Waldspielgruppe

Today the Curly Girlie went off for the first time to waldspielgruppe. Rather like England has the Brownies, America has Camp and (I’m struggling now) the Antipodes has some kind of light-hearted instruction on dealing with venomous creatures, Switzerland has “waldspielgruppe” or the forest playgroup.

It’s a classic rite of passage for Swiss kids and one that I’ve been anticipating with relish even though, to my softie British sensibilities, it’s quite hardcore. After all, the Swiss are a hardy bunch – you don’t hack a mountain pass out of the rock using a Swiss Army Knife and wearing tennis rackets on your feet without being pretty tough – and it starts in waldspielgruppe.

At age three, the kids are wrapped up in All The Gear (more on that later) and dispatched with a lunchbox and a spare pair of socks into the forest to sing songs, pick up pinecones and learn which of the mushrooms are the really interesting ones. But here’s the thing – they go once a week, from now until the Spring, whatever the weather.

And this morning, we had weather.

But first, let’s go back a week. This time last week, thinking I still had plenty of time, I printed out my list of instructions. The Curly Girlie should be wearing long-sleeved trousers and top, waterproof boots and rain / snow / sunbathing* gear (*delete where applicable). She should be pre-coated in anti-tick spray, with special attention to certain vulnerable areas, which were highlighted. She should carry spare knickers, socks and another set of long-sleeved trouser and top, all of which must be in a water-tight plastic bag. She must have a lunchbox containing z’nüni (rather like ‘elevensies’ only the Swiss start everything earlier in the day, so they have ‘ninesies’), which must not contain biscuits, chocolate or sweets. She must have a drink in a non-breakable, re-sealable bottle. She must have at least two pairs of gloves, one of which should be thin ones that she can wear while eating z’nüni, the other pair should withstand the weather. She should also have an appropriate hat, a picture of her entire family (I kid you not) and a jolly good time.

Right. Mild panic. All The Gear was purchased, labelled, found to be inadequate, either returned or sewed and otherwise altered, and eventually packed. Panic subsided.

Then, bright and early, the Curly Girlie was fed, hosed-down, de-flea-ed, tick-sprayed and dressed in the first layer of weather-resistant clothing. Again thinking I had plenty of time (this could be my personal motto), I embarked on applying the outer rain clothes. It was like trying to get a salmon into a pair of stockings. What seemed like hours later, I was still sweating and swearing, she was moaning and thrashing and so, of course, Alpha Blondie baby brother chose that moment to tip an entire box of beads onto the floor. So Mummy had a tantrum.

Presently, we were all in the car and on our way. That’s when the weather started. Not the sort of rain that makes you think, “Oh, I’ll get my umbrella”. Not the sort of rain that The Husband’s farming family refer to, admiringly, as “wetting rain”. But the sort of rain that makes you say, “Bugger this for a game of soldiers, I’m going in the warm for a cup of tea and bit of Homes Under the Hammer”.

But no, Hi-Ho Hi-Ho off into the forest we did go, with the Curly Girlie blundering out of one puddle and into the next because the rain was streaming off her rain hood right into her eyes, with Alpha Blondie screaming for reasons unknown (I think he also wanted to get soaking wet and filthy, but he may just have sensed that the attention had shifted away from his majestic self for a fraction of a while and was making his feelings known on the matter), and with me trying to ignore the rivulet of water going down my bum-crack because I’d forgotten (of course) to bring any kind of coat for myself.

We met the gruppe. Introductions were made, last-minute adjustments to backpacks were completed and shoes were admired (it is a Universal Truth that all children are inordinately proud of their shoes). Then, the Curly Girlie wandered off, bewildered but willing, after the rest of them.

We set off back to the car, head down against the rain, pram wheels cloying with mud and leaves, Alpha Blondie crying “Diddy? Diddy?”, his name for his big sister. “Yes”, I reassured him, “we have just left her in the middle of the forest, in the driving rain, with a total stranger”. Pause. “Diddy?!”

Everyone I speak to, every book I read and every ounce of common sense that I own, tell me that you have to leave them sometime. I mean, I don’t want the Curly Girlie to reach 18 and I still have to carry her into a room and walk around with her on my hip for the first five minutes because she’s feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the Big People.

But it was hard: her wet face peeping out of the rain hood; her soggy little backpack with its spare knickers and z’nüni; her trusting eyes turning from me to the waldspielgruppe leader; her skinny legs splashing off into the deep, dark wood, even though she’s absolutely certain it’s full of Gruffalo.

Good job it was raining.

I went home and consumed at least four (and possibly as many as six) espressos in quick succession. Then, with a buzz that could rival any of Curly Girlie’s wald mushrooms, I hurried back to collect her. Would she be wet through and freezing? Would she be resentful at the abandonment? Would she be shacked up with the big, bad wolf?

Curly Girlie and her new best friend, whose name I later learnt was “boy”, were barrelling down a wet slide at the sort of speed NASA scientists dream of reaching. “Isch gwet gsi!” cried the leader, ‘it went well!’. Curly Girlie echoed “Isch gwet gsi!”. Darn her if she hasn’t been alive for less time than I’ve been learning German and she’s already better than me.

“Yeah?” I prodded for reassurance, “what did you think of waldspielgruppe?”

“Good.”

Then Alpha Blondie fell arse-first into a water trough, so we all came home.

Guilt-edged

My fellow Swiss blogger at Time For Tea, has raised one of the topics I love to hate the most: guilt. People of various religious denominations seem to vie for the guilty crown (of thorns) but I would hesitantly raise my hand and stake a claim on the title: what about ‘only child?’ or ‘being unemployed?’ or, goodness knows, ‘motherhood?’. There - have a handful of personal issues to stir into your culpability cauldron.

