When do you think you’ll start a family?

Saturday night Steve and I were lucky to attend a friend’s birthday party.  We met and mingled with the other guests over drinks, then sat down for dinner.  We sat opposite a co-worker of mine and her husband, Chris.  About an hour or so into the meal, after talking about how long we’ve been married, he asked when we thought we might have children.  I looked at Steve thoughtfully for a second and replied “oh, we were thinking about February.”   Chris looked confused and said it was a little late for that, because I wasn’t pregnant.  To which I stood up and let him get a good look at my profile.  He couldn’t believe it.

Note to self – wear black turtleneck sweater more often…

Switzerland part II: Liechtenstein

One of the benefits of having a train pass is that you tend to go places that are sort of on the way just because you can.

The second full day of our trip started in Appenzell and ended in Luzern.  We took the long way, to make a short stop in Liechtenstein, just to see what all the fuss was about.  We took three trains and two buses to get to the centre of Liechtenstein.  Since we were on the bus going past the ‘Welcome to Liechtenstein’ sign we posed for a photo in front of the Tourist Information kiosk to prove we were here.

The castle up on top of the hill.  The royal family lives there, and you can tour a bit, but it takes a long time to get up there so we skipped.

There was an interesting little postal museum.  The post is very important in Liechtenstein.  The museum was quite interesting to look at for a half hour break or so.  The post is an amazingly large percentage of the GDP of the country.  We did our bit and mailed one postcard to my Grandma Johnson.

Steve had to sample the local beer – which had an awesome slogan: “One Land, One Beer.”  Liechtenstein isn’t really big enough for more than one beer, actually.

I got some yummy french fries.

After an hour or so we ran out of things to do so we caught the bus out of town to the train station just across the border back in Switzerland.

Our plan was to take two more trains to Luzern, but a train accident closed the track, so we had to re- route, and it took 3 trains instead.

Total for the day.  6 trains and 3 bus rides.

Switzerland 29-Aug to 13-Sep

Steve and I spent a very relaxing two weeks in Switzerland this September.  We traveled the first two weeks of September last year as well, and find those weeks to be the perfect combination of good weather and diminished crowds.  Problem is that those weeks are also very pleasant at home and we miss out, but we’d rather have good weather on holiday and crummy weather at home.

The 29th (Saturday) was an easy travel day.  We had an early afternoon flight – we just don’t do crazy early flights if they can be avoided.  We arrived to Zurich around 5pm and took the train to Appenzell.  We stayed at the Hotel Appenzell, which we would highly recommend.  The room was the nicest we had the whole trip, and our room had a beautiful view of the town square and the hills beyond.

On the 30th we took a short train ride to Ebenalp to catch the lift up for hiking. 

This was our first day, and we were ‘taking it easy’ to see how I would do.  I was about 4 months pregnant at the start of the trip and not out of the exhausted phase yet.  I was slower than normal, but generally felt very well.  We wished we had brought our serious hiking boots almost immediately.  We had left them at home thinking that we wouldn’t use them since we were taking it easy, but we would have been much happier even on the flat trails as they are quite uneven. 

We hiked along the ridge over to a farm as a destination.  At that point you could see the next mountain hut, Schafler, glistening in the sun. 

We decided to give it a go, going as slow as I needed to.    We are glad we did as we had many excellent views and the walk wasn’t bad at all.  Yes, we got passed a lot, but speed was not the goal.  The grazing animals made for good company.

At the top we were rewarded with something to eat and the first of many good apple juices and ciders we’d have on the trip.  The non-alcoholic apple juices are produced by the brewing companies that make the hard cider, and they are lightly carbonated (generally).  They are extremely good.

We walked back down to the top of the lift and had to decide to take the lift down or walk down.  We decided to walk as there was a cave and hut on the way we wanted to see.  The cave and hut were quite a sight, the hut would be an amazing place to stay the night, but only if you were a VERY light packer and could schlep your bag up and down the trail from the top of the lift (you could just take a day pack up and leave your bigger bags at the train station at the bottom of the lift).

It was at the cave where we heard our first English of the trip.  This was a surprise to go 24 hours in Switzerland without hearing ANY English.

On the way down we did pass some people, including a family with an incredibly whiney 11 or 12-year-old boy.  I can’t remember if he was whingeing in English or some other language, but the sound of a too-big kid whining is universal.  

An hour or so later as we were STILL walking down, we were doubting the decision to walk it and REALLY missing our hiking boots, but remembering how unsightly it is to whine we kept our frustration to ourselves.  We were so happy when we finally got down.  We could hardly walk at this point, not from exertion but from using all those wierd leg muscles you only use downhill, that hadn’t been used in a very long time.  It would be 4 days until I could go down stairs without pain…

So, tally for the day, 280 metres of climbing and 1058 metres of descent.  Not bad for an old preggers woman, eh?

PS:  Yes, I know these blog posts are slow in coming, but I’m pregnant and we’ve both had the flu since.  Please forgive us.   If you’re nice I might even put up posts from LAST year’s trip to Spain and Greece.

