Inghilterra aka England

And now we are in England for work and play. We leave on Thursday. England is a place so familiar and deeply rooted in my ancestry that I feel a sense of belonging and in the same moment, out of place. England is the place where both my parents were born and my Grandparents lived. Mum's family is from Devon, Dad's from Oxfordshire. Both 'escaped' to the comparative freedom of New Zealand, away from the constraints of english culture and expectations.

We are staying in England with my father's brother Richard and Auntie Tina. They live in a small village, in a large house which backs onto the Thames river. As a 12 year old I came here alone for 6 months to attend my cousins posh private girls school (why? Is another story!) I was straight from the farm, all gumboots and jandels and while I don't remember being wildly homesick (I don't tend to get very homesick), it was an education on so many fronts.

Arriving at the house, I mostly know which turns to take, where the roads lead to. Out and about the accents are so recognisable to my ears – the accent of my Grandfather and his family. Walking into Richard and Tina's house, everything is familiar. It is a home I have lived in, come and gone from both as a single person and newly married to Rory. We have had Christmas here and have returned to the comforts of good food, great hospitality and warm beds many times. And now 5 years on, two children later and so much water under the bridge, we return to introduce our boys to England (Richard and Tina have met them before). I have a strange mix of thoughts and emotions: being with family causes me to reflect on the changes I have been through. In moments I am back to being the Antipodean farmers daughter, now with Antipodean offspring (!) and in the next, the philospher wondering who I am and what I believe about the world and where I fit into it.

Jane and Rory, 2007, in the vintage Rolls-Royce owned by Richard and Tina - out for a chilly spin with the top down 

In the car we have listened to the familiar accents of the BBC comedians on Radio 4 and laughed out loud at humour I have not enjoyed for months. I've sat down and read a newspaper – the first in months and savoured the experience. We've watched TV (the kids watching considerably more!). I'm adjusting to the fact that when I start telling a story in a public space, everyone will understand what I am saying, rather than taking it fore-granted that I can talk in undecipherable code and remain a mystery.

On sunday, I went to an 8am church service– murmuring my way through a Church of England service accompanied by the soothing drone of an oh-so-english Vicar and a small number of mostly elderly English villagers as we were guided through the memorised liturgy. For my childhood years, we mostly attended a tiny Anglican church, the liturgy engraved into a subconcious that will survive Alzheimers no doubt. It triggered memories and thoughts of so many things, places and people. And God. The church was intact and old – something none of the Anglican churches of Christchurch can claim anymore.

I have visited a friend from school days (Ruth). The last time I saw her was about 13 years ago. We picked up where we left off and it was lovely to hang out with someone who knows my Whanau (family) and Turangawaeawe (land/place). We have talked and talked – telling stories and filling in the years with words. What a wonderful thing it is to be able to stand back from your life and listen to the stories come pouring out, piecing together pain and joy, listening to the moments that have defined you being recounted from your own mouth. And more so, the joy of listening to stories of someone else and sharing their valleys and summits and being amazed and comforted at the same time. To expose the raw moments of your life to someone and feel completely unjudged. We are not alone. To feel understood and to understand is good for the soul.

New friends

We have some new friends. Katia works for Alison (but works from home and lives about 1 hour away)  and the last time I met her, we were both in early pregnancy with our first kids (when Rory and I were last in Italy). Alessandro and Silas were born within a week or two of each other. Katia's daughter is a little younger than Gwilym and her name is Maria.

Alessandro and Maria with Silas and Gwilym

We have managed two play dates in two weeks and they are a great match for the boys. Each time we see them, the boys pick up new words in italian and more confidently use the ones they know. Katia speaks english and her kids also pick up english expressions and try them out when they are with us. It is an excellent exchange.
Last week Alessandro learned to ride a bike without his trainer wheels and this week - he was away laughing. We made a trip to the far corner of the local park to show them the little farm (horse stables with other animals). There are new lambs and calves to admire and grumpy caretakers to ignore (it is a public farm for children to come and see the animals and a working stables).

'Agnelli"

The weather is spectacular at the moment - warm in the day, never windy and with a pleasant chill to the air (especially for exercising). The trees are almost naked and they stand encircled by their dying leaves.

I am enjoying listening to the process of language acquisition by the boys. Silas, particularly is constantly coming up to me and saying - this is called " X" in Italian and he uses an italian sounding word he has made up. The boys will often babble away together in 'italianesque' - their own version of another language with lots of italian vowels peppered through it. Even if they only know a couple of words, they will boldly use them as often as possible and their pronunciation is pretty good - their ears and mouths are still supple and elastic!