What do I have to feel guilty about anyway? I’m decent - mostly. Well, it can be summed up in two words: money and kids.

Back in the day, before I turned all ‘expat’, I had an actual job. Now, don’t get excited, I was hardly running a bank, but I did receive a modest monthly stipend, courtesy of the BBC, who sweeten their measly salaries with a subsidised bar, outings in the Countryfile Land Rover and free tickets to the Eurovision Song Contest. I was well chuffed with the deal.

Then, in the space of one week, I left my job, got married and moved to Cameroon. After a quick calculation, I worked out that financial dependence = guilt.

I’ve never been good at managing money and once believed that a perfectly acceptable approach to ‘sticking to a budget’ was to keep taking money out of the cash machine until it refused to give me any more. Then, to my credit, I would stop. But as soon as I wasn’t earning any money, I developed an obsessive aversion to spending it. Even now, almost ten years on, I’m plagued by guilt-induced spasms over it. Just the other day, while cutting up a lemon, I was hit by the realisation that, under my own steam, I couldn’t afford the lemon. I don’t deserve this lemon, I thought, guiltily. I haven’t earned this lemon!

And if spending money on oneself is bad, then try spending time on oneself.

After Cameroon, we went to live in Singapore, where we put up for a short while just off Orchard Road in a nice little flat with a lovely pool. Day One and the Husband rides off to work on the MRT, while I consult my To Do List, which only has two items: 1. find supermarket, 2. relaunch career.

We stayed at the flat with the lovely pool for six weeks, during which time I was so riddled with guilt about To Do List item No. 2 - I got No. 1 sorted, I’m guilt-prone, not stoopid - that I never once set foot in the pool. I was simply too shamefaced to swim in or sit by that pool while The Husband spent all day in the office. The lovely little pool became the very symbol of my reluctant idleness and unmerited life of luxury.

Then I got an office job and felt like a right numpty for wasting the pool but, hey, you live and learn.

And then there’s now. Motherhood. All that other stuff was just baby guilt, playground guilt, Guilt for Dummies – motherhood is a crash-course PhD that turns you into Dr Guilt. In fact, there are so many things about motherhood that make me feel guilty, I’m going to have to use bullet points, for fear of stretching your patience...

• Finding out you’re pregnant when you got a bit drunk a few nights before.
• Being pregnant and eating half a plate of something that seems innocuous before someone informs you of a study that found that the comestible is somehow lethal to foetuses.
• Books / websites / people telling you that the way you carry / feed / cuddle your newborn will damage its hips / mental health / life expectancy.
• Not being able to lift Child One onto the slide at the playground because one is pregnant with Child Two.
• Not being able to devote oneself entirely to Child Two because of the presence of Child One.
• Saying that about Child One.
• Spending any time at all away from your children – whether it’s a hospital stay or a day at a spa, it’s all the same, guilt-wise.
• Leaving child in care in order to go to work.
• Failing to be a good role model by not going to work.
• Giving them beans on toast for their tea instead of a nutritionally-balanced meal that includes all the food groups.
• Hearing the Curly Girlie say “the other children don’t want to play with me” because she insists on speaking English at the German-language crèche.
• Letting them watch too much TV.
• Not letting them do exactly what they want (watch TV).
• Shouting at them.
• Putting their shoes on the wrong feet and not noticing for ages.
• Nappy rash (what is that mother feeding them?!).
• Nightmares (why doesn’t she sleep right alongside them?!).
• Falls in the playground (why doesn’t she lock them up until it’s safe to go out?!)

I could go on. Honestly, I could. Motherhood is impossible to get right. And that makes me feel, really... you know.

I am Indiana Jo – welcome to my Temple of Doom

Once upon a time, I went to Chad on a press trip. Fascinating country and quite a place of contrasts: one day I hitched a lift on the Finance Minister’s private jet; the next I had to push my own taxi to the petrol station when it broke down.

chad taxi

And then there’s Cameroon Airlines, who were supposed to fly me home to Douala. When it comes to Cameroon Airlines, here’s a word of advice: don’t.

My flight out of Chad was delayed for four days. On the fourth day I was out of cash and there isn’t an ATM in Chad, so I decided to go to the airport and adopt an African approach to waiting, which can be summarised as: sit, wait.

This is much more effective than the Anglo Saxon approach to waiting, which can be summarised as: sit, fidget, check watch, tut, stride about, check watch, question an official, sit, huff, check watch, try to read, get distracted, fidget, sigh, check watch, stride about, get sweaty, buy drink, spill drink on self, swear, sit, develop ulcer, die of frustration.

So I took a seat, parked my suitcase in front of me and noted, with some degree of prescience, that the windows had no glass in them. It was daytime and still light. I drank a cool coke. There were almost certainly insects, but I hadn’t noticed them yet.

A while later it was dusk. The bar was out of cold soft drinks, so I had a tepid coke.  When a bug landed on my bare arm, I shook it off.

Then it was night. The bar was out of all soft drinks, so I had a hot beer. There were so many insects, I only flicked away the ones that landed on exposed skin: the ones on my clothes could stay put.

Later, the bar was out of all drinks and it was African dark outside, but the departures lounge was lit up like a giant accessible moon, and all the insects in all the world streamed in through the open windows. N’djamena airport was like the Temple of Doom – and I was Indiana Jo.

When a door finally opened and the flight was called, I had to scrape an inch-deep layer of insects off the top of my suitcase just to get hold of the handle. Then I boarded the plane and spent the hour-long flight picking grasshoppers out of my hair.

