My mother wants to be informed on what her grandchildren and I are doing. Almost everything is of importance and of interest. I call her twice a week in order to find out how she is, whether the plants are growing and to report on what is going on in our lives.

She is over 70 and has long become accustomed to modern technology. She is used to e-banking, using the mobile phone and the internet and has everything under control. But unfortunately she spends the summer months in the summer house, which is located at a dead spot. Internet does not work and there is no mobile phone reception in the house either. We always have the same situation. I call her and catch her in the house. I cannot hear her but I know what is happening. She runs in whatever she is wearing to the garden so that I can hear her. The fact that every now and then she is only wearing a pyjama is irrelevant, nobody sees her anyway! Then she tries to find a spot in the garden, where it is reasonably possible to talk on the phone. Nevertheless very often I only understand parts of a sentence and I have to ask her to repeat the sentence. Sometimes more than once. Thank god that no one of us is hard of hearing. Not yet!!!

Now my oldest daughter is for two months on an exchange programme in South Korea. To talk by phone is for my mother and daughter terribly expensive but my mother wants to know the news from South Korea. So I was thinking of a solution on how to do it. And our conference call looks like this: I call my mother on her mobile phone and she runs to the garden, at best to the cherry tree; then I call my oldest one via Skype and put my mobile phone on speakers. That way we have a wonderful three generations call between Zurich, Seoul and a small village in the middle of the forest at the German-Czech border. With my special mobile subscription at ridiculously low costs.

I love today’s technology. How else would I have known that my daughter had painted her finger nails in this summer’s in-colour. Orange and light green!! Sounds terribly but look pretty good. My mother does not want to copy my daughter. And thus my world is wonderfully all right.