Anyone remember Smokie?

They were a British band from the 60-70s who had the hit "Living next door to Alice". I remember the song from my childhood. They apparently had a comeback in the 90s with one of the more awful comedians Roy Chubby Brown. Sadly, I remember him too from my childhood. They remade the 'Alice' song as "Who the F*#K is Alice?", becuase when touring, the audience would shout out "Who the F*@K is Alice?" after the line: "for 24 years I've been living next door to Alice". It also turns out that this happened in Ireland mostly... which brings me to why I'm writing about Smokie. I have an Irish friend who was shopping in la Coop recently. That's the 'step up' from Migros grocery store. The piped music wafting across the store that day was Smokie.... with the remade Alice song and no bleeps! Even in America, I've never heard piped in music with the 'Eff' word. All the Swiss house wifeys were singing along, and so was my friend.
I've found the complete story in Wikipedia.

La Chasse!

A couple of weekends ago, we went to a 'Chasse dinner', and I forgot my camera. This Autumnal event is based around game (of the meat variety!) in many guises. This particular dinner was organised by the International Club, and was held at an old restaurant in the middle of nowhere. We're lucky we found it. The room was completely covered in branches, leaves and shrubbery! As we sat looking around, we began to see all the stuffed animals lurking within: badgers, stoats, rabbits, deer (ofcourse), owls, baby owls(!), birds and birds, everything that can be killed in the canton of Neuchatel. It set the stage for a really, really tasty, multicourse meal. First course: (Trois Terrines de Chasse) a selection of cold meats and pickled veg...mmmm gamey. Second course: (Feuillete aux Champignons des Bois) a light millefeuille pastry with wild mushrooms and the booziest cream sauce I've ever tasted. Third course: (Filet de Sanglier, Nouilletes, Garnitures de Chasse) tender wild boar with all the trimmins'. Fourth course: (Selle de Chevreuil, Spatzli, Garnitures de Chasse) the pinnacle of the experience. Deer (female- apparently the best) with a Swiss speciality of Spatzli and preserved pear in more boozy gravy. This was topped by desert of Myrtilles et Parfait Vanille. Myrtilles are a little like bluberries, but they are really quite tasteless. I was completely replete. Yes, a tad guilty for comsuming all those cute animals too. But hey, I've never eaten Macdonalds.....

Thanksgiving The Second

Happy Thanksgiving to all and sundry!
We celebrated with fish and a trip to Coop. The boys, especially Allie have been floored by the dreaded lurgy. A succession of sore throats and high fevers have left him rather tired and crabby. He even had a trip to the hospital for an ultrsound on his giant neck lymph node. They are now on the mend, and I am fielding advice from French speakers: "Start feeding them properly", "Give them vitamins", "Never let them go out without a hat", "keep them away from the swimming pool". I am following it all studiously. Sometimes I get the feeling they think it's because the boys are American ;)

Sadly, Kim, Christian and Loic won't be coming for the feast this weekend as Walter is heading of To Copenhagen to get a preview of the weather to come here. They'll be coming closer to Christmas, so we can roll it all together and have a bash to make the neighbours jealous.

My parents 'dropped in' for the weekend and got to experience the apex of Allie's illness. There was one sunny and mild day where Toby and I showed them the 'Collegial'.

The cloisters there are small and beautiful. Nearly all the old buildings in the Neuchatel area are constructed using a warm yellow sandstone, dug up from Hauterive.




Guillaume Farel was big in Neuchatel. When I first saw the statue, I thought it must be John Knox....



Where's the top?



The walk up the very steep hill to the Collegial is through the older part of the town. There are a couple of very nice fountains with blokes on them. Who they are, I don't know yet.


A viaduct on the way down.


Sick kids and (soon to be sick) Grandparents on the couch.





Allie is interested in cameras, so time was spent during recuperation:











































Autumnal fun with Daddy.... while Mummy watches TV and eats chocolate. hehehe.


Mummy felt guilty and came up to run it off.

Brrr It's Cold

The view from Allie's window.


We're well on the down hill slope to winter. Hats and gloves have been bought. Many hours have been spent trying on boots and we have missed the local "trocs" again. Since skiing is such a big deal here, every commune has a troc during the first week of November. It's rather like a rummage or jumble sale. People bring winter sporting goods to sell and most of the proceeds go to the local schools (usually). People can also take a little money home with them (nice). As an aside, did you know that the Swiss are paid in 13 'monthly' installments every year? They get an extra pay check in December. A good idea since every commune and church has a Christmas market all through December. I've also noticed that every shoe shop we have visited has a big TV and seating area for children. The boys watched some of Ice Age, The Wild and French cartoons while I ferried boots over to try. What a tops idea! We didn't make it to the trocs because both boys were sequentially sicksicksick for 3 weeks. They both had high fevers that lasted ~7 days, and they were really tired. The silver lining of that was me having a clean house and many cups of tea while reading the paper. However, I also killed the old, workhorse laptop that resided in the kitchen. It was great for email and radio.... and storing all my photos from the last year.... that I haven't backed up..... blahblah silly me blahblah... I'm learning about the insides of a computer, though. Something rather related to this is our TV. It was the most expensive thing we had ever bought (barring a car) and we treated ourselves to this nice flat screen TV when we moved here. A couple of months ago, Allie was launching toy cars off the couch. He launched one into the TV where it left a star shaped dent, but the picture was watchable. Days later, Toby launched a car AT the TV and since he is such a good thrower, he got it bang in the middle and made it completely unwatchable. We had been without a TV up till a week or so ago, and it was really nice. I would recommend it to any of you non-pseuds who would want to try. But then I caved. I got a tuner to put in the computer, so now in Swiss style, we have everything in one place, saving space and energy ;) It rocks. We still don't watch that much TV, since someone's usually on the computer...hehehe.

The farmer's market still goes on through the winter. The boys get a free carrot every time we go. I get the stinkiest cheese in the world. You can watch it disintegrate before your eyes. Walter and the boys are in there somewhere (in new hats).


We were all set for the International Club halloween party this year. Toby was going to get Allie's old dog costume an Allie was going to be a robot. Toby was sick that weekend, so Allie came with me. I had to help out by painting faces and the children were nice. The weekend after that, our friends Herb and Vero had a wee Halloween party. Again, Toby was sick and Allie got sick that evening.
They even got to carve pumpkins. Allie drew the face and Walter cut it out. Very menacing. No pic due to computer death. Here's a pic of Herb and Vero's do: L to R- AllieBot, SherrifBigHat, FairlyJulia and Jordan (a neighbour friend).


I'm still in the middle of sorting how to do photies on this computer and other minor details.... I'm also trying to recover the minutes of a meeting that I had nearly written up and left on the laptop.


Something to mark the start of Autumn in Saint Blaise, is "Epouvantails" or scarecrows (closest approx.). People make funny and interesting scarecrows for the month of October. Why, I don't know, but it brightens the grey days. I found a link
to the 2004 ones, but none more recent. I forgot to take photies, and by the time I had remembered my camera, they had been taken down..... but these are good. It's also "Chasse" season. That is, hunting! The shops are full of (I have to admit) tasty deer..... from New Zealand!!!! There is a scarcity of local fauna due to regulations on how many deer can be hunted. It's one per house or something like that, so anyone who catches one keeps it and doesn't sell to the restaurants. Walter and I are going to a tradtitional chasse dinner next weekend.... mmmmm.

The boys are both well now, and have enough energy to make a lot of noise and fight. Toby is in a big boy bed, and pleads every night to go back to his crib. I sometimes forget there's a sensitive wee boy in the solid exterior!