A great laugh

My nephew John has a great laugh.  Click on the photo below to see the video.

John was a little slap-happy after a busy day in London.  Margie got him laughing by acting goofy.  Here he is laughing at a funny pregnant lady jumping up and down.

He and Uncle Steve like to chill – Steve would carry him around like this helping him check out the action in the house, this time it was dinner getting made in the kitchen.  The kitchen was quite a mysterious draw to John while he was here.  We kept the door closed generally, and everytime he saw the door open he would crawl as fast as he could over to try to see what treasures were inside.

Uncle Steve’s little helper

Although there were not a lot of pictures of them, Uncle Steve and John had a good time together.  Steve made a fire for us on several evenings, and John wanted to help. 

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In his entire 30-odd years Steve has never changed a baby’s diaper.  Unless there was an emergency, he wants the first diaper he changes to be his own kid’s.  Looks like he’ll get there, as he avoided diaper duty all 8 days John was here.

My new packing hero.

My sister is my new packing hero.  Not only did she schlep a baby and 90lbs of luggage full of American goodies for me over to England, she made the return trip with only two carry-ons!

Now, in my defence, not ALL 90lbs were mine.  She did bring a week’s worth of diapers and baby formula that got used up along the way…

Here they are as they headed into T4 – excited to get home and see Daddy Robbie. 

I miss them already!

John’s first trip to London

Thursday Margie, John and I went in to London.  John took his very first train ride!

John was a champ on the train, and we got him a Paddington Bear at the station.  

As soon as Margie put him in the Baby Bjorn he was asleep on the tube.

We headed to Westminster.  John was not so impressed.

Our destination was Westminster Abbey.  Margie had always wanted to see it, but was thwarted on her previous two trips to London as it was closed.  Third time a charm?  Nope, but we saw Prince Philip.  Margie seemed unimpressed, and annoyed it wasn’t the queen.  This was the first legitimate royal celebrity I’ve seen in my two years here so I think she should just be thankful.

Since Prince Philip apparently needs ALL of Westminster to his bad self, it wasn’t open until 1pm, so we headed up to do a little shopping on Bond street. 

We had lunch at a little pub.

We then headed back and got into Westminster on Margie’s fourth attempt in the last 8 years.  John promptly fell asleep shortly after we got inside, and gave us plenty of time to take in as much as we could handle.  The history is so thick there you can only take a bit of it in at a time.  Worth going back again someday I’m sure.

So, with our celebrity gawking, shopping and history intake complete we headed home, tired but happy.

John was a CHAMP all day, and really all week.  He slept through the nights and was good during the day.  He was maybe fussy on Tuesday, but after giving him a day of playtime on Wednesday he was right back in top form.  I hope my little boy is as good and fun as John.

PS:  Monday and Tuesday were spent in Wales, where I didn’t take very many pictures.  Margie’s blog post about that is here.  Wednesday I gave Margie the day off.  She took the train to Oxford and John and I stayed home and played.  He needed time to roam free on the floor.  The little man needs to keep his crawling skills fresh.

Sunday in Shiplake

Sunday was another low-key day (we’re like that).  Our friends the Davies’ were so kind to host us for Sunday lunch.  Caroline is a fabulous cook and we had roast lamb and all the trimmings – including two desserts!  Margie got to experience a traditional English Sunday roast.  After lunch we visited, then watched the end of the NY marathon and then the karaoke came out.  Margie, as the first time guest, had to go first…she wasn’t so sure she would have accepted the lunch invitation had she known she had to sing, but she had fun!  We made for a boisterous bunch, so much so that John seemed extra tired when we went home.

Then we went to church at the Binfield Heath chapel.  Everyone was so excited to get to meet John, who looked especially handsome in his new church and Christmas outfit.  Such a little man.  We got a picture with Margery, who made John a blanket back before he was born.

John’s first pub crawl.

Saturday we took Margie and John out on a 2-pub walk.  It was John’s first pub crawl, and I have to say if they’re going to start, start them with quality.  We went out to Turville and Skirmett – and got a beautiful bit of afternoon sunshine.  My sister doesn’t get to see much fall color in Texas – so she was happy to be out in the hills and through the woods.

John was really happy in the backpack – he was quieter than I have ever seen him (he is usually all babble) – Margie says it is because there was so much to take in.  His first pub visit was The Frog in Skirmett, where a little 4 year old girl was flirting with him but the main attraction was my pocket pack of tissues that he played with for a full twenty minutes before moving on to an empty crisp packet.

Undocumented hazards of taking your nephew out in public.

Friday Margie, John and I went into Henley. 

Our last stop was Waitrose for groceries.  Margie had gone back to look for a magazine so I had John in the checkout lane.  The clerk looked up at me, looked at John and then said, with a concerned look on her face “when is this one due?”  I quickly explained that John was my nephew here for a visit, and not mine.  She was audibly relieved.  

So, be careful pregnant ladies, toting a baby while your pregnant is likely to induce concerns from random townsfolk.