Shame I don’t have a picture – but taking photos in African airports tends to get you arrested and, well, that’s a whole other anecdote. Once upon a time, this kind of thing happened to me - and I loved it. But now? Well... times change.

view from the backseat in a chad taxi

I just got back from a holiday in Corsica. Have you been? It’s lovely.

So why couldn’t I relax?

Is it because taking kids to a new place means baby-proofing all over again? The first thing I used to do on arrival in a boutique hotel was trampoline on the bed while simultaneously sniffing the free shampoo. Nowadays, I shoulder open the adjoining doors of our family suite and roll across the floor – SAS style – to recce the place for baby-traps. “OK troops! There’s unsecured stairs at 12 o’clock! Glassware, repeat, GLASSWARE at 6 o’clock! And... my god, there’s a FLOOR-LEVEL MINIBAR! Call for BACKUUUUUP!”

Or is it because I’ve changed? I’ve happily swopped a dugout canoe for a pedaloe: the Finance Minister’s jet for Easyjet: and being covered in insects for... er... not being covered in insects. All of the above are MUCH easier with kids.

I’m sure that my travel-MOJO will return in time. When my daughter has grown out of ‘exploring her boundaries’ by running away as fast as she can towards heavy traffic, and when my son has had enough of ‘investigating the texture of things’ by putting them into his orifices, then we will be adventurous again. Until then, Indiana Jo is hanging up her bullwhip... although, on second thoughts, it could come in useful next time that girl legs it...

What a knee-jerk!

Just as I finally finished reading Buddhism for Mothers of Young Children, and genuinely felt I had made some headway in my battle against shouting, swearing and beating the children with a rolled-up Kindle, I read an article called

“How to Land Your Kid in Therapy”

. Lori Gottlieb, a therapist and mother, writes that trying to make your kids happy all the time only makes them, well, miserable.

Lou Brooks

Great...

... all that hard work down the drain. I even meditated (ok, only once, and then I got put off because the cooker timer started beeping halfway through and I had to decide whether ignoring it was part of the training or whether I should just get up and take the Quorn cutlet out of the oven). Turns out, contrary to my belief that occasionally losing my rag and yelling a bit would make the kids hate me, it seems that the odd moment of parental bad behaviour can help the kids grow up into independent, effective, balanced adults. In fact, being a perfect role model and doing everything for them will only breed wussy, narcissistic, reassurance-addictive freaks who can’t tell their pampered arses from their spoilt tennis elbows.

Ever prone to a knee-jerk reaction, I have drawn up a rota of bad parenting – child adversity training, if you will – to counteract the moments when I accidentally manage to be loving, attentive and supportive.

On Mondays I will remove all toys from the house. This will teach them to make their own entertainment, and also that life is cruel.

On Tuesdays I will act distant and disinterested. This will make them emotionally resilient and show them that they are, when it comes down it, alone in the world.

On Wednesdays I will not pick them up when they fall. As they lie, face down in the dirt, clutching their grazed knees, they will learn to tolerate discomfort, and also accept that sometimes Mummy can’t be bothered to bend down.

On Thursdays I will ban all forms of play and we will only carry out household tasks in a joyless manner. From this, they will learn that ‘many hands make light work’, but also that life is one long chore with no thanks at the end of the day.

On Fridays I will answer the ‘whys’ with brutal honesty. “Mummy, why does our dog walk funny?” “Because he has crippling arthritis”. “Why does he have crippen-arse-rat?” “Because his body is slowly but inexorably degenerating with every passing day: he’s very slowly dying, like all of us – even you, poppet!”

At the weekends we can relax.

Dirty secret

Today started at 5.50am when Curly Girlie decided she wanted to crawl into bed with Mummy and Daddy and go back to sleep. Unfortunately, her definition of ‘sleep’ is not ‘lie down, close eyes and drift off into silent unconsciousness’. Rather, it is ‘thrash around, hit Mummy on head, make pretend snoring noises until younger brother wakes up and joins in’.

The worse thing about starting the day at 5.50am is not that kids’ TV doesn’t start until 7am (Central Nussberg Time), or that I am as cross as a wet cat when tired, but that the kids themselves are shattered. Over-tired kids are accident-prone, irrational and inclined to random acts of violence. Spending the morning with them is very much like being the designated driver at a drunken party: you have to segue between illogical conversations, hysterical laughter, bouts of weeping, fisticuffs and declarations of love, all the while stopping them slipping off the side of the chair onto the floor.

But worst of all, being up so early, before the ‘electronic babysitter’ is on duty, made me regret my decision of last week to let the house go to hell. I did tidy up a bit over the weekend – and of course The Husband helped out by hiding some things in an inexplicable location so that we can rediscover them one day when we move out – but not enough.

The general chaos simply cranked up the tension: there were tears over colouring pens that had dried up after the tops were left off; there was swearing after standing on a razor-edged building block; and there was a decision on the part of Alpha Blondie that most of his toys had vanished into the ether, and that he’d better carry around every single one of them at all times for fear of losing them too, hence his pathetic wails of “Roggyyyyyyyy!” (his frog), “Wee-wooooo!” (his wolf), “Owwwwww!” (his cat) and another sound that cannot be reproduced phonetically that appears to correspond to his Bull.

I decided enough was enough. The house is still far from the ‘housewife clean’ standard expected of Swiss wives (I’m not being ironic – ‘housewife clean’ is a perfectly acceptable standard of hygiene in Switzerland and is afforded the utmost respect by estate agents) but at least it doesn’t unsettle the kids any more. But I apologise to all those who left messages of support for my slovenly hiatus – sorry for tidying up and letting the side down.

