Stupidily Technology Reliant

What I should be writing about and posting pictures of is the second fondue party I went to on Saturday night, and the yummy roast me, Claire and Suzanna made on Sunday.  But instead, I will complain about my hopefully, but doubtfully, temporarily broken phone.  On Saturday night, at what did not just end up being a fondue party but one full of extravgant treats like cavier and vodka (that must have been made out of gold to justify the cost, all of which I had great pictures of) I was chatting away and dropped my phone in a glass of water and have seen my life unravel since then.  It is pretty scary how much I rely on that phone, and the impact losing it has had:
1) first and most importantly I lost 1900 photos
2) I cannot take further photos for my blog (problem for all my hundreds or tens of readers)
3) I am sure I am missing hundreds of messages from handsome men that have recently, unbeknowst to me, fallen in love with me, gotten my number and are now desperately trying to reach me
4) It has my credit card codes on them, so got denied at shop yesterday
5) I slept in an hour today as my phone is my alarm
6) I cannot keep up on the lives of people I have not seen for twenty years on facebook
7) I cannot beat William in our current game of words with friends
Very annoying and serves me right by having a glass of water in front of me on a Saturday night and not a glass of wine!

Fondue Fun...

I live in a great place, it is beautiful, safe, centrally located, and for these reasons and many more I know I am lucky. But like anywhere it is not perfect and I think I have been here long enough to voice some home truths without the threat of deportation. The truth is I hate fondue, I hate the smell, I hate the taste, I hate the way everyone claims to love it and somehow they believe it makes them more 'Swiss' (in fact I think the Swiss have marketed it brilliantly and really do not love it as much as they claim to). However, as much as I hate it and see it as more of a heart attack in a bowl than food, I do love the way it brings a party together and the concept of sharing.
But no matter my opinion and thoughts on the matter it is still a pretty popular thing to do here, and more importantly the way Patrick decided to celebrate his birthday.
I had a great evening (even feeling a prego tummy for the first time) and although I still despise fondue I am looking forward to my second fondue night of the season in a few hours (again more for the people than the 3000 calories going straight to my hips).

Mini Wine

Well even though the main event was cancelled, a few of us decided that would not deter us from enjoying our usual wine night (especially after the success of stupid beer club) and went out for a lovely meal.
We did do some tasting of wine and sipped (or possibly gulped) our way through an Italian red and white.  Not our usual wine night, but was great to catch up, not have to cook and still get our wine..

Bloody Beer Club

Pretty much every month I post about the Basel Ladies Wine club, but I am unsure if I mentioned that I also started a ladies wine club in Bruton several years ago.  Well I did, and loads of men always claimed that they would start an equivalent beer club or something like that and of course it never happened.  They could never get it together, or realised that as they were in the pub daily there was really no point.  So here when some of the men started threatening a beer club I thought it was safe to put a bit of a wager on it.  Well annoyingly they have recently had their second monthly meeting, and if they reach a third one before Christmas I will have to pay up to my assistant coach, Mr. Guy Thomas (to be fair he is not really my assistant anymore, but I still insist he calls me coach).

I am fairly confident that he has organised this just to spite me, even worse they even have amazing tasting notes and everything.  I must say I was pretty impressed (jealous) when I saw what they had produced.  And just to add isult to injury, we have had to cancel November's ladies wine club as too many of us are busy! 

Carousel Fun

After a morning of dragging myself around the flat, I got myself together and met Raluca and her friend Adi to walk around the Herbstmesse (Basel's autumn fair).  We started our walk around with some fuel to keep us going.  We passed on the traditional cheese and sausages for some Chinese
and Mexican.  However, we did do some of the traditional Swiss fair things, I had some Gluwein (basically hot red wine with spices) and took a ride on the carousel (think we should have borrowed a child, we did look slightly odd).  A lovely way to spend a sunny Sunday, with friends, food, wine and at least three quarters of Basel's population.

Rugby Season Begins

The calendar is full of events that mark the passage of time. Every year, I have blogs about Christmas, birthdays, Halloween and other annual events that help mark time . And yesterday marked the beginning of another very important annual event, the rugby in the pub season. Now for many people this involves close concentration and analysing the teams and matches.  All are focused and fixated on the match.  All but me and a few others that go for the atmosphere, the chit chat and to annoy the die hard fans with our nattering.
A full day of laughs, and I think England may have even won, although to be honest I am not actually sure..
Followed by a beautiful night on the Rhine.

Movie Night

A tell tale sign that the seasons have changed, is not only the darker days, falling leaves, cooler temperature but the fact that a Friday night movie night is way more appealing than braving the cold weather (ok at 12 degrees this might be a bit of an over reaction). To be fair though it could be blazing hot and a night with Chris and Pia would still be ideal.