The boys have missed having friends here. One of the heartaches of being here has been taking the boys to empty playgrounds day after day. Usually the boys are happy but it feels like there is something missing because it is always more exciting watching and listening and playing with other kids.  And most places we go during the day are devoid of kids. The buses, the supermarket, the library, the cafe are all kid-free and the boys are either welcomed as a novelty (more commonly) or barely tolerated for their for their imposition.  A the end of the a day of 'solitary outings' I have been know to cry. The kids are all in school or care and if there is a child there, they are being looked after by a nanny or more commonly a Grandfather (Nonno)! It amazes me the number of Grandfathers I see pushing wee babies around the park or coaxing along a toddler. I guess Nonna is at home with the cooking and the washing and Mama and Papa are at work. Having children is an expensive occupation in Italy and very few venture as far as three.  Government assistance is minimal for families.

But we have new friends, and as my wise sister says - all you ever need in the world is one or two great friends.

Our other friend in Milan: Ernesto (right) with Gwilym and Silas

Amazing Aosta

With our time running short and our weekends now booked until departure, we finally returned to the area we both love: Valle d'Aosta. This is a gorgeous mountainous valley that Rory frequented when he was living in Torino (Rory lived in Torino for 18 months after graduation - hence his fluency in Italiano, and returned the year before Jane met him!) and had endless weekends free, abundant energy and had found an alpine club to tag along with. From the valley you can climb Mount Blanc (Monte Bianco), The Matterhorn (Cervino) and Gran Paradiso to name the big three. It contains many many ski fields – some tiny, some huge and from the valley you cross over the alps into France and Switzerland.

When we were first married (for those reading who don't know us), we came straight to Italy after our wedding where we worked in Assisi for two months, before heading to Milan for another two months to work alongside Alison (much like we are doing now) and promote La Plastecnica. 

Rory grinding up 2000m: 2006

We went to Valle d'Aosta on 3-4 occasions, tramping with Richard Wesley, climbing a wee mountain by ourselves and finally cycling up it at the start of our grand cycle tour of Switzerland (mainly). We hauled our bikes and gear up a spectacular side valley just for the heck of it before descending to the valley floor again and a couple of days later exited over Gran Saint Bernardo pass (2469m) into France.

Rory in our 'freedom camping spot' on
 Grand Saint Bernardo pass
 - totally illegal and totally spectacular 

I love the valley. Of course the mountains are spectacular but it also has a rich mountain culture developed over hundreds of years. It is lined with precarious castles atop rocky outcrops. The houses are beautiful – great stone slabs for tiles, decorative woodwork on balconies, eaves and window frames, cute little windows that keep out the cold often laced with colourful window boxes. The shops sell lots of Aosta artisan work and you can imagine the creativity which can flow from being couped up through a long winter. The food (as I have talked about before) is rich in calories, dense food for people who are used to adversity and hard work (well, they used to be!). The cheeses come from local cows and goats – often hand milked with the cheeses made in tiny factories on farm.

November is a great time to go if you are like us and don't like doing what everyone else is doing. It is post trekking season and pre ski season and is probably about as dead as it gets. The locals are just tucked up, ticking along and readying themselves for the crazy ski season.

So finally, with the forecast looking great, we got to take our boys there and revel in a weekend of mountains – the place where we seem to do best as a family.

We had chosen a village called Cogne in Gran Paradiso National park (which contains Gran Paradiso the mountain). 

We booked the day before and rocked up to the hotel which is run by a family whose Father (Dorino Ouvrier) is probably the most significant artist in the area – a wood carver and artist. The hotel had lots of his artworks in our room, in the restaurant and outside.

Hostellerie Del Atelier

 On saturday we walked from a local village up to the local rock crag – sort of by accident. It was a magnificant, sun-bathed slab of rock, situated beside a waterfall which is busily forming up for the ice climbing season. We met only one person at the rock – a local alpine guide who proceeded to free climb up the slab in his alpine boots (it was a very low grade we discovered) to go check on how the ice was forming up.

 

Gwilym and Silas adored scrambling on the rock and kept us on our toes since we were half way up a rocky outcrop with some bad drop offs! Gwilym does not seem to have developed a natural fear of heights just yet and seemed to scramble up anything. We walked to the top of the crag for a snack as the sun dipped over the ridge before we headed back to the hotel. It was easy to imagine coming back in a few years with some ropes and shoes for a play. This is an admission because I consider myself a retired rock climber!

