Best finish writing about our trip to Basel while I can still remember what happened.

My main motivation for going to Basel was so that I could visit The Vitrahaus, a furniture design showroom/museum. J and I are longtime admirers of the furniture, particularly the chairs, that have been produced by some of the designers under the Vitra name. For ( Read more... )

Tomorrow is The Bun's school's Sports Day and parents have been asked to contribute baked items to the cake stall. I'm now waiting for my lemon cupcakes to cool before I frost them so I might as well write ( Read more... )

Update on Bao, who's still stuck at home and tired of it: we saw the doctor this morning and yes, it is probably roseola. We now seem to be at the tail end of the cycle because although Bao woke up this morning with more spots on her front and arms, by the afternoon the blotchy patches had begun to fade. She's also less cranky today and her ( Read more... )

Short notes: I guess this format will help me to write more often, rather than wait for something big before I pour out more long-winded verbiage.

~ the other day I baked lemon yogurt cupcakes with The Bun. We used that recipe that all French children supposedly learn, using a yogurt cup as a unit of measurement. The cakes turned out okay, not ( Read more... )

Now that the kids are over the worst of their bugs (although Bao still has a lingering cough and an ever-present runny nose), it's easier for us all to venture further and to spend longer days out. The weather has been nice and sunny too and this morning at the park I saw the first daffodils. It's still chilly, still scarf and hat weather, but it's ( Read more... )

Although I thought that regular programming would resume after everyone recovered from their New Year's hangover, today I learnt how wrong I was. It was a rainy day and J and I decided to go to one of the large malls in a neighbouring town, but when we got there, the entire place was shut. We weren't the only confused drivers because ahead of us ( Read more... )

The Montreux Christmas Market is one of the largest and most popular Christmas markets in Switzerland, and many people from all over the country flock to it when it opens for a month, usually starting around mid-November. I had heard a lot about it and it seemed to be a great way to spend a Sunday, when everything else is closed in the city ( Read more... )

Over the last few days my cough got so bad and my chest hurt so much that it was painful for me to bend over, lift my arm up, or stretch. Each time the coughing spasms struck I would just double over in a fit of breathless coughs until it had passed. So on Boxing Day morning I hurriedly made a call to the nearby medical centre and luckily they had ( Read more... )

After the heavy fog that enveloped the city for much of the last two weeks, the reappearance of the sun today made it a great day to be out, despite the cold. So J and I bundled the kids up and drove to Château de Prangins. The castle dates from 1730 and stands atop a small hill overlooking the Alps and the lake, and after being restored to its ( Read more... )

One of J's co-workers is coming to Geneva soon and offered to bring some supplies for us. It's quite telling, the items on my list ( Read more... )