Elephants and wee boys oh my...

We got an excited call from a friend today, saying the elephants were in town. Well, in sleepy Neuchatel who wouldn't jump at the chance of seeing them. The Knie Circus is visiting, and as part of a tradition they bring the elephants out for a walk through town to the Place des Halles, where they 'say hello' to the public. It would have been nice to see them on their walk, but we got to see them pretty close in the square.

6 large elephants facing you is quite awe inspiring. Especially when they each have their own handlers with (what look like) cattle prods.


A handler gave out fruit, then walked an elephant around. As I took this pic Allie was right at his foot!


I'm not keen on animals in circuses and it was quite sad to see the elephants, especially when they were doing tricks. I've been close enough now to say they really do have 'intelligent' eyes.

Allie's Favourite Game.
Alasdair likes to set up 'snack time' and 'tea time'. He needs a wee place to sit, a wee place for his toys (or Toby, depending on who's available!), a table and a bunch of stuff to eat.
At my parents' house. Look who gets the comfy chair!


On our porch with his teddy.


Walter's in Istanbul (not COnstantinople) this week. It's rather hot there, so he and the wee boys got haircuts this weekend.
You can't tell them apart!


Walter can do push ups with at least 40 lbs on his back. I won't show the after shot...


This week is the last week of school for the Swiss till the middle of August. Allie's 'jardain d'enfants' ends and the circus class. What am I going to do?????

Hopp Suisse!!!

Well, the Swiss hopes of World Cup glory have been shattered. In a rather dishevelled and uninspired way. Before the previous game, the streets were full of very excited and noisy people (something rare). Horns were honking in an irritating way into the wee hourrs, and claxons were going off when there were goals. Last night was subdued from the beginning, and it almost seemed as if Switzerland was expecting to lose. And they seem like such nice boys :) None of those silly footballer hairdos and attitudes.

The super thing about our varied nationalities and location is that we still have a couple of teams in the running. England are tops, then Germany and France for some of our friends. Better not be seen in a French shirt around here, though. I noticed they were all on sale in Migros. I will not be supporting Brazil. They're too good and have plenty of people after them.

Out of the mouths of babes....

The other day I drove to a friend's house with the boys in tow. This was the first time we had visited, so naturally I got lost. As I was driving around I was muttering "crapping crapcrap crap". Allie's voice piped up from the back: "Shouldn't you say Dammit, Mummy?"
Aaaww. How sweet.

Zurich!

I'm playing catch-up with all my posts. We're onto our day trip to Zurich a couple of weeks ago. Kim and I thought it would be nice to go to a spa for some (belated) Mother's Day fun. She organised a package at the Hamam Spa. Sorry about the language, but the pics show what it's like on the inside....mmmm.... steamy. We were well and truely steamed, pummelled and mudded. It was faboo, and I highly recommend it to anyone with time in Zurich. I have a few pics of the day, but most of mine was spent inside, and Walter didn't want to be bogged down with the camera.
We met Christian at the train station, then walked through the beautiful old part of the town, up to a park area with a lovely view. This was also one of the first hot days.

The view down to the river from the park.

Loic's still ceeeoote, although blurry.

Toby is a very different animal to his brother. He wanted a bucket that Loic was holding, and this pic captures the moment of Tobe pushing the poor wee man over because he wouldn't give it up.

Kim met us with Starbucks all round. Hoorah for Kim! We walked down, and along the river to a lunch place,complete with sausages, music and beer. Kim and I girded our loins with a stein for the grueling afternoon of spaing ahead of us.

On the train home I was remarkably calm with the wee boys.... which hasn't lasted. I need a good spaing every week!

For Father's Day poor Walter got a fried breakfast and a lie-in..... and a couple of bottles of Absinthe from the Absinthe Fair. We tried it after looking up how. It's not all that...
The sugar lump and water have been added... the tasting will now commence.

