tagetes. I’ve actually seen these for sale and wouldn’t normally have chosen them, but I only looked at the picture on the seed packet; I didn’t even think to look what they were called. Having said that, they are actually very pretty and they’re doing a good job of blooming profusely, so I’m fairly happy actually. In English, these are called marigolds (or more specifically English marigold).

The other one was called Ringelblume in German. When I looked it up, this was also called marigold (or more specifically pot marigold). It looks completely different from the other one since it has different leaves and a completely different shape flower, so I find it very surprising that they’re both the same plant. And, to be honest, who’d have thought that Ringelblume was the German word for marigold AND Tagetes was the German word for marigold? For once, I think the German language is better since at least you expect two different plants with two different words. Rather aptly, whereas the other one was an English marigold, the Ringelblume turns out to be native to Egypt. It was meant to be! The Ringelblumen were a little slower to flower but are now doing very nicely, although they don’t seem to be able to stand up straight. Maybe I should be tying them up in some way, but I’m leaving them to do their own thing.

The final one was a chrysanthemum; these haven’t bloomed yet, but they’re almost there. Next year, I’ll sow these first and start them off three months earlier if I can. These started off growing tall and straight and looked nice and strong, but we had a storm and it was enough to break one of them in half and for the other one to lie horizontally and never to recover. I have that one propped up at the moment, hoping it will learn to stand straight again. They didn’t look that delicate!

I’ve got loads of seeds left, so next year, this will also be a “been there, done that” moment. However, I’ve learned quite a bit from this year’s attempt, so maybe next year will be even better.

Zurich - Property Market

Out of My Price Range (If it Were For Sale)

For Zurich, my current rent is fairly reasonable and at one point I decided that if I kept my flat on throughout retirement, it would probably cost me less than buying somewhere. Moreover, by renting I’d have more capital available rather than having it tied up and not ready to hand if I wanted to move.

However, recently, quite a few people have been asking me why I haven’t bought, and since I’m a bit of a property addict, I came to question this earlier decision. Property in Zurich is extremely expensive. To have a reasonable choice of apartments, you’d need about a million CHF (if not more); however there is the occasional property still just below 500k CHF or between 500-600k CHF.

The mortgage situation in Switzerland is very different from the UK. In Switzerland, you generally have to put down 20% deposit (although you can pledge your private [not statutory] pension fund for 10%).

Once you have the deposit, most people have two mortgages (yes, two mortgages!) to cover the remaining 80%. One covers approximately 60% of the cost of the property and has an indefinite repayment period (around 1% per year). It’s not really expected that this mortgage ever gets fully paid off. The other mortgage covers the remaining 20% of the property price and must be paid back in 15 years (or before retirement age, I believe).

For those who are used to a system like in the UK, where the idea is that you buy a property and then you don’t have any costs in your retirement, the idea of having a mortgage still to pay until you die is a bit daunting. What’s the point in owning, if you never actually own it?

To add insult to injury, the Swiss system then decrees that once you’ve bought your property, you have to pay income tax on its rental value (even if you’re not actually getting any such income). I’ve heard people say that this is offset by the costs of repairs etc, but it still seems rather weird to me. In addition, your property is regarded as part of your wealth (minus your mortgage / debt), and you are taxed on your wealth.

All this put me off buying property in Switzerland.

However, mortgages are cheap and will often work out as less expensive than rent. So, I would be saving costs. And the old argument still applies that you can sell the property at some stage and thus “save” your rental costs during the period where you lived in the property, whereas rent is lost forever. And although you don’t pay it all off, this also means that actually you still have access to the capital rather than having it tied up in the property. This made me reconsider recently my decision not to buy.

Affordability for a mortgage in Switzerland is judged assuming a 5% interest rate for the mortgage(s), your repayments, plus includes other costs you will have such as maintenance and insurance; you won’t be able to buy if affordability is more than 30% of your income. Interest only mortgages don’t exist.

I saw a property near where I live for less than 500k and that got me thinking. However, it sold really quickly. This is what I’ve observed in Zurich, at least. If a property seems to be very good value, it will usually be off the market within a week or two or sometimes even faster than that. I once saw one disappear in two days.

But all this is still a lot of money and also put me off buying property. For the amount I’d need for deposit, I could buy a property to rent out in the UK and have extra income instead.

