I love raclette, and I love raclette.

As part of our "Swissimlation", we went out and bought a raclette machine the other week. This is a piece of pure joy on many levels: hardly any food prep, really tasty cheese, hardly any clean up, can be set up at a moment's notice, must be eaten with pickled goods.... endless reasons. The machine is a kind of grill with a 'hotplate' on top for doing veg. You put slices of cheese on wee trays and put them under the grill till the cheese bubbles. You then bung it on some boiled potatoes.

Emma demonstrates cheese melting in its 'tray'
This is the best way to experience it, but here's us digging in:

The boys watch asthe cheese slides onto the potatoes...mmmm...


My parents also visited for a couple of days in between getting ready to move house. While they were here, Allie made himself a cheese, apple and orange sandwich. He ate the whole thing:


We went into Neuchatel one afternoon and my dad spotted the tram to Boudry, so we took a ride to Auvernier (with a nice coat of arms. All communes have one). We walked along the beach and had some swans following for a while.


During one of the sunnier weekends recently, we took the stabilizers off Allie's bike. When he concentrated he did rather well. The rest of the time, he was looking around too much.