Native to the area are two types of mountain goat: the Chamois (or Car-mosh-shee in Italian) and the Steinboch (Stambecco). We were pretty eager to see both – Silas particularly wanted to see the males fighting (I had read that Nov/dec is the fighting/mating season). We spotted Chamois from the car en route to the village where our next day walk started from and thought we were pretty clever.

Steinboch

Chamois

The walk we chose wound up a hillside – eventually hitting a col and heading down to a Rifugio (or hut). The Italians do huts pretty fancily. They are more like hotels with all the comforts and seem particuarly appealing with kids because you wouldn't have to carry so much gear. However, the rifugio had closed for the season so we just nosied on up the hill. Our goat spotting desires were soon met with heaps of Chamois out grazing and Rory finally spotted a Steinboch. These guys are impressive and very cool, calm and collected. As you can see from the photos – they don't worry about being shot and humans do not provide much of a threat. We saw only one but got really close and we all really enjoyed just hanging out watching this beautiful animal munching away in its natural environment.

All rugged up

 

A happy descent in Autumn sun

I think we climbed about 500m – not making the pass but hitting enough snow to make it not as feasible with small kids. A single tramper interupted our solitude on what would usually be a highway in the season. We snacked and turned around with the sun still shining and wound our way back down. Honestly – it was our best day yet I reckon.

I just loved the space and the freedom, the colours and the views. Watching and spotting the animals (goats, squirrels, birds). I loved watching Rory gently coaxing Gwilym along the track (he walked most of the way up) and Silas skipping along in his happy place.

The boys were so happy – endlessly entertained with walking and watching, sliding and scratching about in the dirt. Gwilym said on the way home: ' I want to go the mountains again and again and again and again. Actually, I want to live there'.

I wondered why we had bothered with Florence, why visiting art galleries had been so important to me when faced with the beauty of these mountains. But the sun was shining and that can make all the difference in the world!

We headed back via the town of Aosta (the heart of the valley) to stroll the streets in a chilly twilight, window shop and eventually eat 'Turkish Takeaways' made by Pakistanis' with Italian side dishes! It hit the spot before we hit the beloved autostrada with the ever cool calm and collected sat nav lady to accompany us back to Baggio.

En route home we talked of what we would change if we knew we were dying or if we could have our time again – in the words of my brave and beautiful Auntie Roz (who passed away with cancer a few years ago) when she was asked the same question: the answer would have to be “more of the same”. It just doesn't get much better than this!

Penelope at the swings

Turns out I have chosen just the right playground to hang out with the kids pre or post the Natural History Museum. I have noticed that many of the mothers tend to be gorgeous, slim, highly fashionable and even friendly. Of course, I fit right in - especially when I am not yelling like a banshee for Gwilym to come back. At the swings with friend Camilla today, there was a woman pushing her son on the swing beside us and I noted she was very beautiful. This is perfectly normal I thought. She was with her husband and curly mopped young son.

Camilla quietly put me in the picture. We were swinging alongside PENELOPE CRUZ, her husband Javier Bardem  and a curly mopped son Leo - one year old (I didn't know this until my internet search). Now I know the calibre of my friends who are likely to be reading this and know also that you probably don't have a clue who Penelope Cruz is because you don't devour out of date women's magazines in waiting rooms like I do. So here's a link to prove she was in Rome on monday and obviously has made it to Milan by Wednesday to play on OUR swings....and even better the boys did not hit, push or yell at her little angel who had the full attention of his two parents probably because they have been a little busy filming, attending premières and dressing up. 

check out: Penelope Cruz hits Rome 

Rory returns from Germany after two and a half days away on business. I have done remarkably well but I am relishing the silence of two children in bed. Ahh the sound of silence. We will have no more world-ending catastrophes over broken lego today. No more sobbing over dropped food and no more sound effects from imagined fights between...absolutely anything.

Highlight of the day may have been watching Gwilym charming three older ladies on the bus - one of whom was decked out in her fur trimmed coat. Gwilym couldn't resist the tactile experience of stroking it incessantly for the journey.

Our beloved natural history museum

By the time we get home, Silas will have made almost zero progress on writing and reading, can barely count to twenty but has enlarged his knowledge on natural history considerably.

Tomorrow morning we head off again to the Natural History Museum to meet up with one of our friends we have made here. It takes us about 30 minutes on public transport and the building is a magnificent building that sits in the corner of a large public park that contains lots of playgrounds, merry go rounds, pony rides and a bunch of immigrant men who try to entice small children and their parents to buy plastic junk. Without children, it would be a great spot to go for a run, a casual stroll, to sit in the sun and read and soak in the green space amidst the grey city. Oh that and it is situated on one of the best shopping streets in Milan, just an enticingly short stroll away.