Coming clean

I give in. Rather like the lush grasslands that over thousands of years were overwhelmed by the encroaching sands of the Sahara, I am giving up my home to the inexorable expansion of the Things. Like the once-unyielding stones of Angkor or Borobodur, the voracious tentacles of the Stuff have engulfed me, weakened my foundations of cleanliness, and pulled me down under their crushing weight. I simply cannot stand to spend one more minute tidying up.

Now that I have surrendered my home to the Objects, it will slowly evolve into an archaeological site of the future. Hairy students with Bristol accents will one day chip through the sediment. On the surface, they will find the biggest Stuff: books, single shoes and empty DVD cases. In the next layer reside the medium-sized Things: Lego, magnetic letters and pieces of shredded paper. Finally, at the bottom, in some cases actually embedded in the rug, lay the tiny Bits: gold stars, multi-coloured beads and ancient grapes that occupy a new category of food stuff (for 18-month-old Alpha Blondie strongly believes they are edible) that is halfway between fresh fruit and dried raisin.

What will these archaeologists make of my home, hundreds of years from now? “Maybe this random scattering of Things had a ceremonial purpose?” they will ask. “Or were the inhabitants forced to abandon all this Stuff because of a sudden climactic event?” they may well posit. “Perhaps this mother of the Anthropocenic era just sat down in the middle of the room one day and thought ‘feck it, I can’t be arsed any more’?” one of the mature students will more accurately wonder. And who can blame that poor, ancient creature, who simply did not have the wherewithal to cope with the overpowering deluge of Crap that swept into her life along with the sudden arrival of two children?

Take this morning, for example. For reasons I have no patience to explain, I was scouring the house and garden for the following Lost Items: a packet of modelling clay, an item of clothing that may or may not exist, and a watering can rose. Nothing. The act of looking-for-things often throws up other unexpected chores, so on the way I cleared a path to make the stairs navigable again, did some recycling, unearthed a copy of Elmer and read it with Alpha Blondie, removed and washed the kids’ bed sheets, discovered an elusive corner of a Peppa Pig Jigsaw and completed the puzzle to check I had all the other pieces, and cut out about a hundred butterflies from the aforementioned wrapping paper. All very good...

... but back to the Lost Items. There was only one place left to look – under the sofa. I lay face down in the prime grape-drying area between the couch and the footstool, and dislocated my left shoulder in order to better sift through the quagmire of Things. No clay, clothes or watering can roses. But I did find: a Charlie Chaplin DVD, two Peppa Pig DVDs, a red cushion, half a wooden carrot, a book, a shoe (mine), a slipper (Alpha Blondie’s), a sock (Curly Girlie’s), a block of Post-it notes, an otoscope, a number 9, an empty tin of macademia nuts (the Husband's) and a Frisbee.

Naturally, I didn’t remove any of these items from under the sofa because then I would have had to find homes for them all. Instead, I lay there with Alpha Blondie bouncing on my back making trotting noises and made a decision: instead of removing the Things from under the sofa, why not simply store them there? Then, when the Husband asks for his nuts or Curly Girlie demands a wooden carrot or Alpha Blondie wails ‘OOOoooOOOoooOOO!’ (which roughly translates as ‘I need a shoooooe so I can go outside and fall over on the stones’) I can just say: ‘under the sofa, Darling!’ What a neat solution.

Could it be magic?

My iPhone has packed up. I know, I know – you feel my pain. Tomorrow, I lose the phone altogether for a full 24 hours while it is, hopefully, repaired to its former glory. This is beyond inconvenience, this is panic stations.

How did I get so dependent so quickly? The thing is, you can’t de-evolve. People don’t un-develop. There are always Luddites, but you don’t hear much these days about the caveman who didn’t want to jump on the whole wheel bandwagon, do you?

So I’m struck by all the magic in my house. Really, it might as well be magic, because I sure as hell can’t explain it: WiFi – I just walk about the place, accessing the Internet in the office, the kitchen, the garden, halfway down the front drive, printing things out willy-nilly as I go; the ground-source heating system – it takes heat directly out of the Earth and uses it to make the floors agreeably warm; the hob – it cooks the food, but it doesn’t get hot. The latter is clearly the devil’s work and I don’t trust it. But then, I still make the kids go out of the room when I use the microwave, so...

We may call it technology, but really it’s just magic. If the Inquisition ever comes to my house, they’ll burn me as a witch. I must get an App for that.

Don’t get me wrong (if you say hello and I take a ride)

In the years since I’ve been an expat, I’ve grown used to being a conspicuous outsider, a source of amusement, a bit of a novelty. My first posting was Cameroon, West Africa, where I went everywhere to a chorus of “Eh! La Blanche!”, which translates as “hey, White Woman!”. Political correctness never caught on in Cameroon.

Then I was in Singapore, where I also stood out from the crowd, mostly by being a head taller than a lot of other women. And now here I am in Switzerland, Winterthur to be exact, where I blend in nicely. No-one gives me a second glance - I’m like a spy in their midst.

Until I open my mouth.

In my personal experience, the Swiss (especially my neighbours) are extremely welcoming, but naturally enough people always prick up their ears when they hear a foreign language being spoken in the vegetable section of Migros. My skin doesn’t single me out any more, but my mother tongue certainly does. In the past, I’ve been able to hide behind tight lips – just a smile of greeting and remembering to say ‘merci vielmals’ instead of ‘danke schön’. But then I had kids and was forced to break my silence.

pumpkin

Which brings me to today, Migros and a toddler having a tantrum over a pumpkin. There was a meltdown next to the papayas and a lot of negotiation, an ultimatum and, finally, a good telling off. So just the usual, really: kid screaming in public; frazzled mum taking deep ragged breaths; and members of said public looking irritated by all the noise.

