Downward Dog

We met our friends Vero and Herb last weekend. It was a lovely warm day and the whole village was down at the 'lake park'. There's a little cafe/restaurant right beside the park, where one can sit out, supping a wee coffee while watching the kids playing, or getting dirty, or fighting or whatever it is they do. For some reason, the children were standing on their heads:

What yoga masters!


Vero, Julia (2) and Alec (10 months).



Big News!

Mr Toby has been very motivated to wear big boy underwear, since his brother does. In fact, he wants to do everything Allie does. If Allie takes off his sweater, Toby wants to too. Even if he's blinkin' cold. Anyhoo, he's been having the occassional poo on the potty. At the same time as doing that, he's learned to put his thumbs up. Can't get too happy, that's countered by laziness on his part ;)

Nouvelle Star!!!

Yes, it's an international phenomenon: "Pop Idol", "American Idol" etc has come to France, and ofcourse Suisse Romande, as "Nouvelle Star". Out of 14 potential candidates, there's a Neuchateloise. And she's still going strong. After 10 weeks (out of 15). Now all she has to do is win, just before Switzerland wins the World Cup in June ;) Then this'll be the best place in the World...hehehe.

Vote for 'Cindy' from Neuchatel, folks, if just for her cool 'weave'.

Easter and whatnot

It's a little strange being in a land with 'religious' holidays again. Last weekend was Easter and everything shut down. Not a shop was open on Friday, Sunday or Monday, so we had to plan carefully. Especially since our freezer only holds a couple of packs of butter and some fish fingers. On Saturday I decided to go to Migros when it openned (8am), arriving at 8:30 actually. The parking lot was packed and the store was busier than I've ever seen it. It was insanity. Everyone was shopping like the end of the world was coming. Having made it out alive, we spent a nice, quiet few days with Walter who hasn't been around much. Friday saw more bike practicing by the lake, stone skiffing and sunbathing. Yup, it's very nice weather at the mo'. Saturday we dyed eggs, and Sunday the Easter bunny came, ate some of his carrot and left a couple of chocolate rabbits for the boys. Toby ate the rest of his carrot when he got up and we let them loose on the choc. I think they poisoned themselves on it- can one really get chocolate poisoning? They became all lethargic, saying they didn't feel well and moaned a lot. I don't think they've gone off chocolate, though, so we won't be doing the whole pack of fags thing if they ever try smoking. The village of Saint Blaise had an egg hunt on Sunday. By the end of the day it was egg carnage. A bunch of wee snits had pelted them against every hard object they could. What a waste.

Here's a visual of some of the stuff we've been doing:

Round Eastertime, it rained and rained. That was coupled with a warm up that melted the snow. The water at the port went from 8ft down to flowing over the sidewalk! Some boy entertainment included fort building:


We tried walking around the lake in Marin. Apparently, Lac de Neuchatel is famous for having walking access all the way around it. We got stuck, as a lot of the paths had been overrun with water. Behind where the boys are swinging there used to be a big beach, not water.


Yup, that's a roundabout. Allie and one of our neighbour chidren, Fiona went on it during one of our 'bog' walks.


When the weather started heating up we took a little stroll:
This is a low tunnel that goes under the railway tracks to the lake park. It also carries the stream that runs through StB out to the lake. I don't think i'd like to be there when a train goes over.


One of ALL the boys' favourite things to do is chuck stones in the lake. Walter has perfected his skiffing to more than 8 per stone! Toby has perfected his throwing to getting the rock in the lake and making himself wet at the same time.


The neccessary stop for refreshments on a warm spring day.


