Lipp
From BluWiki
In these summer days the bees from neighbour Lipp came down to sit in the wet grass drinking water and we used to have swollen feet stepping on them. Lipps small honey workers sat right behind the wall in grey wooden boxes. We used to climb the wall from our garden. We always wondered what’s behind the walls. On the other side of the garden were Neyrets vineyards. Later in September it would be forbidden to enter them. They even had guards, shooting with rifles on trespassers. But we always did. My friend Eric had ten leaden bullets pulled out of his arse by the village doctor. Did it hurt much, we asked him. Not so bad, he said, but the night after.....Our garden was green and gave much shadow. Right in the middle stood a huge cedar tree, Vachatze family in next villages castle of St.Barthélemy had just the same. My sisters used to think their summit reaches the sky. Madam Vachatze wore a knitted soul warmer, as she used to call it. That dark woollen thing around her shoulders, covering most of her arms and all her breast made her look a little like the witch in Grimm’s “Goosemaiden at the fountain”. She called her sons Basil and Alexander. Her husband was dead or disappeared, she did not talk about him. Basil was the younger one, he played the mouthharp. His eyes and hair were black black I tell you. In our garden the best time to stay was at early night. Only the light from windows and the stars were to be seen. From one of the open windows came piano sounds. Someone rehearsed Mozart’s “Rondo alla turque” or Beethoven’s “Für Elise”. We felt to be in the middle of the world. We were indeed. Did not the other village proudly wear the name “Pompaples au milieu du monde”? We changed it in Pompaples right behind the moon. River Venoge run there and here and gave us trouts and crabs and some of us believed we should wash gold there too. Remember the day we caught the three-pound-fish with an old marmalade bucket? We always build huts in the woods near the river and we used twice the time to put camouflage on the ways leading there to prevent them to be found by other children (worst case: those from Crissier or Vufflens or Pompaples). Coming out of the woods we could see the Montblanc. But we rarely looked at.
All summer long we often made excursions. The greatest moment was the announcement. We already sat in school banks, when the teacher suddenly said: get prepared to take the 9:10-train to Vallorbe! And we break out in joy. Roncevaux! Roncevaux! Dans ta sombre vallée l’ombre de Roland n’est donc pas consolé? – the valley going up to the fairy-caverns was just as dark…..River Orbe came out of the Rocks as if we would be born with 16, strong, fresh and serene, and at some steps uphill was the entrance of « grotte aux fées ». We were told that fairies did wash their linen here in shiny full moon nights…. We listened with half an ear, being busy to eat blackberries or to run after our mates. Then we had climbed enough to reach the border of the woods and came out to a splendid sight: Mont Blanc and the 24 eldest mountains stood there at the horizon behind the lake! We knew the tavern not far away and didn’t get rest. The houses in Jura were flat, melancholic and covered with tin, the cows black-and-white and dirty. We felt terribly tired and thirsty, our knees hurt. Exhausted we sat along a kind of bowling track. I remember the huge wooden balls staggering back to players on a strange wooden track. May be some giants forgot their stoneballs around here long time ago?
The day farmer Neyret broke down in his door and died from stroke! We talked so much about, that we all were sure we saw it with our own eyes. But against all odds life went on after, Neyret son even bought a brand new Sulzer truck. My sister was afraid of chicken. In fact they always tried to pick her toes. How she screamed! Fredi and I came to her rescue. As award she gave chocolate; we invested it the same days in new girlfriends. Fredi’s was called Beate, years later she would be a dancer. Mine was called Josette. She was two days elder than me but one head taller.
Our next neighbour across village street was Madam Schoepfer. Her garden lay behind a wall, her head was never to be seen without headscarf. She just went out to do her daily shopping and of course we were afraid of her. By night she would change into the “white lady”, the ghost of an unhappy comtesse de Montolieu who hanged herself in a treetop and whose soul could not get rest since......