Except that, for an English speaker in a Swiss German-speaking supermarket, it’s much worse because no-one has a clue what the angry, shrill woman is saying to the weeping, gulping child. Pretty soon, I had drawn a crowd of onlookers, mostly drawn from the white-haired demographic, who gathered around in a slightly menacing way, saying nothing but clearly signalling that they had Social Services on speed-dial on their giant-buttoned mobiles.

When I said in my special low-toned, calming voice, “now, Curly Girlie, you’ve already been allowed to keep the three kumquats that you picked and weighed all by yourself, so can you please put the pumpkin back and maybe we’ll try that another day?”, they translated it as, “listen here, child of mine, you’re nearly three now so it’s time you learnt that Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy are cynical inventions of the greeting card industry, now buck up and carry this pumpkin – no, not that little one, the big one over there”.

When I bent down to her level and adopted my no-nonsense tone to say, “I’m going to count to three and I want you to put the pumpkin back, 1, 2, 3...”, what they heard was, “and while I’m at it, the photo of the man I told you was Daddy is actually Face from the A-Team, now I want to hear no more about it. On three, grab this pumpkin, 1, 2, 3...”.

And when I stood back up and started gabbling, loudly and rapidly while waving my hands around a lot, they didn’t realise I was pleading, “this is the third meltdown of the morning, you ran away into the path of a car nearly killing yourself, then you turned over the table in the restaurant with all our food on it and now you’re having a tantrum over a pumpkin and you don’t even like pumpkin! Now let’s take some deep breaths together to calm down and get on with our shopping”, they imagined I was threatening, “look here, useless girl-child with a lower-than-optimal potential earning capacity, just stop making a fuss over this pumpkin-carrying. You already messed up the job I got you in a textile factory, you keep falling out of chimneys and you’re not cute enough to model, so you’ve got to earn your keep somehow. Now quit whining about the heavy pumpkin – I’m putting a crate of beer in your backpack in the next aisle...”

And they say toddlers get frustrated when they can’t express themselves...

Zen and the Art of Toddler Maintenance

I’m currently reading a book about Buddhism and children, and it seems that kids are just really Zen without even trying. They live in the moment – in fact, mine are so young, they’re barely even capable of mulling over the past or fretting about the future. They live in the ‘here’ – so much so that dragging them away from ‘here’ (wherever that may be at any given moment, from staring down a drain outside my house to the best toy shop ever) is nigh on impossible. And they always have a ‘Beginner’s Mind’ – they see the world afresh, because they are fresh. Unlike this stale, crusty old mother who always seems to be saying ‘come on, come on, we can’t stay here, we have to go there’ unless I’m trying to get their shoes on to leave the house, in which case I’ll be saying ‘come away from there, just come over here’. I always have to be somewhere I’m not.

I realised the Zen-ness of the Curly Girlie on Friday at the wonderful farmer’s market in Winterthur. As usual, I had a list and I had a deadline and I had Things To Do. The Curly Girlie had other ideas. Finishing up at a vegetable stall, I turned to see her peering into a grubby, stainless steel box on the pavement.

‘Come away from the bin! It’s all dirty!’

Sensing that she would soon be robbed of her opportunity, she stretched up on tip-toes, the better to see inside, because ‘the bin’ was a good six inches taller than her.

‘Curly Girlie! You’re getting all wet and dirty! We have to go, come on...’

‘Mummy, what is it?’

‘It’s just a bin, darling!’

‘Mummy, what is it?’

‘Oh, for goodness sake, it’s a bin...’ I grabbed her hand.

‘No, Mummy! What is it?’

And I noticed the light inside the bin. An illuminated bin? Surely not – not even in Switzerland, where they polish the rubbish cans. And then I noticed that the top of the ‘bin’ was covered with a piece of glass – filthy and hard to see through, but glass nonetheless. And then I noticed the engraving around the top of the stainless steel – ‘Sodbrunnen erbaut 1500’.

The Curly Girlie was peering down a long well, which had been built by Winti residents in 1500, rediscovered in 1764 and turned into a modest little archaeological display in 2001. It is grubby and – seemingly – forgotten but it even has a light, which the Curly Girlie was working by pressing a tiny white button on the outside of the unit. Needless to say, I hadn’t noticed the button until she showed me.

500 years that well has been there. That didn’t mean much to the present-minded Zen toddler. I must have walked past it 500 times – it’s right on Steinberggasse, for those who know Winti – and never seen it. I’ve probably even thrown a couple of crisp packets and bus tickets in it.

But now we both stood, in the middle of a busy market, apparently peering into a ‘bin’. A couple of other kids came over, and their mums shouted at them, and then another one, and her mother called her back too. What is it? It’s a well, I told them, and the Curly Girlie showed off her Great Discovery – the light switch. Eventually, with a level of exasperation that only a mother of toddlers can reach, the other mums came over and noticed the light, the glass, the well.

The Curly Girlie accepted her place in the natural hierarchy of children and stepped back to let the bigger kids see. Then she spotted a cheese stall and raced off.

Love is...