This is a view of our house from the church yard. Walter is standing under the 3 living room windows. To the left of those are the kitchen windows. On the nextfloor up are our bedroom on the right and the spare room on the left. The top floor has Toby's room on the left and Allie's on the right. Our house basically occupies the side of the building. We also have the first windows round the side. It's a nice set up, as the house has sunshine all day.... when it's sunny ;)



Last week Walter had to go to the US Embassy in Bern to get more pages for his passport. Since it's only 40 mins by train, the boys and I came to see what it had to offer the wee men. The embassy is 10 mins by bus from the center, and it also turns out that the zoo is right beside it! We left Walter at the embassy and sauntered along the river side (VERY green, fast moving and full) to the zoo. I'd just like to say a little about the embassy. It is ofcourse surrounded by men with guns and barricades. When I went to the embassy in London (it was ~14 years ago) I was very impressed with the giant marines in their cool uniforms standing gaurd. It left an impression on me. These days, security it seems, is farmed out to private companies (men in black uniforms with 'Protectus' on their hats). Not nearly as impressive and not leaving me with a secure feeling..... Sadly, the building that 'The Borne Identity' led us to believe is occupied by the US embassy is not the same ;) Anyway, the zoo is very nice indeed. It's not the exotic kind- horses, alpaca, nutria (!), pigs, goats. Further along are native bird and other native animal enclosures. There was a very nice restaurant and park to play in. It was a very successful trip (meaning we did something the boys enjoyed and there were no melt downs) and Walter got to take the train with us.

The boys enjoy a hot chocolate break beside the river.


Allie and pelicans?

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.

I just put away our winter clothes....

Yesterday it was 21degC (70F) and sunny. Today it's 0degC (32F)and snowing. Yesterday, I got sunburn at the park. Today, I got an earful from Toby, walking up the hill with blizzards hurting his face.

April 5th, 2006. 3pm. oyvey.

We're not in California any more, Toto

Yesterday I saw a bumper sticker that said: " Tobacco man and darn proud of it". For those of you who don't know, Philip Morris has it's only European factory in Neuchatel. I think they employ ~2000-3000 in Switzerland. All I know is that our health insurance is at least twice that of the rest of Switzerland.

California's cool

Maybe it's because everything's made in China now, but all the chidren's clothing here has English on it. Usually with an American slant: "Rockin'", "I'm Cute", "Boyz Rule" etc. I came all this way to have my children look European... da*#it! Califoria makes a big showing too. There's a California bike for kids, a line of haircare products and the most recent one I've found- 'California Sun' scent washing up liquid. I bought it on sale (introducing a new scent), and it's flourescent pink with a weird fruity/institutional smell. There's a picture of a woman in sunglasses, laughing on the front. Walter has also pointed out the graffiti. All the curse words are Engish. Plenty of 'F*$# la police'. I guess we're exporting something after all!

Jerry Springer

Is it really so wrong to learn one's French from the Jerry Springer show? We're getting valuable insight into colloquialisms, pop culture and slang.... that's our excuse.

ciao ciao, mecs!

You can tell it's spring by.....

....the smell of the dog poo! Now that it's warming up, all the petrified poop is thawing. People here aren't very enlightened about their dogs. They let them poop all over the place. It's disgusting. Morons. There are special bags and bins everywhere for the disposal of 'ca-ca de chien', and even when people use the bags they leave them in the street, making a nice poo bomb if one perchance steps on it... while chasing a running child down the hill....

On to nicer aspects of spring- Walter's birthday!!!!!
Sadly, he was travelling all last week (on his birthday), but it gave us a chance to prepare. There was a "hot and cold' treasure hunt for his presents, suggested by Allie. We had a nice walk in the countryside near Hauterive, followed by beaucoup de birthday cake, then birthday fondue......mmmmm.

It started so nicely, pottering along together.


Poor Toby got very tired and had to lie down a few times.


By the 'lake park' there's a cool, steel sculpture that all the children play in and climb on. They regularly scale up the 12 ft to the top and Allie is on his way too.

The Meat that we Eat

The Swiss are good at meat. The 'charcuterie/boucherie' section of the big Migros up the road, has the following on offer:
beef (for humans and pets), veal, lamb, chicken, pigeon (and all those wee flying animals), turkey, duck, goose, deer, rabbit,horse, pork (for humans and pets), goat, a HUGE selection of sausages and dried meats. I found at least 5 'different'ways of curing and drying pork. When we first arrived, we thought that 'civet du cerf' had something to do with the civet cat (big in the news in Asia at the time)and thought the Swiss really were exotic. Civet actually means stew. I have developed a taste for rabbit, but it took a while to get used to preparing those little haunches. Just shows how far removed we are from our food now. My mum learned how to skin and prepare rabbit when she was young...... I've noticed that the meat also has a more intense flavour here, more 'meaty'. It's also really expensive, so we eat less of it- a good thing. I think animals are treated a bit better here, although I haven't looked into it.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Gig

