June 17: Possibilities?

One of my friends from German school, Iva, is married to Marko, who is a karate Dan. He has a karate Dojo and wellness centre on the Aare river in Bern. I’ve mentioned it before, when I did a yoga class there earlier in the year.

Marko has asked me to do some work for him on one of his websites, enso-shop.ch which deals with the selling of karate gear. On Friday, I’ll go in and learn the ins and outs of the website from him, and then eventually, I’ll be responsible for all things to do with the site. Neither of us are sure how much work this will involve, but he wants to push the site more than he’s been able to, because he’s so busy teaching.

This means I’ll be working in the office with Pastora as well, which will be fun. She works there five mornings a week. This could be my chance to get back into the swing of things and help promote his website, which thankfully is mostly in English. I’m very excited and hope I can do enough to make the orders soar! Learning more about how websites work will keep me mentally fit, too. I don’t think it’s really hit me yet, that this could be a job with possibilities.

Being in the city today (to meet Marko) made me realise how much I’m missing sugar. I’m in week two of the I Quit Sugar 8-Week Program, when we can’t eat any fruit either. I was bombarded with people eating ice cream, Berliners and other sweet stuff that normally I wouldn’t think twice about buying. Grocery shopping, and seeing all the lovely bananas and watermelons etc was even harder. They’re healthy! But I’m committed to giving this sugar cleanse a real go. In week six, fruit is reintroduced. It was a dumb time to buy that cherry tomato plant – they’re all looking so ripe and yummy, Leo will have to eat them all!

Here are some other photos from my walk to the bus and time in town.

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More corn growing near us, with my favourite farmhouse on the hill

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This looks like silverbeet perhaps?

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A close up of the silverbeet?

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Healthy geraniums at a house on the way to the bus

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A lovely veggie garden on the way to the bus

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How cool is this bug? Love the colour!

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This is the path I take down to the river on the way to the Dojo

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The building on the right side of the river is where I’ll be doing some work

I use a running app on my phone, called MapMyRun. Today it sent me an email to remind me I haven’t been running in a month. A month! Oops! How did that happen? (Well, um easily – busy in the garden, raining, lack of motivation!) Will try to fix that asap.

The 30-Day Challenge with the plant names has also taken a backseat. I think I had a bit of burnout, searching the web for the plants I have in the garden, not knowing where to begin other than a generic description of what the plant looks like – the images always offered up so many options. I’m learning some Latin herb names now, starting with thyme – Thymus vulgaris.

Rather than searching for three to four each day, I’m going to scale it back to one from now on – I’d bitten off more than I can chew! Hopefully that isn’t the case for the website job with Marko!

Wishing you a wonderful day.

June 16: Going bongos on your birthday

Sorry I didn’t blog yesterday, on the actual day of the 16th, but I was in town for most of the day and then out to dinner for Leo’s birthday.

Leo is now the proud owner of a set of bongos. He often taps out a beat and seeing as he’s never touched his Christmas present from 2011, a guitar, I thought these might be more appropriate. Now it’s my turn to learn the guitar, which I tried in 2013, but it’s tough when you’re not so musically inclined! And it’s tough on the pads of the left-hand fingers. Practice makes perfect, I know.

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The new bongos, roses from Liliane’s garden (all on one stem!) and the unloved guitar in the background

I had a lovely day in the city – met Leonie for lunch then Claudia for a cup of tea and some window shopping. Bought some soap at the markets – love that it comes unpackaged.

Then I met Leo and we chose the bongos at a music store in Bern (wanted him to have an input, as opposed to the guitar, which was a surprise). Leo used to play keyboard and sing in a band, so he’s very chuffed to own some percussion!

And then we went for dinner at the same fancy pants steak restaurant we went to for my birthday. It’s a lovely room upstairs, and the waitress was very sweet. She even gave Leo a jar of steak sauce when she found out it was his birthday.

Surprised we had room for any food after starting with these beers. It was the only drink Leo had all night, and I had a glass of red with my main.

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Give the birthday boy a beer!

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Almost need two hands!

Wishing you a wonderful day.