I love you. Just this afternoon, the Curly Girlie said it to me for the first time ever - a special moment, which was rather undermined by this insight into the fickle thoughts of a toddler:I love you. *pause* Oh! You love Mummy? Yes, I love Mummy. Ah... that’s lovely, and I love you. Yes. Who else do you love? Daddy. Aah... My brother. Aaah... Little Oof-Oof (favourite toy) Aah, of course. Big Oof-Oof (second favourite toy) Ah, yes. Cat. Which cat? Cat. All the cats? Yes. Ah-ha. Light switches. What? Light switches. You love light switches? Yes. And Lady. Which lady? Today lady. *thinking* The lady in the supermarket who gave you some ham? Yes. Hmm. Beads. Beads? And pencils. Right... And glue. OK. And letters. Letters, ok. And the kitchen. I see. So, basically, you love everything you can see right now? Yes. *pause* But most of all, you love Mummy, right? Yes. Well, that’s something.

Scummy Mummy

If anyone asks, I’m FINE. That’s Fed-Up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional. I’m joking, of course. On the contrary, since I had my kids I’ve BLOOMED – that is, I count myself Bloody Lucky that I’m only Occasionally Out of My Depth. Turns out I’m not the only one. The BBC ran a story today about a survey on the UK website Netmums that found that two-thirds of mothers tell lies about how well they’re coping with parenthood. Not to their kids, husbands or psychiatrists – oh no – but to each other. Mothers lie to other mothers at the school gate because they feel under pressure to be perfect.

Scummy Mummy

I’m not surprised. A friend once warned me that playgroups may well be the most competitive environment a woman will ever encounter – but at least it’s good preparation for the sheer merciless mum-on-mum brutality of school.

Indeed, I’ve found that other mothers (*) can be judgemental, catty and supercilious. Did I say judgemental? Yes? Well, I’m going to say it again - other mothers can be so judgemental! No wonder we lie to each other all the time, it’s better than being ostracised from the playgroup because you let your toddler eat Haribo or your car doesn’t have ISOFIX or your bra isn’t certified BPA-free.

So, anyway. Netmums reckons we should all be more open and honest about how mediocre we are at parenting, in order to redress the balance and take the pressure off ourselves. To that end, I’m outing my own lies. Here they are:

1. I never swear in front of my kids. No - and one of the first complete phrases to exit the unsullied rosebud lips of my Curly Girlie was NOT ‘Oh, for Fuck’s Sake’. That didn’t happen. 2. Similarly, I never lose my rag and shout. Occasionally, I briefly mislay the rag and become somewhat shrill in a way that might be misconstrued as shouting. But it’s ok, because all my parenting books tell me that toddlers are only testing the boundaries. That’s why, when I briefly mislay my rag, I say shrill-ly “SO HERE YOU ARE! HERE’S MY BLOODY BOUNDARY! GO ON, GIVE IT ANOTHER POKE, IF YOU THINK YOU’RE HARD ENOUGH!” 3. My kids don’t watch much TV. Just because it’s lovely, middle-class, vocabulary-building, manners-promoting, multi-culti Peppa Pig - it’s still TV. 4. I don’t play the kids off against each other. ‘What’s that? Don’t want to eat your dinner? Shall I give it to your little brother then? Oh, oh, careful, don’t stuff it all in at once, you’ll choke...’ 5. I don’t own a Gina Ford book. No, I threw the Satanic book out after someone told me it promoted methods used in Romanian orphanages (you see – judgemental)... Oh alright, I threw it out after it fell apart from being endlessly thumbed and caressed.

I could go on. I won’t – not because I’m averse to boring you, but because I have that sinking feeling that I’m the only one who will expose myself and everyone else will continue being ‘perfect’ while I’m ridiculed and pointed at in the street and my children are taken into care. Use the comments section, if you dare.

(* For the sake of balance, many mothers are nice, but that’s missing the point.)

real-parenting-150x150

Toddler conversation

Mummy?Yes, love? Can I take my sock off? OK. Mummy? Yes? Can I take my sock off? Yes, OK. Mummay? Yes. Can I take my sock off? Yes, if you want to, take your sock off. Mummaay? Yeees? Can I take my sock off? Darling! Yes! Take it off. Mummaaay? *sigh* Can I take my sock off? Yes. Mummaaay? Yes? Mummaaaay? YES? Mummaaaaay? ... Mummaaaaaay? Yes! Can I take my sock off? Look, it’s your sock, I really don’t care, take it off, leave it on, it’s your decision. Mummy? *deep breath* Yes, Darling? Can I take my sock off? Is this some form of psychological torture? Mummay? What? Can I take my sock off? Are you working for the CIA? Mummaay? With a profound sense of dread and trepidation - yes? I took my sock off. Excellent. Mummy? Yes, love? Can I take my other sock off?

Kaleidoscope Curly Girlie

A verse to Christmas?

‘Twas a few nights before Christmasand all through the house, Creatures were stirring – was it a mouse?

The clock showed 04.30 as I woke up, yawning, dragged from my slumber by a furious gnawing.

The stockings were slung half prepared on the floor, awaiting their filling with nuts, toys and more,

but a tiny gourmand had a fine dinnertime, feasting on peanuts, gold coins and clementine.

While I sat in bed finding mice all too scarey, the man of the house got up nude and hairy.

He dashed ‘cross the room and snatched up that sock and with mouse trapped inside turned to take stock:

“I have it, I have it!” he cried out of breath, “What should I do? Should I beat it to death?”

“Oh no!” I called out “That’s much too agrarian. You’ll wake up the kids, and besides I’m vegetarian!”

So we opened a window to the dark, snowy air and I thought with a pang “No food for mice out there!

“Show some compassion, Don’t be such a miser”. And I threw down some treats: a mouse appetiser.

So if you’re inclined to slay mice for their daring, please do remember: t’is the season for sharing.

When that mouse called out it made up for the fuss: “Good Night to All and to All, Merry Christmas!”

