Heidi or Ursli?

With regret, I am coming to the conclusion that our imminent trip to Switzerland is making Gail go a bit funny in the head. Over-excitement can do that to a grown woman, I believe.

Apparently, at six and a half years old, I am now exactly the same age as Gail was when she first went to stay with her godmother Doris in Luzern.

On that rather flimsy pretext, Gail decided last night to read to me from the books Doris gave her on that first Swiss holiday.

You have to humour them sometimes, don't you? 

We started with 'Heidi'.

Well, this Heidi, also six years old, is a cute little Swiss girl, and she prefers mountains to towns, which I guess is something in her favour. But really. Heidi?! It's a girl's book, isn't it? What else do you have there Gail? 

So Gail sighs, mutters something about insidious gender stereotyping even influencing dogs' taste in classic children's literature, and reaches for 'A Bell for Ursli'.

Now that's more like it!

This Ursli fellow has some excellent adventures, of the sort I am hoping for in October. Maybe I shall get a chance to cross a perilous bridge?

Or run up and down a snowy mountain and dive through the window of an Alpine chalet?

Well I am beginning to understand why Gail is getting so excited.

Is it really still three weeks before we leave?

It gets even worse...

Earlier this week I told you about the cr*p so-called ‘present’ Gail brought me back from Switzerland (cheers Deccy for suggesting that most appropriate adjective….)

Let me tell you, that was just the start of it.

You know, I could just about accept the fact that my human was going off to visit her beloved but now elderly and wheelchair-bound godmother Doris in Luzern and that as she had to fly it would all be a bit complicated to take me along etc. I also understand that animals might not be welcome in the care home where Doris now stays.

Fine.

So why then does the first holiday photo I’m shown feature Gail out for a walk, clearly in ENGLAND[1] and being unfaithful to me with another dog? And no Gail I am not interested at all in hearing about Billy's immaculate behaviour on this walk up St Martha's Hill, what a perfect chap he is, what big, expressive eyes he has and what a calm demeanour, why can't I be more like that and so on and so on ad nauseam. Grrrrh!

And why does the next photo, taken by Gail, show her friends Kathryn and Steve half way up a mountain on a long and clearly fox terrier friendly walk in the FRENCH Alps[2]?

Oh no! Here are some of Gail's photos from what she claims is one of her top five walks in the whole world, in Luzern along the lake between the Kapellbrücke and the Verkehrshaus der Schweiz.

How can a walk without me even be in her top five hundred?

Then I learn that in Doris’s care home some of the residents are allowed to keep their dogs with them – Gail saw a Yorkie and a Lhasa Apso when she was visiting[3]. So most certainly I could have come along after all.

And finally. I have it on good authority that Luzern is a popular tourist destination crammed full of shops selling fluffy and eminently de-stuffable St Bernards, cows wearing bells and whistling marmots, all excellent toys available at reasonable prices[4].

I could even have fun silencing a cuckoo clock, if it came to that.

Footnotes by Gail

[1] Surrey, actually. The flight to Switzerland was cancelled due to thunderstorms in the Gatwick area, so my departure was delayed for a day.

[2] Before visiting my godmother I stayed for a couple of days with my Surrey-based friends in their Alpine chalet in Samoëns, France.

[3] This really is true!

[4] I’m afraid Bertie is ill-informed about the Sterling/Swiss Franc exchange rate. 

Is there a worse present giver in the whole wide world?

So Gail came home loaded with gifts of Swiss chocolate.

But what about something for me?

Oh. She's telling me all about how she visited a place in Luzern called the Rosengart Museum where she saw lots of paintings by this Picasso chappie, and she thought what I would like best would be a postcard of one of them...

Woman and Dog Playing (Picasso, 1953).

Seriously!

PS There are still a couple of days left for late entries to my Olympic event, Bouncing (narrative style).