The Saint Blaise Foire (not to be confused with the 3rd February celebrations)

In the summer time Switzerland comes alive with all kinds of fetes, events and outdoor activities. Each village has some sort of 'Welcome Spring' weekend, where there are stalls, food, competitions and weird old rituals. A few weeks ago, Walter took the boys to Enges (pop. ~300) for their "Course des Oeufs" (race of the eggs). Here's his account of the 'spectacle':

Everyone stood at the side of the road to watch. Clowns gave out candy. A procession came up the central, main st. with the commune flag. The village girls lay out piles of sawdust every metre and put an egg on each one for ~ 100m. They had a measuring stick to make sure the eggs were evenly spaced! A man dressed in a white chef's outfit, carrying a huge basket of sawdust, stood at one end of the line of eggs. He will be known henceforth as the 'egg catcher'. Two village boys actually did the race. One had to run 1 km in each of the 4 cardinal directions, pick up a huge, cardboard number and bring it back to the line of eggs. He was followed by a girl on a horse. The other boy was the 'egg thrower'. Once the race started, he just went up and down the line, picking up the eggs off the piles and throwing them to the egg catcher, who would try to catch them with the basket of sawdust. As he worked his way up and down the egg line, the girls would come down replacing eggs, giving him more to throw. It didn't seem to matter if the eggs were caught by the egg catcher. Eggs went short, eggs went long, eggs went into the crowd. The egg thrower had some set number of eggs to throw before the boy returned with all the numbers. Walter was told the running boy represented winter and the thrower represented spring. In the end, the thrower won the race by a matter of seconds before the boy returned with the last number. That's why we're very hot and bothered at the moment. Allie and Toby watched the whole thing. They were remarkably interested yet non plussed. The photos are rather small as they were taken on Walter's phone.












That contrasts with our 'foire' (fair). The commune main st. was very crowded with the ubiquitous stall that seems to be found all over the (western) world these days: Incense, candles, knockoff sunglasses, jewellry, trinkets, crap toys at childrens' eye level, crafty geegaws, knitwear... These were interspersed with tasty cured meats and other gastronomic treats, plenty o' wines and dried fruits. The Saint Blaise marching band had us rocking out to the 'Rocky' and 'Police Academy' themes (they played really well), while they walked up the main st. The frites were extremely tasty, and we even sat with some neighbours and had (somewhat of) a conversation. Something they mentioned was the 'tradition' that most of the local youths have now. If you can picture this, the area around our apartment is quite open and devoid of traffic. The road up to it is a dead end and the church owns a huge piece of unused ground. When we went out in the morning, there were a few teenage boys dressed in hoodies, sitting around. When we returned at lunch time, there was a full scale battle going on outside our front door. Boys with huge backpacks and replica guns (pellet style) were hiding, shooting and telling us we couldn't come up the street because they were fighting! Very few of them had protective eyewear on, and we certainly didn't. Apparently, last year was even worse, so a police man was assigned to watch our area. We saw him enjoying the raging battle. I took a couple of photies, which seemed to alarm some of the youths... hehehe. Imagine seeing this in the US....



The StB marching band.


Today, we went to the Fete d'Absinthe in the lovely commune of Boveresse in the Val-de-Travers. I thought it was nice here, but the scenery is stunning there. That's why I didn't take any pics. I can never capture the beauty of the surroundings. This site does a good job of explaining the festival (although last year's) and has some nice pics. The boys weren't that interested, but there was a little train and some Llamas to keep them somehwhat occupied. We didn't try any, but we did procure a couple of wee bottles to taste. THere's a specialized way of drinking this stuff, which includes special spoons, glasses and decanters. We didn't have time to look. On the way home, Walter wanted to stop at the Cherry festival in Chez-le-Bart. Sadly, we were too early. No cherry pie for us :(

I have no idea what fetes are on next weekend. Maybe we'll just go for a swim in the lake. It's clear, clean and warming up nicely, BUT all the ducks that occupy it have some kind of tick that's best washed off when one exits the lake. You must always remember to take a shower at one of the many there when you're done.

Dog Day Afternoons in Scotland!!!

Yes, we got to experience the few days of summer that Scotland has. That's the first time in 20 years for me, and the first time ever for Walter and the boys. I packed no summer clothes for the experience, so we spent a lot of time looking like "po' white trash" (as my mum loves to say now) in the garden.
The only direct way to Scotland from Switzerland in the summer, is with EasyJet from Geneva to Edinburgh. Unfortunately, my parents just moved much closer to the West coast, and EasyJet rankles with me. Why can't they be just a little more Southwest??? On sunday Allie got himself a nice fever of 104.5 and we had to leave early on Monday morning... without Walter. It doesn't seem to be coincidence that one or the other is always ill when we travel, and when I'm alone with them. Having said that, they were both angels for me and the plane was actually on time. Allie's fever lasted 4 days and never fell below 100 on the drugs. Apparently, all the children we know here were having exactly the same thing. It's bloody June already! Can we have a break?

