Sehr erfreut! Ich heisse Mark Bennett und....

Ich wohne in Kaiseraugst. Ich arbeite noch nicht.

These and many other phrases were heard today in my first German lesson with interlingua. Only three of us in the class so its very interactive so far with the tutors speaking German virtually all the time. The other two learners are from Hungary & Portugal so we speak english to each other :-)

A few bottles of wine before a game of footy...

It's 9.00am and the extra hour in bed was needed as I'm just ready to go and play football this morning (a chilly but still one) after spending yesterday afternoon at the Basel Weinmesse where many a glass was drunk and even more bottles were ordered. I think I'll leave out looking at the credit card bill for a while!

No language lessons yet!

Unfortunately, my 8 weeks of German lessons have been postponed by one week and I'll have to kick my hills around the flat for another week before going back to school next Monday!

The Arrival of Winter?

It's only October but today has seen a marked change in the temperature here in Basel as we've gone from 20 degs C on Mon/Tues to under 10 degrees today. There are unsubstantiated rumours of snow for the weekend on high ground and all this before we even see the clocks go backwards!

Finally BBC is loud & clear

.....and with no pauses, crackles, or complete loss of picture. Thankfully the Swisscom electrician cam eround this morning to try and resolve the continuing problems with Bluewin TV (see here) and despite speaking no English we managed to maintain communication as he explained the klein problem. It transpired that the connection between the entrance point for the apartment block and our apartment had an extra wire which was "shorting" and acting as an extra "antenna". So far (touch wood) the electrician's work has had the desired effect.