Mi casa, su casa (or as the Swiss might say) mini Huus, dini Huus

So there I am, at home, watching the Blonde Baby Bombshell ‘explore the texture of food’, when the front door bell rings. I ignore it, which might seem like an odd choice to less reclusive readers, but here are my excuses: the child is covered in food and if I pick him up to get to the door quickly then I too will be covered in food; and 99% of unexpected callers to my door are selling mops. I don’t need a mop. So I ignore the door. The bell rings again. Now I really don’t answer the door because suddenly they are hassling me and I am stubborn. So I stay put. And then something very alarming happens. I hear a sound exactly like the front door being opened and a person walking in. Hmm, what to do, I think to myself.

Of course, I didn’t think that at all - I actually thought seven kinds of swear words and got a massive fight-or-flight burst of adrenaline. I decided that, on my own with two kids in a rather remote house, fight was the best option. So I dashed down the stairs to confront the intruder, assuming (hoping?) that the opportunist would be shocked that someone could be so anti-social as to ignore a caller who rings twice.

Down the stairs I thunder, and if sheer outrage is any kind of deterrent to a burglar / rapist / kidnapper, then mine would be truly cowed - for I am cross. The front door swings open... and a bunch of roses appears. The intruder is a lady from Interflora who has decided to break-and-enter rather than surrender a spray of seasonal blooms to the winter weather.

What kind of country is this, where delivery people will just let themselves into someone’s home? I know Switzerland is supposed to be safe, but this is ridiculous. For a start, it suggests that a significant proportion of people leave their front doors unlocked when they go out.

Then there’s the whole dog thing - I have a 30kg slavering boxer dog who was making his presence known behind the door. Now we all know that the dog is getting on a bit, very arthritic, and prone to random acts of cowardice, but to a total stranger who is ringing the doorbell and clutching flowers, he looks and sounds exactly like a 30kg slavering boxer dog. At best, there is the clear and present danger of slipping over on that much drool. Do Swiss delivery people truly have no angst?

And there are other reasons to be fearful. I thought the Swiss were supposed to have a gun under every bed? Isn’t it feasible that some short-sighted, paranoid old crone could be hunkered on the stairs with a shotgun – or do they assume that people like that are unlikely to be on the receiving end of Interflora?

The whole incident strikes me as distinctly Swiss. In the UK, we’d be too scared of causing a scene. In the US, we’d be too scared of being shot. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that crime is so low the supermarket delivery service just leave my shopping outside the door if I’m out – but I’m dreading the day I come home to find they’ve put it away in the fridge, done the washing up and left me a cup of tea on the draining board.

Landfillmarkt

Many thanks to the city of Winterthur for playing host to the annual Martini Markt, but to be honest we were disappointed – there was no Martini to be had: no bianco, no rosso, not even any vermouth. Just the usual Glühwein and Süssmöst for the kids. Turns out, Martini refers to a Saint Martin and it’s all just an excuse for children to stay up late and for adults to eat raclette standing next to a bin. It’s the same story with the city’s Albani Fest – I expected some tasty Albanian baklava and perhaps a bit of ethnic dancing. But what did we get? Saint Alban, the patron saint of drunken teenagers on fairground rides.

So anyway, despite the lack of olive-garnished cocktails, the Martini Markt was pleasant enough. It was fun watching the Curly Girlie try to consume a day-glo lollipop while clinging on to a carousel horse. And of course, this being Switzerland, there were plenty of sausage-eating opportunities.

The problem, though, is that they don’t stop at catering and fairground rides – they have to insist on the market element. And that’s when my enjoyment stops and a sort of horrified car-wreck fascination sets in – I can’t stop obsessing about the tat that’s on sale at the junk-peddling market stalls. More particularly, whose fevered mind designs the stuff, why do people think they can make a good living selling it and, most of all, who buys this... landfill?

Hollowed out lumps of pink crystal with tea lights in. Vomit-coloured socks knitted from hairy wool that looks itchy. And, my personal nemesis, dream catchers. They don’t catch bad dreams – at best, they catch fire on one of the tea lights and burn down all the rest of the tat.

I’m enthralled by the choices people make about how to dispose of their hard-earned cash. Do we put in all those hours at the office just to hand over our precious pennies for a special Christmas doormat? Does the dream of installing a very wide exhaust pipe on a souped-up Fiat Panda make the dull afternoon shift fly by? Are people spurred on to achieve their yearly bonus so they can mount giant plastic butterflies on the side of their house?

The next stage of my pondering shifts my attention from the Landfillmarkt and other people’s inexplicable cravings, to my own seething cauldron of consumerist desire, which I try to keep dampened down to a controllable level, but will on this occasion let loose like a demented Genie brandishing a Mastercard. With five minutes thinking time on the clock, these are all the things I want, in no particular order of importance or tatishness:

- A photo printer - Jamie’s Thirty Minute Meals - A book about Swiss German - An Audi Quattro Allroad, in black - A red top to go with my camel-coloured trousers - Boots that are halfway between snow-boots and smart-heeled boots - A pair of Converse with sheepskin lining - Sheepskin gloves - Sheepskin slippers - Sheepskin throw

Mmmm, sheepskin... Oooh, and then there’s:

- An American ‘food centre’ fridge that will fit up the stairs - A heather-coloured woolly hat to match some gloves I have - A set of green hat, scarf and gloves that I saw while searching for a heather-coloured hat and then wished I hadn’t already bought the heather-coloured gloves - An omelette pan - An antique French dresser for the kitchen

Oh Goodness, now I’m out of control:

- A how-to-draw book so I can impress the Curly Girlie - New bed linen - A party dress - A new mascara - A kilt pin - An entirely remodelled bedroom / dressing room / bathroom suite.