My parents have moved near to Kilmarnock, which is near the lovely holiday town of Ayr. The beach is 20 mins down the road and is very pretty. You can even see the isle of Arran on a good day. They're also much nearer shops now (not quite so much in the country), so the current thing is 'popping' out to get stuff :) Another new experience is neighbours. They're close to a big old house that's been converted into flats, with 6 families. Three of the families are really nice, three are turning out to be obnoxious and are called the 'Darkside' by my family now. There's a story about that, which ofcourse involves money..... We visited Dean Castle, just 5 mins from the 'rents. It has beautiful grounds and (more importantly) a playground and 'zoo'. Toby sang BaaBaa Black Sheep to the sheep and serenaded the peacocks. Allie watched the big kids very keenly and tried to copy them in the playground. Trips were taken to the beach, where awful ice cream was consumed.

Toby serenades the sheep at Dean Castle.


Allie leading the pack in the playground at Dean Castle.


Walter and Toby skiff stones.


Allie and G'parents take a break.


More skiffing.


Susan (Jamie's fiance) and Allie in the foreground and Gparents in the background.


The great British beach occupation.


Traipsing through fields near the new house with my mum and Jamie




While we were away, Neuchatel suffered a cold spell (hehehe), and we returned to summer finally starting here. People are already swimming in the lake, and we plan on visiting the cool swimming pool next week.

My business

We take the trotinettes everywhere now. Today we took a jaunt to 'la Coop' for provisions. Toby has the really irritating habit of trying to hang back and just standing there when one wants him to get moving. We played for a while going up and down a ramp before going home, and it went on a little longer than I had planned. He was getting rather tired and hungry. The upshot of the whole situation was that he stood in the street screaming at me. It's very hard to move Mr. Big as a 5 Year Old, so I just went and sat on the fountain and waited. During the next 4 minutes one old lady told me off- "Your child is too noisy", one woman told Toby off- "Why are you hurting your mother" and another woman went into her house, tried to get him to go in too (she knew I was there), then brought out a stuffed toy for him! People here aren't afraid of getting involved when your child acts up. One day, quite a while ago, Allie wouldn't come in the house, and stood on the porch screaming. A woman actually came up the stairs and started talking to him. When I came out she ignored me until I told her we were OK and she could go now.... Maybe it's more the norm. in smaller, closely knit places. I should also say that no-one's been mean, it's just weird after coming from a place where not much interaction happens between other people and your children. I mean, they could be child molesters, right?

On other topics:
Walter wanted to watch the rugby while dinner was on. What better way to do it than a nic-nic (in Toby's words, or pique-nique in Allie's!) with pizza on a blanket, in the living room:



There are apparently a lot of zoos here. Not necessarily the ones with exotic animals. There's one just 10 mins away that our neighbours took us to,in an area that no-one speaks any French in! We could ride our bikes there. It was a lovely place, complete with peacocks, monkeys, giant albino snake and a cage with what seemed like a 100 cats. They were all asleep too.

Fiona and Anne by the monkey cage.


There was a giant slide that the boys really enjoyed. Toby went with Fiona quite a few times.


In the middle of it all was a nice little park.


The boys rode on a very old looking carousel.



The zoo is beside a canal that feeds to Lac de Neuch. There seems to be some art on it, including the 'transformer' below. Hehehe.


More lake fun!


On Monday, we're off to Bonny Snotland for 10 days of rain fun with the MacDonald G'parents.

Small blessings

For the last 3 nights, the 10pm "wake 'em and bake 'em" bells haven't chimed. Either the church is trying to save money, someone's forgotten to wind the mechanism or the vicar has decided to do us all a favour. Hurrah (then snore) I say!

Eurovision Rocks my World!

I love the Eurovision Song Contest. The first ever record that I owned was "Making Your Mind Up" by Bucks Fizz. It was the British entry that won in 1981. What a year. This, then a royal fairytale wedding. It was enough to make a girl's head explode.

They were saucy too. This is probably the reason that they won. Skirts off!














Last night, the best and brightest of European popular music gathered in the beautiful city of Athens to find out who has the BEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD. Sadly, I didn't get to watch the whole dealy, but Switzerland's offering "Six4One" were first up. What a performance! Six beautiful young people, with voices of angels, sang the haunting melody "If We All Give a Little". And if we had all truely given a little, they would have come away with top honours, instead of being 16 out of 37. That beat the UK's Daz Sampson with his cheeky, cheerful little ditty "Teenage Life". Quite a departure from the usual with rap, but only enough to get 19th place. The biggest departure of all, and the winner of this important and groundbreaking event was the Finnish entry by the popular (and for good reason) band Lordi. Almost nixed from the event by crazy anti-satanists, this awesome group of loveable monsters rocked everyone's world.

