Just About Feeling Okay to Write the Blog

I was meant to be in England this weekend with Claire for the Christening of our friends' daughter. Not only that but we are the Godparents but unfortunately I've been struck down by the flu virus that's hanging around in Switzerland at the moment. For the first time that I can remember I actually woke up yesterday and had to get up since the bed was so wet with sweat (sorry for that image) and I've not been anywhere but my bed or the sofa under the duvet for three days now. Today has seen a slight improvement but only enough to write a few words on a PC!

Meeting New Friends in Basel...

A good friend of ours, Jim, has had the misfortune to tear a tendon in his foot and I said that I would be happy to help him out, drive him around if he needed to go anywhere in particular or urgently. Well he's been going on about this Hausmann group that meet up once a week (Wednesday) in Basel at an interesting restaurant in Allschwil called Zic Zac. I've never got round to going so with Jim needing a helping hand (or helping chauffeur) I was more than pleased to drive him over there and get the chance to meet these guys.

It was very similar to a group of ex-pats that I met in Singapore when visiting Clive, a group known as MSB(*) and those attending today seemed mainly to be American but with the odd Brit and Ecuadorian thrown in the mix. Everyone was friendly and I met a couple of other guys interested in skiing and cycling with the option of a monthly beer session thrown in it seemed a good group all round.

* - THIS CANNOT BE TRANSLATED FOR SECRECY PURPOSES

Re: Yesterday's Blog on Walking

I managed to search around the blogs I've written and I discovered that I had actually written up the first of the Basel Region walks that we have undertaken. It can be found here and it was a pretty good walk as I do remember. I also thought we had done some of the other walks but we had more used them as a point of reference without actually doing the exact walk but we will do more in the future that's for sure.

Basel Region Walk #2

You might well be asking where #1 is and I think I have to say I haven't managed to put them on the blog so far but I will this week as I've vowed (again!!) to keep the blog more up to date so there should be a post at least every other day from now on. Some may be dull (no change there then) but they will be up to date!

Today we went on another of the recommended walks from the excellent website at www.myswitzerland.com and this walk took us from Flüh to Laufen. One of the great things about the site is that you can download a GPS file direct on to your GPS device or just use the file to show the walk on Google Earth (using this great website here). So today's walk looked a little like this (see left). However, we took a few detours on route to find some steep climbs! But for 17km in around 3 hours it was a very good work out for a Sunday.

Strange Weather in the Land of King Roger

Following a long and lovely spell of proper Swiss weather (Snow, clear skies, ice etc.) today was a bit of a shock as a horrible English wet and windy storm arrived and has made the skies appear to enact some kind of Armageddon scenario (with sound effects to match).

Never mind the Swiss have much to keep them indoors as the whole of the country is glued to its TV sets whenever the unofficial King of the country (this is him here) gets on a tennis court during any of the grand slams. Certainly the gym today was busier around the TV screen showing his match against Safin (do they all have their own web pages?)than on any of the execrise equipment.

Horrible Swiss Skiing News (not that the UK media have any idea)

Considering that last weekend was the return of Ski Sunday on the BBC you would think that the channel could find some space on its website for the tragic news of Daniel Albrecht's crash (at least the Guardian managed to cover it)at Kitzbuhel this week. Albrecht is one of the Swiss skiing heroes and it looks like he'll be out for some time as a result of this horrific crash. There's footage here and it's not too gruesome but shows the sheer intensity of the accident.

Our Local Spar and the Revolution

There is a local Spar shop just about 10 minutes walk away which can come in handy during the week for those little essentials but unlike the UK it isn't open on Sundays (I like that about Switzerland, the fact people get a day off mainly to spend with their families). However, today I noticed something I hadn't seen before and that is the fact that the neighbouring café bar seems to to be the home of the Swiss equivalent of the old Socialist Workers Party. I think that is the case even if I can't rely entirely on my translating skills. Based on the plethora of posters that look just like those that used be on the walls at University I'm pretty sure it is a hub of left wing support. It could be a good thing as today's 20 Minuten talks of an extreme right wing movement getting support in Basel.

What - clouds on the horizon!

We woke up for our final day in Champéry to see the faint sign of clouds arriving. The weather forecast was spot on as we had expected two perfect days followed by a slight deterioration of conditions. This meant today was noticeably colder but the slopes were DESERTED, everyone had gone back home or to work leaving it all to us. Unfortunately this meant that one crucial chair lift was shut and, of course, we didn't discover this until too late but someone showed us an alternative (if much more tiring) escape route! The only problem with these final days is the changing and packing in the hotel lobby/toilets before catching the first of our four trains (yep four) home and just catching the last connection (thanks you swiss transport system)!

And off to France

The only part of Les Portes Du Soleil that I had skied before was Avoriaz in 2005 and it was only for a weekend so we only skied the French side. So it was good that we could nip over the border from Switzerland to revisit Avoriaz and remember what a horrible looking place it is! It was also noticeable that as soon as we arrived in France all the skiers were English - obviously the Euro/Pound exchange rate hasn't put everyone off yet. A great day was rounded off with that favourite local dish - A Tartiflette! The photo on the left shows the perfect end of day ski bar on the "almost" perfect end of day ski run back to the town.

Perfect Skiing Weather in Champéry

It's been a good day for skiing even if it's very busy being the last weekend of the holiday season. The hotel we're in is a little different as it's a sports complex with Ice Rink (full size for ice hockey), a swimming pool and curling! Weather was superb with blue skies, very little wind and though cold not so cold considering it's January.

Off to the French Slopes (in Switzerland)

So far we've been to ski resorts in Switzerland that are all German speaking stations, so this weekend we're setting off for the French speaking resort of Champéry, which is located right on the border. It links to the major ski area known as Les Portes du Soleil and we'll be able to ski in France, probably going to Avoriaz but not Morzine. We set off tomorrow.