The museum costs 3 euro to enter for the three of us (eg one adult) and you can go there all day. The exhibits are all housed in big glass fronted displays so that you don't have to spend any time at all chasing or grabbing your small children in case they are about to touch/break/destroy/dirty a priceless exhibit. And it is warm. So we go there a lot because the kids still spend most of the time literally running and pointing and jumping up and down and you can't really ever exhaust the things there are to see there. That and it is easier than trying to make Silas write S's and keep Gwilym entertained at home.

Here are some photos of the exhibits to give you an idea of what we see. There is also the insects, dinosaurs, geological exhibits (crystals etc) and a whole room of educational panels about all sorts of important topics, in Italian.

Gwilym sitting on the lovely sculptures at the entrance that have a small sign beside them saying not to play or sit on them which I noticed post photo - I swear

Silas' most favourite animal because they fight so well (as seen on Frozen Planet BBC DVD...)

In sickness and in health

After putting up with a chronically tired Jane (the family) for a number of weeks (or was that years!), my eyes and sinuses are finally on the improve and I feel like I have had a level of chronic irritation and anxiety lifted off my shoulders  - not to mention some much improved sleep with reduced allergies.

But, as my health has improved, it feels like a heavy week for friends back home. A family friend died last week of a brain tumor after a 2 month illness and a friend my age has just been diagnosed with breast cancer that has spread through her body. She has two girls similar ages to Silas and Gwilym. It seems as if good physical health can be such a fleeting condition and so can life. I don't have many answers to offer up - just a numbness and sadness at the moment and an inclination to pray faltering, doubting prayers.

Bagna cauda - an alternative energy source

In Italy they take food miles seriously. For good food, they will drive alot of miles.
So on Sunday we drove to the Torino area (about 1 hour north from Milan) for lunch with some friends. In Italy, they also take lunch very seriously. Traditionally people will have a significant stop and a serious feed at lunch time and then just a snack for dinner. So you tend to go out for lunch maybe more than you go out for dinner. And if you are Jane and Rory, that suits us fine since we can't stay awake long enough to make it to their dinner times (and nor can the kids).

Every area in Italy has its own specialities when it comes to food. These are partly dictated by the landscape and climate they are surrounded by. The further north you go, the colder and closer to the mountains you get and the food tends to be calorie rich and heavier. Rory has told me about Bagna cauda and described to me how they make it and it was for this dish, that our friends invited us to clock up some food miles and join them.

After hearing how you make it - I announced to Rory that I would probably order something else which was reasonably amusing when we got there and found out how the lunch would work. There was no choice and here's how you make it:


You take about 1 head of garlic per person (peeled and chopped), cook it gently up in some very good olive oil (quite a lot of it), then throw in piles of anchovies (Rory reckons about 100 grams per person) and maybe some butter or milk - and meld it all together slowly in a terracotta pot either in the oven (long and slow) or on top until it looks like the consistency of a dip (or for the veterinarians who may be reading this - a little like calf diarrhoea).


You then serve this into the top of cute little incense-burner type bowls (candle underneath) and dip piles of raw, seasonal vegetables into the mixture and eat them. For our lunch, we started with the 'lighter' form of the dish with raw veges and moved to the heavier form (even more garlic if this is actually possible) to eat with some cooked vegetables and a small amount of meat. We topped this with dessert and coffee.

There was no other choice of food and we ate with two other groups of people around one big round table. The kids had their own little table and a different menu! And then we drove home in the close environs of the car while the garlic did its magic on our systems. If anybody thinks they are up for it - I can make it for you one dark winter night sometime next year. By that time, the garlic will have worked its way out completely.

The place where we ate it is very serious about organic vegetable production and everything we ate was produced on the place and organically. Even the to-die-for strawberries. Check out www.facebook/bagnacauderia.it. I see we have made it to the facebook page already!

The eyes have it

Currently I look like a drug addict. Not sure if I have mentioned it, but I developed what I thought would be a short-lived conjuncitivitis just days after my second miscarriage and a few months later its still going. It seemed fitting that I should develop a condition that made me look like I had been bawling my eyes out - even though I wasn't actually managing to cry. What should have taken 10 days to clear from one eye was still going at 6 weeks and then the second eye started up, as bad as the first.

This is a bad morning - just after an eye wash!

