Warming up to Christmas

As we head towards the end of 2008 at a rate of knots I've been enjoying the Christmas lights and the smell of roasting chestnuts as I wade through days of rain and – in the last 24 hours – snow. I can't help noticing the odd local teenager with handfuls of snow loitering behind trees or around corners lying in wait for unsuspecting classmates, and today on his return from school DS presented me with a super snowball; it's stored on the back deck – just in case he needs it.

I've also been making a habit of going out for a curry with my Dear Swedish Pal after our German class, and last night as we travelled down the Autobahn the pine forests were white - the whole place has really transformed, and the Hausfrau is loving it.

I did have a rather sad week last week as we had to wave farewell to the Dear Local Queen of the Babysitters (who kind of turned into the Dear Local Friend), as she has headed off to – would you believe it – Australia, to go to Uni for a year in Sydney. Yes, a sad day for the Hausfrau, who had huge fun trying her hand at the Swiss language and customs. Before the DLQB left she even found time to show me how to make Lebkuchen, traditionally eaten on 6th December to coincide with the visit of Samichlaus and Schmutzli.

Me: (as we get the Lebkuchen out of the oven) Oooh, it's kind of soft.
DLQB: Ja. It's soft. Then it goes really hard. Then by the time you eat it it's soft again.

We've been racking up the Christmas activities this year with more candle-dipping, a spot of wreath-making down at the DLQB's church, setting up the Christmas tree, and a visit to see Samichlaus and Schmutzli – actually, DS has managed to see Samichlaus three times this season, including when the Dear Amazing Kindy Teacher took the kids on a surprise visit to the local forest where Samichlaus awaited their arrival.



I had an extremely proud Hasufrau moment when we went to hear DD sing in her first concert with the Kinderchor (in the same amazing, eye-boggling church that the Hausfrau sang in). And tomorrow morning I will be lucky enough to hear both DD and DS at Adventsingen with their respective classes in another of the local churches.




And, finally, DD and I had a very Christmas-y adventure in the city when we went to see some of our younger friends perform in 'A Little Princess'. I couldn't help being reminded of special Christmas outings with my own DM when we lived in London - the lights, the snow, the mother and the daughter... I wonder if DD will remember Zürich.

But, just in case she doesn't, there's always the blog... Vive la Hasufrau!

Sweden II

My Dear Swedish Pal had a mission while we were in Sweden: to renovate a recently acquired 1940s timber cottage as a summer house. For that reason, she spent a lot of time at the house stripping 1970s wallpaper off walls, and painting and sanding and so-on.







The Hausfrau was compelled to busy herself with various cameras as the place was idyllic, set amongst copses of shimmering leaves with apples quite literally falling off trees. DS and her Dear Medium-sized Swedish Pal spent hours collecting autumnal delights like flowers and chestnuts and apples, and converted the old shed into a club house.


I'm not going to pretend it was warm: it wasn't. We had a run of stormy days with icy winds, but when the days were clear they went on for miles. The land is so flat, compared to Switzerland. The sun sat low and cast a gentle light through the leaves all day, and the Hausfrau was happy to be in low density housing again, where you can hear the rain and wind and have light coming from all directions into the house. Very different from apartment living, which sometimes feels like its own sealed biosphere.

It was really too late to see native orchids flowering, as they tend to flower in the summer months, but I saw in my travels a good number of flowers I didn't recognise. I also spent a fair bit of time poring over our Dear Hostess's book of Swedish flora, especially the pages of 'orcidus', as I was in the company of at least 20 plants in her house.

On one of the Hausfrau's side road trips we visited the university town of Växjö, where we spent some time walking around the old town, visited the beautiful old Viking church, which was rebuilt in the twelfth century (inside which I spotted no less than four organs - later additions, one presumes!), and - in lieu of Swedish meatballs - ate some rather good Thai food. (Ah, the globalised life!)

Another excursion led us to the town of Boda (near Kosta... near Orrefors...), and the word which springs to mind here is 'lucky', as we arrived at the Kosta Boda glass warehouse on a rare sunny day and, because of that luck with the weather, got to see some cool light-effects through aisles and aisles of coloured glass. Let's face it, glass without sunlight can seem a bit pointless.

I'd have loved to see the workshop in action, but perhaps it was for the best, as DD and DS seemed to be having some difficulty staying still. For example, DD spent an enormous amount of time compulsively cartwheeling: not an ideal thing to be doing in a glass workshop.

As the holiday progressed, DS's bedtime became later and later, and our conversations became more and more 'interesting'. Par example, this little gem at 11pm:

DS: Do you know how flies taste, Mum, by the way?
Me: Um, can't say I do. Probably a bit crunchy?
DS: With their mouth of course. Yeah, because you taste with your mouth, not with your nose. I can only taste when I put something in my mouth.

