It’s hard to believe now but there was a time when I wasn’t a muppet parent. A time when I was just a MUPPET. I don’t know why but I remembered back to that time this week. A time in a different century. A very different life.

The memory that had suddenly reappeared was a climbing trip to Scotland with two college friends. We found ourselves one evening encamped in a tent in Torridon. Safe inside away from the evening massed swarms of blood sucking vampire midges. We weren’t going to endure the previous nights exposed skin blood letting again. No evening pub meal this night. The tent gourmet evening meal was Pringle Crisps, Jam Sandwiches, Chocolate and a local firebrand Malt. We were highly tuned athletes…..

I can vividly remember one part of the nights festivities. The subject had bizarrely moved onto where we felt truly at home. I think I said something like that I was still looking for home. One friend aptly said that his home was either in a coffee or chocolate factory, yes that was definitely him…. My second friends answer was also so apt for her. She talked about a place where she moved to as a teenager when her Dad took a new lecturing position. She talked about having few friends and living for the weekends when her family would head into the mountains. A small cabin by a lake. A rowing boat, fishing, climbing and skiing in the winter. She felt alive for the first time in her life in that place. That was always going to be her home.

Her home was The Cabin, That Lake, The Swiss Alps.

If I could speak to those climbing buddies right now, I would definitely change my home answer. NOW Switzerland also feels like home to me. Ashes are scattered there. So many memories. And yes, when I’m there, in The Alps, I feel truly ALIVE as well.

48 thoughts on “Swiss Sunday”

      3. Oh my friend … you cannot know how much I would love that coffee! I try to close my eyes and picture the three of us at an outdoor cafe at the base of the alps, steam curling off our cups, lost in conversation!

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  5. What efforts are you making to be one with the home you wish to live in?
    How is the language learning coming along?
    Do you have at least one day a week (maybe a Sunday) that you make a concerted effort to speak as if you are at home (in Switzerland).
    Maybe you need someone to be firm with you and say: Get ready, get ready, you can do it, so
    FFS get ready!

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    1. Apparently: “In general, non-resident foreign individuals may not purchase land and/or property to use as a primary residence. A non-resident may acquire a holiday home in Switzerland upon receipt of an authorization from the canton where the property is located.”
      So, get ready to become a person with a job there and somewhere to live with that job.
      https://www.totaljobs.com/jobs/in-switzerland

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      1. Well done mate, well done. I’ve started learning a bit of Polish to interact with a colleague, so in other words “Dobrze zrobiony”.

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      3. I look for the polite things, but there’s plenty of folk who love to know how to swear first. How many wanted to learnt to say “Merde!” 💩 first I wonder.

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      8. Three and a half hours from home, lots of things to do and see, plus no getting in a plane or on a ferry… Environmental and a step in the direction of some time off, independent of others… Just an idea.

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  7. I think we are all endowed with a homing beacon but you need to be in touch with your emotions to feel it. I have never actually lived in any of the places where I felt I belonged but where I am now, in the country is at least almost home. You must follow your heart.

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      1. Oh really? My heart over the years has led me up many a garden path I can tell you. Still, it’s all right at the moment and I’ve learnt things from those garden paths.

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      3. I’m in trouble then. It’s not tidy, but that the bit that goes from the gate to the postbox is. I don’t want to trip up the postie.

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