It is a daily problem. I start the day with crusted up eyes and end with sore, red, dry eyes. Closing my eyes at night (with inflamed eyelids that are all bumpy) feels like rubbing fine sandpaper over them.  It seems to have gone from conjunctivitis to 'dry eye' which I have been treating with lubricants and hot compresses (no nasty drugs) I have currently got a cold so things have taken a turn for the worse and we decided today to try to find an eye doctor here and get them checked out again. It is quite scary having chronically sore eyes with reduced vision and not knowing if maybe you might be going quietly blind. And trying to avoid entering into the medical system in a foreign country and all the forms and claims it will require.

We managed to find an eye doctor (contact of Alisons) who could give me an appointment and I have been started on some drugs. I have also seen a doctor for my cold (sinus infection) who was great. He is Alison's GP and just happens to be in the same street as us and is also an ear nose and throat specialist. He has prescribed a few things (thankfully not including any oral antibiotics).

Will keep you posted or blogged or whatever. And I'll add a photo to scare you.

A weekend North

Milano has just had, I think, its version of Halloween which came with a day (Thursday) off.

Just because it’s there and it is one of the small number of ‘child-friendly’ activities for kids around Milan – we headed to the Prehistoric Park on Thursday – (Parco della Prehistoria- about 45 mins drive out of Milan) to do a walking tour of life-size fibreglass dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures and some life-size, non-extinct mammals like sheep, deer, goats and horses.

Nothing much has changed!

 It was a lovely day out – another one of those days where you check the forecast and it looks rubbish but you go anyway and the rubbish never happens and the kids skip happily around pointing and exclaiming and loving being outside and you were glad you chose to be optimistic.

Our plan for the weekend that followed had mainly been shaped by the fact that the North/Lane family (who we holidayed with in Switzerland and are living near Zurich) have all their weekends booked and we have none so we chose to visit them on their only spare weekend til they leave! This involved a three hour (which eventually became a 4-5 hour excursion north). The weather was spectacular and the mountains were out in force sitting oh so close and yet oh so far away while we sped by on the autostrada. The kids failed to sleep and the parents argued but then not everything always goes according to plan and we finally arrived for a very late lunch of bread and cheese.

The Norths are living in a large Swiss farmhouse in a small village near Zurich. They (Chris, Emily, Ngaire and Hannah) are staying with Chris’ cousin Isa and her three kids and it makes for an even noisier household then ours in the morning but thankfully they are not surrounded by apartments and the thick walls soak up the lively play nicely. The Turnip festival (Halloween type festival) was the first item on the itinery. You take a turnip (think Swede), hollow it out, carve it up with little pictures by scraping off the top layer of peel, poke a candle in the bottom (after removing the lid) and hold it, lit, in the dark. The school kids all create one, gather en masse and process through the streets of the village holding their lit turnips, singing and being admired by their bystander parents. All very cute and creative and wonderful to be part of a long standing tradition that plants itself into the calendar year after year.

Rafz - village where Chris, Emily, Ngaire and Hannah are living

 The persistant rain wasn’t as cute (or rather trying to juggle a candlelit turnip, umbrella and child) and nor was fighting with a completely tuckered-out Gwilym in it which spelt an early end to the evening for us both.

Saturday’s plan was scaled down from a big day out to a smaller day out after I merrily fed Silas the muesli for breakfast – failing to realise that it contained peanuts. He announced he was feeling sick and a quick dissection of the muesli (no packet) revealed the problem. After getting Chris to find out how to ring for an ambulance and where the nearest hospital was and waiting to see what would happen, we got away with just a vomit after a couple of hours of feeling sick. Silas is so good at vomiting that we managed to take him on the fondue cheese buying mission, complete with bowl so he could spew when required – which he did with calm and poise in the supermarket . Not sure anybody actually noticed Rory removing him from the store. This, ironically, is all good news for us. We have had the fear of death put into us by the doctors and have religiously carried our epipen for the last 2 years and it could just be that he has almost grown out of most of his allergies (although seems to have developed a pine nut allergy just in time to come to Italy).

The thought of being free of all this is a lovely thought. To not read ingredient lists or question shop keepers or create headaches for hosts is fantastic although no doubt, the hospital will insist we wait another few years for them to find the time to officially food trial him with crash teams in the wings so that he can have quarter of a muffin….

Silas and Gwilym thrived with some outside garden play!