(I guess you can see the implication there...)

And, now that we are back in Switzerland, I must say that we are having a little trouble adjusting to being back at school, despite the end of daylight savings where we allegedly gain an hour. The only morning that the kids leapt out of bed at lightning speed was last week, when we awoke to a white world.

Yep, snow in October!

PS Naturally, it would be a mistake to think we could visit Sweden without a trip to IKEA, especially when DSP was renovating. So picture DS in his red ear muffs driving an IKEA trolley up and down aisles with the sole aim of going as fast as he can, while the Hausfrau and DSP load five beds onto trolleys and then into the trailer in teeming rain. (Luckily we'd fortified ourselves with Swedish meatballs and cranberry sauce prior to this.)

Sweden I

Having viewed more than one mystery drama in which the catalysts for gruesome murders were rare and beautiful orchids, it was with slight trepidation that I walked into our Dear Swedish Hosts' spare bedroom, where I was to stay with the children: On a window ledge above my bed sat no less than ten different orchid plants, some in flower, some with silver roots creeping across the sill.

I needn't have worried, as our DSHs were the most warm and welcoming hosts we could have wished for. I enjoyed several outings with our hostess, who took me to see history-laden Laholm, and a nearby beach (beautiful, of course, but very windy and cold).

She was also extremely willing to explain to me the finer details of Swedish cuisine, the result of which is that I returned to Switzerland with a few new recipes to try, plus some supplies such as oft-missed salt-flakes, brown sugar and a jar of pine berries which can be incorporated into a delicious cream sauce.

The Hausfrau was pleased to be asked if she would like to cook some meals, and firstly presented an Aussie-style lamb roast to her hosts, which I believe was well-received. We even managed to find ingredients for the mint sauce, though that possibly didn't appeal to all palates. I continue to find it amazing just how many different kinds of foods there are in the world, and how integral food is to people's happiness. Case in point: the smile on the DD's and DS's faces when they saw a lamb roast appear on the table. Or the smile on the Hausfrau's face when she tasted pickled herring and fresh, baked salmon.

As the first week progressed the Aussie Hausfrau slipped deeper under the spell of a head-cold, resulting in her grip on reality becoming more and more tenuous. Was she really in the northern hemisphere, in Sweden? Was her son really speaking Swiss-German to Dear Little Swedish Pal? Was DLSP really speaking Swedish with a Swiss accent back to him? Did neither of them notice or mind the fact that the Hausfrau was speaking English to them? Apparently not. It was really rather funny; and more so when we passed through Germany and we all tried our hand at Hoch Deutsch. You can imagine that at times there was more hysterical laughter than sense being made.

So, for the Hausfrau, laughter, photographs and drawing (and a certain amount of opera singing as we rocketed along the Autobahn) became the lingua franca, as the kids and I managed to fit in lots of drawing, and clocked up over 1,000 photographs over the two weeks... and that's not including the deleted ones. (Stand by: must get them from DSP's laptop.)

And, speaking of deleted ones, I awoke with a start in the middle of the night when an orchid flower landed on my forehead. Now, I ask you, how many people have lived to tell a tale such as this? Not many in the detective stories, I can tell you that.

Needless to say, DD and DS found it hilarious that I had flowers in my bed.

But to the Hausfrau that wasn't nearly as hilarious as her son, who went to sleep nearly every night carrying a small hammer with bejewelled handle (from here on known as 'The Disco Hammer') and wearing fluffy red ear-muffs.

La Traviata

This week was starting to look a bit frantic with the impending trip to Scandinavia and the departure of DH to the Mother Ship in Calfornia again. Five loads of washing later, and the Hausfrau received an email telling her that La Traviata was to be performed in the Hauptbahnhof - main train station - in Zürich that night.

What else was there to do but reach for the mobile and text (or 'sms' as people here long-windedly refer to it) and call for the Dear Local Queen of Babysitters?

The only point of this post is to say that it's really not often that you get to stand in a train station with full orchestra in one ear and opera singers in the other, and I enjoyed every surreal minute.

But the most amusing part about it was that the hundreds of people who turned up were clearly so happy to be there, and in fact many of them were casually singing or humming along as though at a sort of operatic rock concert. (Never mind the tragic story being sung...)

On that note (sorry, obvious pun), bags must be packed and iPod and camera charged for the next adventure.

Business as usual

Quote of the day, from DS as he listened to me chatting to a friend:

'Mum! You're making me bored, so I can't do my sewing!'

