Too busy!

I don;t think I'll be able to post for a while. I've procrastinted myself into a corner with the dress I'm making for Jamie's wedding (a week on Saturday). So here's a taste of what will be coming:
1) Our ferry trip form St Blaise to Neuch.
2) Our trip to Ticino to stay with Kim, Christian and Loic (man it was good)
3) The list of pros n cons of living en Suisse. I think I'll put that out on Sept the 20th. That's the date we moved into our house in St Blaise.... 7 weeks after moving out of Cali.
4) err... that's it.
5) Probably photos of Jamie and Susan's wedding. Still haven't found a cow bell and I hear them every morning!

Did you know.....

..... that big spiders make significant quantities of poo? Saint Blaise is spider mecca. They all come here to live on our windows. From where I stand right now, I can count 8 in the living room and 9 on the windows... that's just a glance. They're all very active and big- ~0.5-2" across. Our French teacher says that vacuuming them up is no good. They just crawl out again! Anyhoo, I've been noticing lots of little black spots and splats around the places that spiders like to 'hang'. Then today I actually saw it happen! Bleurgh. They're still better than those freaky millipedes (see Sept 05).

Where did you go on vacation?

For the last 1.5 months every Swiss I know has been asking that question (or where are you going on vacation?). You're nothing if you don't take a holiday here. Our neighbours went on cruises to the carribean, the south of France and Majorca.... I took the boys to bonny Scotland and we had just as much fun, and almost as much sunshine! Well, it only rained on the last day. We spent a lovely week at my parents:

Uncle Robert holds Allie in his favourite postition, while a lone hand tickles.


Robert the boy magnet.


I couldn't find a good pic. of my Dad....


Uncle Jamie, Uncle Robert, me and the wee boys.


My mum has an MG which Allie thinks is super cool since he gets to ride in the front with the top down.


The Kelvingrove Art Gallery openned up in July after 3 years of renovations. We met an old friend Sally (Hi Sally!!) there for lunch and artistic inspiration. I'm not sure what was rennovated, but the stuffed animals had been thouroughly dusted. It is famous for the Dali painting: Christ of Saint John of the Cross.


We took a wee trip to Troon Beach. My Dad took the boys down to the water, while I lay around ;)


Another event that happilly coincided with our visit was Susan's Hen night. Here's the lucky girl, well on the way to a happy evening!


We go back to the UK in a couple of weeks for Jamie and Susan's wedding. I haven't started making my dress yet.... well I've cut it out and hummed and hawed about whether it'll look OK. Allie's going to be a page boy (he presents the lucky horse shoe to the couple) and I think he should present a lucky cow bell!

Allie va a l'ecole!

That's right, our wee Allie is now part of the 'school machine'. Yesterday afternoon we hiked up the hill to some portacabins (quite nice all things considered. Our French teacher told us they were a temporary measure when she was in school) and waited for the teacher to appear at the door. There are 13 children in his class (mostly boys!) and I recognised a few of them (and their mothers) from around the village. The teacher is very confidant and has the reputation of making children do her will without raising her voice. That is the opposite of my experience at home ;) She brought us all in, tinkled some wind chimes and told the children to cross their arms and be quiet. They did it! The parents sat in a circle while the children played and the teacher explained the ins and outs of the school. I understood mooooost of it... i think. I suppose time will tell. There seemed to be a lot about birthday etiquette! She said a few times to the children that they would be kiss their parents goodbye and we would leave soon. When the time came, Allie seemed quite composed if a little nervous, and only one boy clung to his mum. I then went on to a "Pedibus" meeting. This is a fab Swiss thing for walking children to school. Children gather at the designated points with their parents, then a 'conductrice' leads them to school while they hold onto a rope. Parents take turns being the conducteur(trice). This is only for the 4 and 5 year olds, which is nice as I don't think I'm quite ready to handle children misbehaving in French. All the children (even if they don't Pedibus) are given reflective vest thingies for walking to school. Allie's second day was today and he was very happy to go: we made sure we explained that he would have to go every day.


Toby has been getting acquainted with the creche, and for a while wasn't enjoying it. Allie went with him on his last day to show him the ropes. We had made a cake in honour of Allie's last day and now Toby always asks if there will be cake....

He told Walter today that he had "a little bit of fun, but not so much". Things are looking up!

Happy 1st and 3rd of August!

1st August
On this day in 1291 (although not recognised till some 400 years later) 3 cantons got together and the Swiss Confederation was born. More info. here. It's an excuse for the Swiss to go Fire work crayzeeee. They're freely available here, and for the week leading up to the big night, youths let them off just as you're slipping into the land of nod. All the communes have big shows and partys, and it's a national holiday. Walter took the day off, and we felt very Swiss :) Sadly, we couldn't partake of the fireworks since they started at 10 pm and later, but wee had a nice view from our bedroom window. We could see alot of communes around the lake doing it too. It rather reminded me of the Bay Area on 4th July...


We took a windy walk to the beach to watch the windsurfers and kite surfers. It turns out the tradition (although not that old) is to have brunch at a farm on the 1st. It's suppopsed to be a chance for the farms to showcase their wares and for the city folk to see that country folk aren't that strange.



3rd August
On the 3rd of August last year, we said good bye to the good ole US and headed to Europe. It'll be a year 'en Suisse' on the 15th August. I'll discuss the pros and cons then....

Herb, Vero et al. came over for a BBQ, so we took a wee walk to the park afterwards.






I bought our grill from Migros because it was small and cheap (their own brand 'M-Budget'). Friends have since told us there was an article in the local paper saying that they will be collector's items soon, as only a limited number were produced. There's a pic here .

The church has been working on a new 'hall' since before we moved in. The patch of ground left over after the building has had a lot of TLC put into it. Four men would come every day for a while, till the soil with a machine, remove all the stones with a machine, flatten the ground with a machine, rake it by hand and flatten again! They set up a sprinkler that goes every hour. We expected a magnificent lawn of perfect proportions. Look closely at the pic.