half-term
Barely four weeks into the new school term, and it's already the half-term break, gah. J is deeply mired in work until the end of the week, so that leaves me holding the fort alone for twelve straight hours while the children run riot at home. It's only the first day, and the place is a mess. Every time I pick something up off the floor, somewhere else in the apartment approximately seven things immediately fall back onto the floor. In The Bun's room it has reached the point where the only available tabletop space is the the same size as the width of his elbows, i.e. just enough space for him to draw in. Let's not even mention the playroom.
Oh, but let's mention the living room! Because! In the never-ending saga of our living room ceiling, last Thursday the builders came to redo the bits of the ceiling that had crumbling plaster and paint. The rush job that they did just before Christmas proved just that - too rushed - and the plaster on certain parts of the ceiling wasn't dry enough when they sealed and painted it. So last Thursday when they were stripping the peeling paint, they also discovered that two parts of the ceiling were so wet that all the plaster (and whatever internal bits of ceiling there were, I don't know what exactly) crumbled through, so now we have two holes in the ceiling. Two holes, but thankfully zero leaks. (I hope!) We now have to wait about two weeks for everything to dry up all over again, and then the guys will come back to fix it and I hope, that will be that. They must be sick of doing this job, probably as sick as I am of having my living room all messed up and with furniture pushed to the sides again.
But back to half-term. I am glad, at least, that this week the weather is forecast to be warmer. Last week La Bise was blowing long and hard the entire week. Any resident of Geneva is very familiar with this wind, a wind infamous enough to have a name. It sweeps in from the northeast of Switzerland and is funnelled through the valley between the Jura and the Alps before it 'climaxes' (as the Swiss Meteo memorably describes it) on the western shore of Lake Geneva (i.e. where we live). When La Bise blows, the wind gusts can reach speeds of 65km/h, and it never lets up, day or night. The kids had to be comforted to sleep when it was blowing because its howling sounded quite scary. It blew so hard that I often had problems pushing the front door of our building open against the wind. Needless to say, its contribution to the windchill factor last week was substantial. It was -12°C during the day last week and all of us were constantly shivering indoors.
Today was the first day without La Bise, and gosh, the silence that remains after the wind is gone. I guess it had blown away all the clouds from last week because we had a full day of brilliant sunshine, and although of course it was still cold outside, at least we weren't freezing indoors. I was even able to open the windows a bit to air out the rooms. By the end of the week temperatures are estimated to hit the 8 - 10°C range, so I hope that the kids will be able to spend at least part of this half-term break playing outside.
Planned for this week so far we have Bao's playgroup as usual (where The Bun is welcome to join in), a family art class at Gymboree on Wednesday, and I may take the kids to Ikea one morning to find some way of organising The Bun's growing collection of experiments and papers. Last night the child was inspired by his science book to do chromatography experiments using his markers and a bunch of tissues. The colours didn't spread that much, of course, but the effect was not too bad. Dried up bits of coloured tissue have now been glued into one of his notebooks. Frankly, I think The Bun wouldn't mind spending his half-term break tinkering around at home. The only thing he enjoys more is digging around outside in the grass, and with the improving weather, I hope we'll be able to spend some lazy afternoons doing this.
Incidentally, I will be running playgroup tomorrow. Me! How things have changed. Previously I wrote a snarky post on the alpha mums at this playgroup, but their kids have now started school proper so obviously they aren't there and I am now one of the people who have been at this playgroup for a long time, long enough to lead the group. I bought snacks this morning and in the afternoon, made playdough for uh, playgroup. I probably will end up reading and (unfortunately) doing the singing session as well. Who woulda have thunk.
Oh, but let's mention the living room! Because! In the never-ending saga of our living room ceiling, last Thursday the builders came to redo the bits of the ceiling that had crumbling plaster and paint. The rush job that they did just before Christmas proved just that - too rushed - and the plaster on certain parts of the ceiling wasn't dry enough when they sealed and painted it. So last Thursday when they were stripping the peeling paint, they also discovered that two parts of the ceiling were so wet that all the plaster (and whatever internal bits of ceiling there were, I don't know what exactly) crumbled through, so now we have two holes in the ceiling. Two holes, but thankfully zero leaks. (I hope!) We now have to wait about two weeks for everything to dry up all over again, and then the guys will come back to fix it and I hope, that will be that. They must be sick of doing this job, probably as sick as I am of having my living room all messed up and with furniture pushed to the sides again.
But back to half-term. I am glad, at least, that this week the weather is forecast to be warmer. Last week La Bise was blowing long and hard the entire week. Any resident of Geneva is very familiar with this wind, a wind infamous enough to have a name. It sweeps in from the northeast of Switzerland and is funnelled through the valley between the Jura and the Alps before it 'climaxes' (as the Swiss Meteo memorably describes it) on the western shore of Lake Geneva (i.e. where we live). When La Bise blows, the wind gusts can reach speeds of 65km/h, and it never lets up, day or night. The kids had to be comforted to sleep when it was blowing because its howling sounded quite scary. It blew so hard that I often had problems pushing the front door of our building open against the wind. Needless to say, its contribution to the windchill factor last week was substantial. It was -12°C during the day last week and all of us were constantly shivering indoors.
Today was the first day without La Bise, and gosh, the silence that remains after the wind is gone. I guess it had blown away all the clouds from last week because we had a full day of brilliant sunshine, and although of course it was still cold outside, at least we weren't freezing indoors. I was even able to open the windows a bit to air out the rooms. By the end of the week temperatures are estimated to hit the 8 - 10°C range, so I hope that the kids will be able to spend at least part of this half-term break playing outside.
Planned for this week so far we have Bao's playgroup as usual (where The Bun is welcome to join in), a family art class at Gymboree on Wednesday, and I may take the kids to Ikea one morning to find some way of organising The Bun's growing collection of experiments and papers. Last night the child was inspired by his science book to do chromatography experiments using his markers and a bunch of tissues. The colours didn't spread that much, of course, but the effect was not too bad. Dried up bits of coloured tissue have now been glued into one of his notebooks. Frankly, I think The Bun wouldn't mind spending his half-term break tinkering around at home. The only thing he enjoys more is digging around outside in the grass, and with the improving weather, I hope we'll be able to spend some lazy afternoons doing this.
Incidentally, I will be running playgroup tomorrow. Me! How things have changed. Previously I wrote a snarky post on the alpha mums at this playgroup, but their kids have now started school proper so obviously they aren't there and I am now one of the people who have been at this playgroup for a long time, long enough to lead the group. I bought snacks this morning and in the afternoon, made playdough for uh, playgroup. I probably will end up reading and (unfortunately) doing the singing session as well. Who woulda have thunk.