I should take a tip from DS, who this week was home with a bad tummy and in that time has: sewn up a hole on his fuzzy lamb; built (assisted by DD) a car out of a cardboard box; made for me a 'jewellery holder'; voluntarily done 'homework' at his desk; painted (assisted by DD) his whole body with face-paints as Spiderman; and informed me that if he can't go outside he's going to explode. Well, that last bit is a moot point: I now have well-developed arm muscles from bathroom-cleaning over the past week.

But it's true that we have been getting creative in DH's absence - he returned from the Infotech Central Mothership last week just in time for the Hausfrau's Baroque concert. Once again, a sublime experience, though this time with an excellent orchestra to assist with Bach's Cantata 169.

We were lucky enough to be giving the debut performance of Jakob Wittwer's Chorale Cantata with orchestra, for which the composer (as the outgoing organist for the local Church With Spire) played organ. A real pleasure and an honour to sing someone else's creation.

As we did last time, the choir sang at the morning service a few excerpts from the concert, in keeping with the church service theme - for which I can only give you a ball-park (God; Jesus) because it was all in Swiss-German.

And, as he did last time, the minister swept up to the altar in his black cape. Only this time there was no thundering organ to call us to Draculan attention. The best I can offer this time is that, as we started singing the heavens parted and a deliciously golden ray of sunlight beamed in through a high window momentarily blinding the Hausfrau and other singers.

Not to worry. We knew the music well enough to forge onwards without missing a beat.

And, in keeping with sunny themes, all choir members were presented with a huge sunflower as they left the stage after the concert. I added mine to a fantastic collection of sunshine which the kids and I had reaped from the local pick-it-yourself flowers next to the soccer field up The Hill.

More in a couple of weeks after the Hausfrau, accompanied by children, returns from a road trip to Sweden with a Dear Swedish Pal and her three offspring.

This is the deal

Seems as though Summer has ended with a jolt as we plunged into rain and single-figure temperatures over the weekend.


Although I am loath to compare life to a game of Solitaire, I found myself having a moment of 'Well isn't that typical' when I was idly playing 'cards' on my mobile phone on the train this morning. The deal was superb - aces, kings and queens in all the right colours at exactly the right time. But then the game plateaued, and so did the train's progression. We sat waiting for another train to pass (not uncommon: freight trains sometimes come screaming past, late, one can only presume, forcing passenger trains to wait - very un-Swiss).

And just as the train started up again, my phone told me, 'It looks like you're not making any progress. Press OK to play again.'

Where am I going with this? I'm going to the land of 'That's what you think,' of course, because a) the train will always start moving again, and b) there are things you can do in Solitaire (as in Life) which the program thinks you can't.

I wasn't able to shift my 4's around so I could start feeding more cards onto the Aces, but - lucky for me - I don't generally believe in messages generated by computer programs (don't tell InfoTech Central), so I was able to move forwards with my day secretly knowing that the Hausfrau could've come up trumps.

And so it was with the past week, where people started grumbling and 'oohing' and 'aahing' about the weather. One person even said to me, 'Gosh, there's so much pressure in Summer. You feel like you need to have done something, because then it's cold again, and you wonder what you can say you did!' Indeed, I understand wanting to make the most of the weather, but not just so I can tell someone what I did. Oh, alright, you might notice this is a blog - read: weblog, where I (ahem) tell people about what I've been doing.

But the end of Summer isn't the end of All Things Fun. No, Sir. It's time to ignore the hype, play out the hand, stay on the train.

So stand by for the next chilly installment as we launch into the Autumn holidays and celebrate one year of living on a Swiss Hillside.

After Oz

Just as pre-Spring buds on trees in Australia were starting to make themselves known we arrived back in Switzerland to the occasional lazy yellow autumn leaf drifting to the ground.

However, we did managed to have a solid week of sun, during which we visited nearby Oberrieden Badi, where I sampled a tasty but slightly odd (i.e. with canned sweet corn) Thai salad; after-school activities got into full swing; and DS and I took a Schiff (a boat which thinks it's a bus) on the glassy, turquoise Lake.

The week was hazy and tropical, and ended with the birthday party of DS, a very Swiss-German affair involving about ten sweaty and excited six- to ten-year-olds and several soccer balls.

Actually no; it ended with the Hausfrau heading into the city to see a movie and eat Malaysian noodles with a friend. Not half bad.


A few observations after returning to Switzerland from three weeks in Oz:

DS can eat ice-cream with chopsticks and enjoys playing 'Bidmanton' with 'Hottlecocks'.

Canberra is cold. (This from the Hausfrau who had braved the Jungfrau.)

Sydney is big. Well, bigger than Zürich.




Both of my offspring refused to speak more than a couple of words of German while we were on holiday.

DD got the giggles on the plane from London to Zürich when she realised she could understand the air steward's German announcements.

Both of my offspring appear now to speak only Swiss-German in our apartment playground.


Friends are friends even when you don't see them very often.