And then I realized that if I was prepared to move out to Schaffhausen, which is a town I really like about 40 mins away from Zurich, property prices are about half the price vs Zurich. So maybe I should move? However, tax is higher and the properties do not move so quickly as in Zurich. Having said that, I did view one that I got quite excited about, but this one was sold within about two weeks. At least this means that I have a good eye for which properties are good buys!

I’m a contract worker and I’m still unsure whether I could even get a mortgage. At the moment, I’d also struggle to get the deposit together, even for somewhere in Schaffhausen. This is mostly because I’ve recently started putting any savings towards paying off my UK mortgage (and I’m not sure if my UK mortgages would be a further hurdle to getting a mortgage in Switzerland, although I have equity in the property). I started to ask about whether I could get a mortgage when I don’t have a permanent position, but when the bank started to probe, I realized that my situation is quite complicated and I didn’t have the energy to go through it. I probably need to wait until I have more savings and maybe I need to pay off my UK property first.

It’s all a complicated thought process and I think in the end I need a bit of realism as to my actual current financial situation which doesn’t really match what I need to have. It’s back to “Next year, Rodney…”

Zurich - Swimming Lessons

A Clip from My Swimming Video!

When I spent the month of May in Egypt, I was swimming about 1.5km most days, stretching to 2km at the weekends. I’d hoped that this endurance training would make it easier when I got back to Opfikon and I’d be speeding along for my usual 1.3km. However, to my great disappointment, my swimming speed had decreased while I was away.

Over a few sessions, I gradually returned to my former speed, but I concluded that I was getting faster not because my technique was improving but because I was putting in more effort. I really wanted to swim faster because I was swimming better, not because I was constantly racing with myself.

I’ve watched tons of videos online of swimming drills and I started to do them myself. However, I found it really difficult to work out what I was doing wrong or what I should focus on most to improve. Moreover, even when I did the drills I watched online, I was never entirely sure if I was doing them correctly. I felt I’d reached a plateau and the more I tried to improve, the more confused I got.

So, I decided to take some swimming lessons. I’d been thinking about doing this for a while, but had always been a bit nervous about it. I think in my head I’d got having lessons a bit mixed up with having a training practice. I didn’t really want to have someone forcing me to swim faster than I really felt comfortable with and I didn’t want to have to say that I just couldn’t do it. In the end, I rationalized that I was paying for it and no-one could force me to do something I didn’t want to do.

As it turned out, my fears were unfounded. I’d also been a bit concerned that it would be a young guy in his 20s with high expectations that my energy levels could match his when I’m thirty years older. However, it wasn’t someone in their 20s, and if anything, on my first lesson, I was a bit surprised at how long a break he gave me between lengths.

Anyway, I’m learning loads and he’s videoing me so that I can see for myself what it is I’m doing in the water. The most astonishing thing for me was being told that I don’t look down in the water, when I could have sworn that I was doing this perfectly well. However, once he said it, I could understand what he meant. Another eye-opener was that I use my left leg only 25% of the time when I’m kicking. I also have problems extending my arms. Yes, there’s a lot to improve (that wasn’t such a surprise)!

I’m also understanding that just swimming distance alone isn’t the best way to improve. It’s better to have rests and to do drills that help you swim a good stroke (your stroke will deteriorate as you tire, so then you’re just practicing a bad swimming style). I’ve put this into practice; I’m now resting after each length; of course my speed is faster (because I’m less tired), but that feels a bit of a cheat, since my wish is to swim even long distances faster (and with better technique). However, despite all the rests in between laps, I’ve been exhausted after my practice sessions and my arms have been aching, so I guess it’s doing something. I just need to be able to keep that speed up consistently, so I’ll go back to incorporating the occasional distance swim, I think.

I know my speed will go down again when I do swim further, but I need to have some confidence now that I can still do distance and that I'm not relying too much on all those rests! Incidentally, I’ve found a great calculator that tells you how much time you will need to swim, eg, 1km without rest, if you input the time it takes when you swim, eg, just 100m in one go. The calculator doesn’t just take the speed at 100m and multiply it; instead it decreases the speed incrementally using a formula to allow for the fact that you will tire. It was pretty accurate for me when I compared my "fast" 400m swim in my last lesson with my "steady" 1km that I'd done just the day before.

He’s warned me not to expect miracles (swimming takes a lot of practice), but it’s so enlightening that just the learning is reward enough. Here’s his website for anyone in the Opfikon/Ruemlang area who may be interested: www.besser-schwimmen.ch