Since the forecast for Saturday was looking average and the general state of health was suboptimal, we scaled down a big day out in the hills to a small excusion up in the village forest (which it shares with Germany – the border goes meandering through the forest). It was wonderful soaking up the autumn colours as the trees turn their defiant faces towards winter for a last, blazing show. What a lovely thing it is that we have the autumn before the winter. 

The village beside Rafz - taken from the hill above Rafz. Each village has its own forest associated with it which is sustainably managed by the village for wood harvesting

As can be predicted from a North/Lane/Jones outing, the outing required many bikes, some running shoes and a unicycle. We also took the mushroom identification book and the cameras. The photos speak for themselves.

Emily heads UP the hill

Can we eat it or will it kill us?

That night – in good Swiss tradition we enjoyed a stonking fondue. You buy the lump of cheese (fondue cheese) and they grate it for you in a special grating machine so that it melts more easily. Then you buy the ‘fondue wine’ to melt the cheese with and a pile of bread to carry the calorie-laden molten cheese mixture to your mouth. And if you drop your bread in the bowl, you sing for the table. And you if are an adult – you can dip your bread into some other fiery alcohol first, before adding more alcohol and cheese to the mix on your bread. There are endless possibilities for getting fat in Switzerland. Chris and Emily seem to have enough genes and a large enough appetite for fat burning exercise (think riding unicycles up hill) to avoid this outcome. It was a great feast; so communal and full of action.

Next morning – just to make sure – we had cheese and bread again for breakfast. Can’t spell the name of the bread or say it – but think solid, knotted loaf of brioche, oven warmed and piles of gruyere, gorgonzola and emmentaler to eat with it.

We had planned a day of wandering in Zurich which we did after another group bike ride to the next village for some playing on the playgrounds on offer. The rain just kept holding off and off. I loved cycling around the village getting a feel for the houses and their traditions. No doorstop left unswept or undecorated and opening right onto the street.  Signs over the lintel of the door announcing when a new baby has arrived (Name, birthdate and decoration). Cows sitting in the shed in the middle of the village. Bicycle stands at the front door. As I have said before, I think Switzerland seems to suit my rule-following personality but I am fairly confident that my doorstep would never reach the village standards without some tweaks to my priority list.

In Zurich, we wandered. Slowly. We wandered the old town through the cobbled streets and stared into shop windows. Thankfully absolutely nothing was open other than the cafes so I got to resist spending money.. Once again the rain held off and off and we got to take in the lake and the roof lines, the rainbow of pastels on the old buildings and a liberal smattering of Swiss flags. We enjoyed buskers. I loved the moment when we arrived at a violinist accompanied by a ‘statue busker’. Gwilym stood rooted to the spot right in front of them, gradually working out that the statue was moving. Kids don’t worry about polite distances or what people think. They just take it in and enjoy the moment.

Silas and Hannah cruise the streets of Zurich

Finally we said our goodbyes to Chris, Emily, Ngaire and Hannah (we will see them next back in Christchurch) and jumped in the car to drive to our dinner date with good friends Veronica and Mikey, their daughter Riley and their newly hatched son, Samuel.

As we departed Zurich I caught a glimpse of a golden clock face against a black sky, heavy with rain. We literally departed as the rain began to pour and it didn’t stop until we arrived home.

Alison’s GPS (thank God for these things – they make the job of passenger so easy and reduce maritial tensions no end!!!) faithfully took us winding up the one-laned road to Veronica and Miki's and we enjoyed another evening in a gorgeous, old, solid as a rock, Swiss farmhouse. They totally spoilt us with ‘Raclette’, one of the other famous Swiss traditions – complete with cheese, , meats and an array of veges to cook on the raclette and coat generously with melted cheese. But first, Gluhwein, on the balcony, over-looking the lights of the villages below from the flanks of the very large hills they live on.

Samuel is 2 weeks old, a wee button of a boy with a gorgeous face who slept all the way through dinner but woke as we left, ready to keep his parents entertained for the next 2-3 hours with that lovely feeding, crying cycle you get in the evenings of newborns. Their house left me feeling envious – uncluttered, beautifully kitted out with lovely new and old things and you can ski from the front door in winter. And tidy - like a Swiss house should be!

Miki, Rory and Samuel

Riley and Veronica

It was great to talk openly with friends over dinner, sharing stories and experiences – especially over 19 month age gaps and babies and the challenges of parenting and marriages and all that good/hard/life-defining stuff.

To end, a drive back in the driving rain that couldn’t hold off any longer to hit home by midnight. Two sleeping boys, two tired parents and four flights of stairs to negotiate. Ah - apartment life.