Perspective

Ahhh, Christmas.

The packing. The presents. The wrapping. The tree. The decorations! The removal (the children.) The train. The mobile - left on the train. The swearing. The plane. The delays. The screaming. The concession - the lollipop.

The family. The cousins! The food. The turkey! The sprouts. (The farting.) The games. The treats. The telly!

The mother. Her fiancee. The journey. The cold. The tiredness. The backache. The contractions. The overcrowding. The stable. The animals. The SMELL.

The blood. The baby. The hope of the world. The reason for the season.

Happy Christmas everyone
xx

Guilt and shame and shame and guilt

Today I smacked Emma hard on the bottom. I am feeling horrible on a number of levels.

Level number one (this is not in order of importance); our official policy is No Smacking, and I breached official policy.
Level number two; it goes against everything I believe in, tambourine-bashing full-on born again Christian that I am.
Level number three; I am shocked about just how angry I was at the time.
Level number four; I am shocked at how I didn't just act like a grown-up and rein it in.
Level number five; it obviously hurt her.
Level number six; it didn't even work.

I told her I was sorry and we had a cuddle. Then I asked her nicely if she please wouldn't be quite so naughty. But I am very remorseful and worry that I might have scarred her for life.

Ex pat reality

Friends are precious commodities when you are an ex pat. You are thrown together with people you might not normally be friends with, but because you are both johnny foreigners together you work harder than normal at the relationship. You tend to see more of each other than on home turf and it forces you to get over some of your natural prejudice - all of which I think is a good thing. Then the person, who along the way has become rather dear to you, leaves.

So it is with my friend Sarah. I met her in the supermarket about a year ago, cold meat section. She had just arrived, and had two girls in tow - Emma and Gloria's ages exactly, give or take a month.

I think we were a bit suspicious of each other at first; there was a bit of a North/South divide, some mating differences (my husband: cash-strapped NGO worker. Her husband: already successful business person doing MBA), some personality glitches (me: relaxed almost to point of oblivion with children, her: gets anxious about a lot of things.) But over the past year we have become- I think - real pals.

We have spent at least 2 mornings a week in each others' company. The girls spent their time fighting over the dolly buggy or bouncing on the sofa in just nappies squealing for joy, while we sat drinking cups of proper builders's tea and comparing who had the least amount of sleep the night before. (Gloria made sure I always won.) We started off doing that subtle competitive thing that all mums do ("Is Emma interested in the potty?" etc), but it gradually became more tongue-in-cheek ("I'll potty train her when she's a teenager" etc). She used to tick me off about not being more vigilant with Emma by the road and I used to tick her off about worrying if her children's clothes were matching. She is warm and kind and extremely funny, and she leaves today.

I explained to Emma that from tomorrow she wouldn't be seeing Eleanor and Alice for a while, but that we would visit from time to time. As I said this, I had rather a large lump in my throat. Just as well Emma couldn't have cared less: "Ssssh, Mummy, Brian's sleeping!" she replied.

Trip to Basel

It's not often we get to German-speaking Switzerland. Maybe it's the travelling with 2 small children thing; maybe it's the nausea-inducing tilty train thing; maybe it's just the laziness and apathy when you can get stollen and sauerkraut in your local supermarket. All that aside, we managed to -for once- see a bit of Switzerland.

In short, Basel gets a thumbs up from the Switzerjudges.

The bronze medal goes to the lovely cafe, size of an aircraft hangar, looks like a 1950s railway waiting room - lots of space for Emma to gallop around in circles and creamy lattes in pleasingly large glasses with spoons for the froth.

The silver medal goes to the Art Gallery; Picasso, Degas, Paul Klee all nice to look at interspersed with odd, ugly mermaid fight scenes by local (old, dead) artist Bocklein.

But it's the Sprungli chocolate emporium at Basel station that takes gold; creamy, dreamy, nougat-y, heart-stoppingly expensive heaven. (Also a rather predictable winner from Ms Switzerlady.)

The wooden spoon goes to the old biddies on trams. Normally I love trams, but the hissing and tutting and clucking and sucking about the pram , the position of the pram, the children, was that coat warm enough? etc etc made me more resolute about walking everywhere (and I have some calories to burn after my rampage in the Sprungli shop.)