January is a month filled with short days. Our January – if I would need to chose a theme – would be noise. Yes, NOISE. Now, put your hands up if you are not great with noise. That’s me. My soul rests when there is no noise around. Does it happen often? Nope. My poor chimming heart gets heavy and sweaty trying to race with the loudness. My breaths get shorter and rapider. When I bare no more, I remove myself from this atmosphere and spend some time cooling down.

Bandi Gianee

New experience alert. This month we got to know the story behind Bandi Gianee. A custom typical to the Italian part of Switzerland. In particular to Locarno and its close vicinity.

What do you need? Some empty cans on a long string that can be tragged around town, making as much noise as possible.

Winter is still in full swing in the mountains, however in the warmest part of Switzerland, the locals are already calling for the spring and summer. Here, in Centovalli, the sun arrives to the valley towards the end of January. So it makes sense to make as much noise as possible to scare the winter away for another year.

It is yet another great opportunity to spend time outdoors with the community. The celebration often ends with a ‘merenda’. All participants contribute with some drinks and snacks. We got to spend it with a group of amazing, dedicated parents and caretakers. With the tummies filled, the guitarist took his instruments and the sound of the music gathered all the singers around. Time flies when you are having fun.

1000 Hours Outside Challenge

With a fresh start, I am logging the time spent outdoors (roughly). In January, with the winter flu blooming, we spent 35 hours and 15 minutes outdoors. This is a tiny bit more than one hour per day on average. I expect, it is the toughest to show results in the first month of the year. My tiny peeps are not a big fan of cold and dark. So the window of opportunity is pretty narrow. Based on that I am happy with the results and I am looking forward to seeing some longer days to come.