{"id":3615,"date":"2012-04-16T13:33:52","date_gmt":"2012-04-16T11:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.com\/?p=3615"},"modified":"2012-04-16T13:33:52","modified_gmt":"2012-04-16T11:33:52","slug":"the-start-of-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/?p=3615","title":{"rendered":"The start of spring"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/170px-Sechselauten_2007_Boegg_Burning.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3616\" style=\"margin: 20px;\" title=\"170px-Sechselauten_2007_Boegg_Burning\" src=\"http:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/170px-Sechselauten_2007_Boegg_Burning.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"170\" height=\"227\" \/><\/a>Today is S\u00e4chseleuten, the official start of spring in Z\u00fcrich. There will be a big parade of all the guilds, in traditional costumes, many on horseback with big decorated floats through Z\u00fcrich. Local politicians and \u00a0dignitaries walk too&#8230;a couple of years ago the president was within a yard of where I was standing. No special security though&#8230;this is peace-loving Switzerland!<\/p>\n<p>The culmination of the parade is the burning of the B\u00f6\u00f6gg &#8211; a model of a snowman, the huge pyre being lit by horsemen racing around at it&#8217;s base. There are explosives in the head of the snowman, and the length of time it takes till the head explodes is supposed to predict what sort of a summer we are going to have. As it&#8217;s raining the chances of a quick explosion &#8211; and therefore a warm summer &#8211; don&#8217;t look that good.<\/p>\n<p>Normally there are huge crowds &#8211; it&#8217;s a bank holiday, but today I&#8217;m not so sure as it&#8217;s very cold and <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/170px-B\u00f6\u00f6gg-Explosion_-_Sechsel\u00e4uten_2011-04-11_18-11-08_02.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-3617\" style=\"margin: 20px;\" title=\"170px-B\u00f6\u00f6gg-Explosion_-_Sechsel\u00e4uten_2011-04-11_18-11-08_02\" src=\"http:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/170px-B\u00f6\u00f6gg-Explosion_-_Sechsel\u00e4uten_2011-04-11_18-11-08_02.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"170\" height=\"227\" \/><\/a>grey and rainy &#8211; all of three degrees right now. Brrr. I&#8217;m afraid I&#8217;m staying home. There&#8217;s always next year and today feels more like a day to hunker down and light a log fire. One social butterfly daughter will be out joining the fray though. Why miss a chance to hang out with your friends just because it&#8217;s cold any wet?<\/p>\n<p>Maybe I&#8217;m just getting old!<\/p>\n<p>Helen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today is S\u00e4chseleuten, the official start of spring in Z\u00fcrich. There will be a big parade of all the guilds, in traditional costumes, many on horseback with big decorated floats through Z\u00fcrich. Local politicians and \u00a0dignitaries walk too&#8230;a couple of years ago the president was within a yard of where I was standing. No special [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQtrc-Wj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3615"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3615"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3619,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3615\/revisions\/3619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}