Tchüss

It's another bright blue sky in Basel today (AARG where is the grey!!!) and I have been toiling at my desk trying to remember the forgotten art of 'lesson planning'. I seem to have lost all my skills in this area although no doubt there is a good reason for this. My brain couldn't possibly fit lesson-planning in with all my other recently acquired skills (eg, monosyllabic Arabic, running a bootcamp for my parents while trying to include enough time for napping and trashy magazine reading; turtle-petting 101!)

My parents left on Sunday which was sad for all involved but I think they had a great time here in The Schweiz. We actually did quite a lot of excursions to places I had never considered visiting before and dad managed to tick 'The Jungfraujoch' off his bucket list - quickly replacing it with a future trip to The Schilthorn to drink coffee a'la James Bond style. On Friday night we went out to celebrate his birthday which is next Sunday. I took him to a traditional Swiss restaurant where mum and I indulged in cheese fondue up to our eyeballs.

On Saturday we went on an excusion to Brunnen and Stoos. Brunnen is a lovely town lakeside with a pleasing Mediterranean feel to it. The view from the mountains above was spectacular although the three of us froze as we sat on the chairlift. Dad even offered to get his 'thing out' to warm me up - 'his thing' being a waterproof jacket' for all those gutter-brains out there.

We also happened upon a wedding in Stoos at a quaint church perched on a hill. An Alpine horn player came out to serenade the
bride and groom which thrilled the pares as they had never heard a horn 'live' before. A herd of very pretty cows complete with bells strolled over from a nearby pasture to listen to the music as well. It really was the most cheese-woi scene I think that I have seen so far. Made me look like the best bootcamp director though - fancy arranging a wedding and cows and horn players and yodellers and mountains all together at once.

Now they are gone though (sniff sniff) and I have no excuse not to get back in the swing of things. I hope to embrace my email inbox sometime very soon and pick my way through the remains of my publishing contact which are lying listlessly all around me. I think I am avoiding it actually - I might as well claim insurance for my stolen bike, get my liver tested ( after all my food problems), plan a few more lessons before I face anything really scary.