Look­ing back on sum­mer 2025

A sea­son that smells of bar­be­cues, sun cream and balmy, nev­er-end­ing evenings. For us, this year was a sum­mer at home – with one very spe­cial high­light: we got to mar­vel at our first grand­daugh­ter.

Our ‘booka­tion’ (a mix­ture of read­ing, writ­ing and hol­i­days) fell through due to the weath­er: 27 days of rain in July! Per­fect for writ­ing and read­ing, less ide­al for sum­mer spir­its. And yet it was a sum­mer full of ideas and progress. New prod­ucts are tak­ing shape, upcom­ing events are becom­ing con­crete, and the pages of our book are fill­ing up.    

We would like to share some of our spe­cial sum­mer moments with you:

Words on Stage — Zurich Lit­er­a­ture Fes­ti­val

…  the grand finale of the fes­ti­val – and we were right in the mid­dle of it, for the first time. The evening brought togeth­er a hand-picked selec­tion of Switzer­land’s best cabaret artists and most excit­ing spo­ken word per­form­ers. In terms of con­tent, it was a spo­ken lit­er­ary mas­ter­piece with a crit­i­cal view of many (social) devel­op­ments.

The loca­tion was par­tic­u­lar­ly impres­sive: the old botan­i­cal gar­den in the mid­dle of Zurich, an oasis of calm and relax­ation.

The diverse per­for­mances made the time fly by, and the fad­ing light lent the entire event a spe­cial mag­ic. 

The spo­ken words will stay with us for a long time to come.

More infor­ma­tion https://www.literaturfestivalzuerich.com/en/events/words-on-stage-2025

27 days of rain

We like the pat­ter of rain­drops and the lush green­ery that is always par­tic­u­lar­ly strik­ing after a trip to dri­er climes – but 27 days of rain in a sum­mer month are a chal­lenge for any­one’s hol­i­day mood.

We have prob­a­bly nev­er checked the weath­er fore­cast so often in order to make the most of the short breaks in the rain.

And it was the rain, of all things, that gave us a record-break­ing har­vest of porci­ni mush­rooms. With lit­tle effort and in no time at all, we filled our win­ter sup­plies, and noth­ing stands in the way of culi­nary high­lights. 

Bor­rowed Light

Do you know Tero Saari­nen? Nei­ther did we – until this sum­mer. With the dance pro­duc­tion ‘Bor­rowed Light’, the Teron Saari­nen Com­pa­ny, in coop­er­a­tion with the Boston Cam­er­ate, brought a very impres­sive work of con­tem­po­rary dance to the Werk­stat­tbühne of the Bre­gen­z­er Fest­spiele.

Tero Saari­nen’s per­son­al intro­duc­tion alone made us eager and curi­ous. 

In the first few min­utes of the dance pro­duc­tion, how­ev­er, we were a lit­tle lost – what was hap­pen­ing here? The begin­ning was urgent­ly sim­ple: in the semi-dark­ness, a sin­gle dancer moved through a nar­row cor­ri­dor of light. She stamped, clapped and swung her arms – noth­ing else. No music.

After 70 min­utes, we did not sim­ply leave the Werk­stat­tbühne, but returned from anoth­er real­i­ty – a place beyond words, where our shared human­i­ty shone in its qui­et grandeur.

Dance and song formed a uni­ty. The com­bi­na­tion of vocal and phys­i­cal ener­gy makes the piece unique and cre­ates a pow­er­ful res­o­nance. With ‘Bor­rowed Light’, Tero Saari­nen has cre­at­ed a work that touch­es, chal­lenges and heals – in its clar­i­ty, sin­cer­i­ty and beau­ty, it is sim­ply breath-tak­ing and time­less. (Source: Vorarl­berg­er Nachricht­en, 25 July 2025)

More Infor­ma­tion: https://bregenzerfestspiele.com/en/festspielzeit/community-motion

And what else?

Some­times we our­selves are amazed at how much great­ness and emo­tion lies right on our doorstep: inspir­ing events, small won­ders of nature, encoun­ters full of warmth. Per­haps all it takes is the right per­spec­tive – or a step back – to real­ly see them.

And just now, the hail­storm has impres­sive­ly demon­strat­ed the pow­er of nature.