OK, I really should stop.

So, I’m interested – do share via the comments if you dare – are you responsible for buying the tat? If so, what’s your best tat? And what’s on your materialist-list?

Nutters with Putters

In many ways, Hastings is the quintessential English seaside resort - wind-swept, faded and permanently out of season. On a warm Bank Holiday, the prom is invaded by desperate, fractious families, who come for a Nice Day Out and, instead, get into fisticuffs over parking spaces. But come the end of the weekend, the town is handed back to intimidating local gangs: youths lurking in bus stops, gnarly fishermen gutting things on the beach, and old folk risking their dentures in fish ‘n chip shops. Or, at least, that’s how I remember it from way back when. Nowadays, of course, it’s a bit fancy in Hastings. There’s a cafe called ‘Pomegranate’, which is apparently not a cafe at all, but a ‘food and drink house’. They’ve also gone mad and spent lots of money to make the attractions – like the smugglers’ caves and fisherman’s museum - good. That’s just daft, they’re missing the point. You only need ‘attractions’ in a place where there’s nothing to do.

As a child, it didn’t matter that Hastings had seen better days - for me, it was better days. The perfect combination of three things: a fabulous sweet shop that sold home-made cough candy in long pieces that had to be broken up with a little metal hammer (God, how I wanted to wield that hammer), an indoor funfair with a giant robot man that you climbed inside via a wacky jumping staircase and, most importantly, crazy golf. Not just any crazy golf – and certainly not mini golf, whose name shall not be uttered on these pages again – but the best crazy golf EVER.

As it turns out, and I only discovered this today on the BBC, it actually is the best crazy golf course ever, and not just for me looking through my rose-tinted specs. Hastings seafront is host to championship crazy golf, the spiritual home of crazy golf, the course that the best crazy golfers in the world visit to test their crazy skills.

Now it all falls into place – I have Hastings to thank for my lifetime fascination with the crazy game. Like sportsmen and women who grew up in St Andrews, Twickenham or Ascot, I was raised in the company of the best, rubbing shoulders with champions, soaking up an atmosphere of excellence. So that’s why I’m so great at crazy golf. At least, much better than my husband.

I hardly knew as I honed my crazy golf skills as a child, that the game would play a defining role in the early years of my marriage. Like some people have ‘their song’, we had ‘our crazy golf’. Once I discovered that he was also a fan and could play to a high enough level to truly challenge me, I decided that he was worth a lifetime of my devotion. We even planned to write a book together – Crazy Golf Courses of the World – and collected material for chapters from places like Costa Rica, Cameroon and Slovenia. Maybe we’ll finish it when we retire. It’s good to have a dream. But for now, I'll always have Hastings.

Thanks for the extreme wealth

What is it about the filthy rich that makes us mortals want to spit and grovel all at the same time? Money seems to bring out all seven of the deadly sins at once, and there was plenty of greed, envy, wrath and vainglory on display in the media today, as it was revealed that one in ten of the world’s billionaires lives in Switzerland. We’re stinking rich here, you know. If you live in Switzerland, then the definition of ‘filthy rich’ isn’t just a paltry ‘millionaire’, as it used to be in the good old poor days. According to a book published by a Basel University sociology professor this week, to be even considered rich in this richest of rich countries, you have to be rich to the tune of at least CHF30m – that’s more than £20m/$30m.

Personally, I have a simpler measure: lake view. If your flat has got a lake view, then you’re rich. If your house has got a lake view, then you’re seriously rich. If your house has got a lake, then you’re filthy rich. The problem for the rest of the 97% of the Swiss population that is not considered rich by the authors of How the Rich Think and Act, is that we have to live alongside these buggers, in the madly wealth-orientated society that they leave in their petal-strewn, Chanel-scented, Bally-footprinted wake.

There are many ways that Switzerland is just too damn rich: a Big Mac costs more here than anywhere else in the world; the cost of subsidising three cows is the same as sending one child to primary school for a year; and shoe shops give away free socks, just to try on the shoes. Here are five other ways that I’ve noticed that Switzerland puts the CH in rich:

- there are no DIY shops. Well, there are, but they’re rubbish and tiny. No-one here Does It Themself – they pay someone else to Do It For Them. - menial workers do not come from poor countries. When we employed muscular men to tear down parts of our house, they didn’t come from the places I would expect, like Poland or Slovakia. They came from Germany. That scared me, financially speaking. - no-one pays tips to waiters and waitresses. It’s not because the customers are all stingy, but because the staff are already well paid. So much so, that half the time they can’t be bothered to serve you, but that’s another story. - there is no crime. Now I don’t have sufficient training in the fields of sociology, criminology, economics, political science, law and what have you to insist on an ironclad link between GDP and crime, but an informal study of my various travel destinations shows me that the rich ones (Switzerland, Singapore) were safe, while the poor ones (Cameroon, Chad) were really dodgy. - winter cars. We have a special set of winter tyres for our car, and I find it oddly profligate that we own four perfectly good wheels that sit in the garage for half the year waiting to come back into fashion. But that’s nothing: a large number of people here own entire winter cars. They park up the soft-tops in specially rented underground parking spaces during the winter months, when they drive four-by-fours instead, and then they bring out the sporty numbers in the spring after the last frost has passed, in much the same way I dig out my old sandals from the back of the wardrobe.

So there it is: Switzerland, home to one in ten billionaires and a few million less minted mortals, all jostling for a glimpse of that lake view – from the train. In second class.