"It's the Arockalypse"

I think they should be the next big thing in the US. Move over, so called Linkin Park.

Ohhh will next year's competition ever come??????

A few photies that I need to get off the camera

I'm writing this now because Allie is sick today. He made it through 'school' this morning then promptly came home and lay on the couch. He's watching "Wiggles" again. Toby the insane should be getting his daily run right now, but is instead fixed to the telly. He's getting too big to physically manipulate now, so we're stuck with the current situation. Mr Antsy bugging Mr Sicky. I think Allie's illness is a culmination of being in classes every morning now. We have him in a preschool that's 2 mins walk from the house, two mornings a week, then he goes to the creche at Walter's work two mornings a week, then he has a 'circus class' for 4.5 hours on a Friday morning. He seems to like it all, especially the circus class. They really do learn circus stuff... as much as a young kid can. They do all kinds of other things too, but the main theme is circus. There's also another (gasp) AlIsTair in that class, from the UK no less. The cheek of it! The teachers have trouble with both of their names all the time. I think Allie may sound a bit too much like 'allez' too, so that's rather confusing. His French seems to be improving too :) Actually, a couple of days ago we got his enrollement comfirmation in the local 'ecole enfantine'. In 3 months, #1son will be going to school. Albeit for only 5 mornings a week. We have to go to our first parents evening in mid june! There are 5 girls and 8 boys in his class, and our French teacher knew most of them, or of them. Very exciting (sniffsniff).

What with the improvement of the weather, we've been oot n aboot a bit, with some mixed results. I thought I'd try to meet Kim halfway at the Bern zoo. I'd been there, could find my way back, knew what to expect. Vero and her kids came to see the zoo and hang out with us on the train. We made it to Bern, met Kim and proceeded to get the bus to the zoo. Unfortunately, we had to go all the way around the big station to get to the correct bus stop. We finally found the right bus and went in the wrong direction! Lucky for us, just as I realised it was the wrong way, Kim saw a nice park, so we stopped and had a play instead. All the way to Bern for the park. There. I've come clean. I did fleetingly consider not telling Walter and mumbling something about the cute animals. To add insult to all the rest, I didn't even take any good photies of the cutest kids en Suisse all together. Next time, and there WILL be a next time.

This photo was taken at a place called "La Courte Echelle", which means "the short ladder"... It has a soft room (shown below), car room, doll area, general play area and reading area. On Friday afternoons it's used by the International Club for their playgroup. Allie's gotten very friendly with a couple of Irish/Swiss boys, a German/Italian girl and a New Zealand/Canadian boy. Toby runs around like a Wild Thing! The kids are running from a 'monster' below.


OK, it's a picture of the wee men, but I couldn't resist. They're sitting still, beside each other, smiling and not fighting. I predict the next photo op. like that will occur in ~4 months!


I'm not very knowledgeable about butterflies, but the blue ones are stuck in my mind. In the 70s a blue British butterfly became extinct. I can remember seeing them at my grandparents, then not seeing them a few years later. They seem to be going strong here.


The boys were practicing fishing. They sat still for quite a while with sticks hanging in the water! Toby isn't remotely bothered about being next to the water, or scampering around the rocks.



The big thing with the wee boys is the 'trotinette', also known as Razor scooters in the US. Every child in this village has one. They go to the park, school, round and round in circles on them. Allie and Toby have taken to them too, which makes going to the park ten times as fast. They bomb along saying bonjour to all the other kids, giving them knowing looks! I'm in the market for a pair of quad roller skates to keep up with them. Any recommendations?

Pitiful

Some may have noticed longer periods between posts. Or not. Well, there's a rather shameful explanation: Sudoku. I am addicted.

"Can I have my lunch please, mummy?"
"Hold on till I finish this sudoku"

"Toby's eating the playdoh again"
"Hold on till I finish this sudoku"

"Allie's beaten me to a pulp on the floor, mummy"
"Hold on till I finish this sudoku"

"We need to do our French homework, Emma"
"Hold on till I finish this sudoku"

"Do you remember the last decent conversation we had, Emma?"
"Hold on till I finish this sudoku"
etc......

Walter got me a sudoku book for my birthday :) The puzzles are never ending :( I actually enjoy doing the puzzles. What I don't enjoy is having to stop in the middle of one. And really, when does that not happen? I have to finish the book. I must. Then I'll never look at one again. Ever. Unless it's in a newspaper.....

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?