On Wednesday we watched the sun go down over LAX with Norm and Helen, then got on the plane to Zurich... What a sad bunch we were. On the up side, the flight was pretty uneventful. Our baggage weight came in under the maximum- no charges this time! Allie slept on the floor, Toby slept, cried and fidgeted and people around us were nice through it all. Next time I swear I'm drugging him. Any suggestions? We arrived a good half hour early, picked up all the bags (before some business class people..hahaha) and made the train to Neuchatel. The poor wee boys only lost it half an hour before we got in. The house was even in one piece with no bad smells! Apparently, for a couple of days before we came home there was snow "the likes of which had not been seen in a long while". It was rained away before we could see it, but it's been snowing off and on since. The wind's not biting any more and the temp's above zero ;) The jet lag is a real bugger going in this direction. The boys were up from midnight to 4am last night. Walter and I finally went to sleep at 5, and we all woke at 11. Hooray for TV I say.

We're watching the movie "Chocolat" at the moment. I've never seen it because the hype put me off, but it's actually very entertaining. The village reminds me a lot of Saint Blaise! We need a chocolotarie with a saucy wench.

So, here are some last pics of an absolutely fab trip. Thanks Helen and Norm, for everything. The boys and I feel like totally new people :)

Toby loooves cats, especially Sangi, a Laffery cat.


Drew celebrates his 14th birthday. Toby is really the one who blew out his candles.


The boys on Redondo Beach pier, scene of many an "O.C" episode.


There's a really cool aquarium called SEAlab beside the 2nd street beach (Hermosa Beach) that Helen likes to take the boys to. It's a super place, with plenty of hands on stuff (sea slugs feel revolting!).
Allie beside a pool of native California fish.


Walter and Tobe at the pool


Grandma and the boys enjoy a last trip to the beach

Time Flies

We're winding down our whirlwind visit to Cali. We didn't see nearly enough family or friends, and yet are totally knackered from all of our comings and goings! We're sad that we missed a lot of people, but hey, it's more incentive to come and see us ;)
Here's a snippet of what we've been up to.

Cousins Drew (14), Brendan (16), Toby (2), Allie (4) in Redondo Beach.


Grandma Helen and Grandpa Norm enjoy a beautiful day at Veterans' Park in RB


Friend Kim and her adorable son Loic (8 months). They'll be on the same plane back to Zurich!!


Grandpa and Tobe- what a team!


Cousins Wini (5) and Anna (11) in RB. Wini just lost her first tooth :)


Bathtime for wee cousins.


Helen and babby Elliot (4 weeks) enjoy some Berkeley sun.


Two Witort men.


KyeeeeeeOooot!


Elliott tells a stunned audience what time it is.


Soccer with Allie.


Allie's new girlfriend Kate.


Matt and Ranas' new dawg 'Zinc'. Trop cute aussi!


A jaunt up Indian Rock. The pinnacle of a lovely day.


We return in 3 days. I'm very sad.

A long day's journey into.... yet more day

That's what makes me a little queasy when we fly multy time zones. The whole flight west was in daylight. Anyhoo, Walter saw us off in Zurich on Tuesday last. When we checked in we found out that the flight was unbelievably empty. Since I've been travelling with children, I've always tried to make it easier for us with bags. I thought I'd topped my best this time: 1 month abroad- stuff for me and 2 (dirty) boys- carry on for me and 2 (must be entertained) boys. This came to 1 quite large case and 1 carry on... and maybe my purse with a laptop in it. The (not enough to do) woman behind the counter told us we'd have to pay and excess baggage fee for the case as it was too heavy, and check the carry on because it was too *heavy* also. I think my expression made her reconsider, and she said we could stuff some of the carry on into a plastic bag if I could fid one! I pretended to do that and then put everything back. No-one asked anyone that I could see about carry on 'weight' when we boarded.... Do Iook like I invite officiousness from people? The excess baggage came out to CHF 40! I plan to take the maximum number of bags on the way back ,with nearly the max. weight each (sorry Walter)!

