You do You

Welcome back to another episode of A'lil Hoohaa's monthly photo blogging challenge. 

Our prompt for the month of April was "You do You", and I'm grateful for a flexible theme, as I was not only busy at work, covering for my colleague, who was finally able to take the trip she booked and paid for in 2020, but participating in two writing challenges. 

When I was suffering from the aftermath of the virus I caught in February - and again (or still?) in early March - I pledged to go out and enjoy spring as soon as I was going to feel better.

There were a few things on my spring bucket list that I wanted to tackle. Like the tulip festival in Morges, which is located in Switzerland's French speaking part, at Lake Geneva, a good two hours' drive from here. I asked my Mom if she wanted to join, so this was a really nice opportunity to spend quality time together.

In the 1960, Japanese farmer and beekeeper Yoshiyuki Urata came to Switzerland to study agriculture. He was impressed by our punctuality and work ethics. Also the people he met here, helped to raise money so he could fund an agricultural school back in Japan. As a token of his gratitude he sent 100 Somei Yoshino trees to the Rosengarten Park in Bern, which is our Capital. These wonderful cherry trees were getting old and beginning to flower less. This is why the Japanese prefecture of Nara decided to send over seedlings for young cherry trees. I made it there on Easter Monday, which is a bank holiday in Switzerland.It was absolutely magical!

Since the weather was nicer than expected, I also made a detour to the Bernese Oberland to see some snow capped mountains.I need to come back to this area one day when there's less people to visit the "Grizzly Adventure Park" in Längenbühl. Obviously there are alpaca, and I happen to think they're cute!

Another thing I did around Easter is that I drove to the Lake Constance area, which is in the Eastern part of Switzerland. They are famous for their apples. A large part of Swiss apple consumption is covered by their harvest. So the sights of the blossoming apple trees must be really wonderful, right? They would, if you came at the right time. I was too early. Talk about botanical ignorance ;-) Instead I found the most amazing apricot trees (picture at the very top of this post - I put it there so it dosen't add to the count). Also I have firmly resolved to come back later, which I did just last weekend. Look at them apple trees!

On another Monday, a regular one, if you will, I had an overdue hair appointment, so I left work early. On my way home I noticed an unusually nice evening light, and I decided to take a detour to enjoy this atmosphere. It's the little things, right? Consider this your bonus picture. I was having a hard time reducing the number of photos. 

I picked nature pictures to represent "You do You", which may be a bit unusual since I don't even consider myself to be an outdoorsy person. Spring is just so beautiful! 

"You do You" would ask to show you the photos (which I didn't even take) of my spending a night out with my Highschool girlfriends for the first time in too long, or of chaperoning a good 50 hockey boys to Basel, where the U18 World Championship takes places. We went to see Switzerland vs USA. It ended 0:10, so while we weren't happy with the result, it was a nice overall experience. 

What an intense month it was! I had to make a hard effort to carve out the me-time to do these things, and it feels like a huge accomplishment. So in May I guess I will just take a nice, long nap. Or not ;-)

Thank you for exploring my corner of the world with me. Now let's see what the other contributors have been up to.Something tells me we might be celebrating a certain Harper's birthday. Just a hunch.