Back to the fun stuff

Last weekend was social bliss chez Stockwell. Friday night we put the boys to bed with monitors and popped next door for Fondue fun! Matt and Anne are really nice and eccentric. He's Irish originally, but grew up in France. He has many, crazy Irish relatives who he regaled us with funny stories about. Anne is Breton- 'q-celt' born and bred. It's funny to hear them talk about the Swiss from a french perspective. Firstly, the bread and patisseries are rubbish compared to France (I've heard that from another French too!). Secondly, Swiss children have too much freedom, which is probably truer these days as more women have to work, and daycare and schools haven't caught up yet. Lastly, they're not the friendliest of people. I don't really agree that the Swiss aren't friendly- they're more reserved. I llove the breads and sweets too, so I ain't having any in France. I don't want to ruin it! Well, it was a lovely evening and hopefully we'll have them round for some festive cheer on Christmas Eve :)

We hhad grand plans of going to Ikea (45 mins away ish), but after faffing around we decided to the beautiful village of Valangin at the opening of the Val de Ruz. It's higher than us, so there was plenty of cold, crusty snow (much to the boys' delight). We walked up to the Chateau and took a look inside. It turns out we were visiting on the last day of opening before winter closing, so admission was free!

The boys enjoy the toddle up to the castle.


All the rooms in the chateau had heaters like the one below. They're huge, and all have different tiling, and I just wanted to hug them :) The castle was rather cold.

It was full of beautiful, old furniture, a nice gun and sword collection (Walter and the boys spent a while there) and a really nice lace collection. I'm going to try my hand at the Neuchatel style of lace (when I have time and can read French really well) as I bought a pattern book.
After our culturalt visit, we stopped by a patisserie for lunch. I've remembered something that the Swiss do really well- sandwiches! Really. They're flavourful , have all kinds of ingredients and breads and are always fresh. Now my mouth's watering. We sat in the nice warm cafe part, the boys tucked happilly into their sandwiches and we read the paper! What a joy :)


Saturday afternoon at 3pm I got a call asking if we would like to come to the International Club party, as someone had gotten sick. We made it (thanks to Anne and Matt) and enjoyed a truely sumptuous meal and interesting company. We met a man who's in R&D for Philip Morris. He wouldn't talk about his job :( Actually, he wasn't that nice either. I got the impression that I was 'just the little woman'. We also met a man from my neck of the woods. He grew up in a town called Symington, on the eastern edge of sunny Lanarkshire..... what a small world. He's also a physicist... oy vey ;) His wife commutes between Zurich for work and Neuchatel to see him. I don't know the laws about gambling here, but the club also put on blackjake, horse racing and roulette, all run by members. It could be turned into a regualr thing. We missed gambling due to a crying Toby that was frightening his babysitters!

Sunday afternoon, Herb, Vero, Julia and baby Alec came for Tacos. I found everything I needed for it (for huge sums of money- 5 flour tortillas for 5 CHF!!!).

Herb, Alec, Julia, Tobe, Walter, Allie, all replete with taco goodness.


Vero, Herb, Alec, Julia, Toby, Walter...where's Allie? He Took the pic!


Allie and Toby love the Sheas, and Allie really like splaying with Julia. She's Toby's age and I think she's more amenable to his 'directions' hehehe. It was a really nice afternoon.


Yesterday evning, Walter took Allie to see Pere Noel at the church. He came home with a goody bag. Peanuts in their shell feature a lot in goody bags here. I think it's a winter delicacy. Walter reminded me they're bar snacks in the US ;)



The best is last. We went to the port yesterday to find the man who saved us. He's the "Cantonnier du port" for St-B. I think he's in charge of running it day to day. I was so happy to see him- there were mercis, swiss kisses and hugs all round. He's a big bear of a man (lucky for us) and chatted away in French. We understood most of it and (hopefully) conveyed what we could. He said he fished a woman out at this time last year, dead. the port closes tomorow for a month, so there'll be no workers there at all. I'm thinking we may not go to the park for a month.... Anyway, I got a couple of pics of our hero with the wee 'bagger' Tobe :)




Just to the right of Jean-Claude's shoulder, where there's a big, white boat, is where Toby fell in.

Now, we're looking forward to Paris on Saturday :) Woohoo!