We got a whole row to ourselves, and settled in for the 12 hours. Swiss air must have some money to spend. We were on one of their new A340s, complete with personal entertainment center for each seat, special reclining seats in coach, wider seats in coach and super friendly hostybirds. 2 of the 4 video screens weren't working in our row though... esp after Toby was through with them. The boys should have been asleep 6 hours into it, but they weren't in the mood ofcourse. Then with 4 or 5 hours to go Allie threw up all over himself and his seat. Lucky for me (with no spare cothes of my own) he missed me. It turned out to be some kind of stomach bug as he kept it up every half hour until we landed, and he had a temp. :( Our section cleared right out then. Nobody seemed too judgemental, though. Better clientele than United. Since I was travelling alone with the boys, I thought I should get some help at the airport and asked the head hosty. She said she would arrange it and told me to wait until everyone had disembarked. We duely did, and there was a woman waiting there from the airline, talking to a Swiss family. There was also a wheelchair that was whisked away before I could get it. The woman marched off with this family (man, woman, 2 kids in strollers- what was their problem???) and we traipsed behind. Allie really needed to be carried. I eventually shouted at her to stop and had a go at her for not helping us. She got us to the front of the line in customs and passport control, and she helped with the bags. Not so bad after all. The best part was seeing Helen (Walter's mum) waiting for us :)

Since we arrived, we've all had the stomach bug and colds. Is it just me, or is it a bad year for bugs? We've watched a lot of TV in the middle of the night and generally hung out with family. The boys are in their element. They're really enjoying the half naked trips outside. It's a rare treat these days. There's not much planned, just grandparent, aunt, uncle and cousin time :)

Cousins Drew and Anna take a swing with Allie


Grandma swings with Allie and Tobe


Aunt Sherry looks on while Toby waters... stuff


The photo doesn't show Anna up to her knees in mud with Mr Allie who's now as tall as her.


Grandma Helen and Grandpa Norm had a birthday party for Allie and Toby. Drew made cookie cakes for both... lucky wee boys.

Good Day Sunshine

A sample of what the Stockwells are up to at Redondo Beach. I'll follow up later with a review of Swiss Airlines and a summary of the (always it seems) 'exciting' trip over!

Date Changes

We've set definite dates for being in the Bay Area: Arrive Feb 23 evening and leave March 2nd morning. That means we'll get a weekend to visit friends and family :)

They just seem to have had some kind of siren test here.... we know where our fallout shelter is too ;)

"Oui" Boys

I picked up Allie from creche today, and heard him understanding French! His teacher asked him to do something, he said 'oui' and promptly did it. He seems to be finally settling in well and we may have him in another morning. It would be nice if it was with older children. Either way, in August he's getting totally immersed at the Ecole Enfantin every morning, and Tobe will take his place at the creche. Any suggestions about what I can do with this new found "free" time? I was thinking- faff around, look at the clock, then go pick him up ;)

The boys have been fighting a lot recently- wee baggers. I walked into our bedroom one morning, wondering why it was so quiet (and quite nervous about what I would find) and thinking they were up to no good. What do you know- they had sat themselves down on the rocking chair and Allie was telling Tobe stories. I even got some pics, which will not be repeated for at least a year I reckon.









Walter took Allie to the snow a couple of weekends ago, as he hasn't seen Les Bugnenets yet. They played, but no skiing was "faired". He noticed a lot of parents teaching chilldren on the bunny slope themselves. We might start that way. Walter ofcourse took pics of the jollity:

Allie gets ready for a spin.


Allie goes.


Allie rests.



If I ever get peeved with the state of cleanliness in our house, I've found a good TV programme (in french) which elevates my mood: "C'est Du Propre"
There are some really manky French people out there ;) It's rather helping my learning too.

So, we'll be stateside from the 8th Feb. Walter's joining us on the 22nd and we're up north from the 27th to the 3rd March. Much ethnic cuisine will be consummed, and sweatshop clothing bought during that time......