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Posts Tagged ‘daisy’

Daisy with pollen on her nose

Caught! Daisy maintains she wasn't in the flowers, but her yellow nose tells a different story!

 

It’s a beautiful spring afternoon and we just finished lunch on the balcony.  The barbecue has had a real workout over the past few days, Aude has been busy potting plants, and all around us the trees are beginning to bloom.  It’s getting tougher and tougher to spend time in the office, staring out the window at the glorious weather outside and hoping that it lasts until the weekend.  This weekend we’ve been lucky — the weather has lasted and the weekend as been picture-perfect.

I made the mistake of taking my winter tyres off too early last year, just in time for a late surprise snowfall, but this year I think I’ve left them on long enough.  We’re about to go on vacation for a few weeks, but after we get back I think I can safely remove them without the danger of an early May snowfall.

We are getting excited about our upcoming vacation — a few days in Singapore followed by a week-and-a-half in northern Vietnam.  Friends of ours were scheduled to visit Tokyo at the same time, but they’ve sensibly decided to take a detour and will be coming to Vietnam instead, so we’ll be able to catch up with them in Hanoi for dinner. 

For today, though, we need to juggle a mountain of laundry and my US tax return with a walk in the forest and some beautiful spring sunshine.  I suspect I know where my priorities lie…

Cat in sink

The sink is blocked again....

This seems to happen every morning.  😉


Our first Christmas in Basel was a success.  We spent the day at home with Aude’s parents (not that there was much choice – pretty much everything shuts on Christmas Eve and stays shut for the next three days).  I’d stocked up on firewood, and we had a fire in the fireplace most of the day.

Aude and her parents went out for an early-afternoon walk in the countryside, leaving me at home to get started with the Christmas dinner.  I opted for a traditional German / Swiss Christmas dinner of roast goose, stuffing, spaetzle, and red cabbage.  In the end, I had to make a small concession to our Swiss kitchen: my oven is too small to take an entire goose, so I roasted two goose crowns and two goose legs.  In the end, it was a better compromise as there was plenty of meat to go around.  The last time I cooked a whole goose, I ended up with about three slivers of goose meat per person and an enormous pile of bones.  I was certain that wasn’t going to happen again this year.

Daisy by stool
We’ve made an example out of Calypso. Here we are showing Daisy the consequences of misbehaving.

Aude hiding
Once again, it becomes clear that Aude was never top-of-her-class at hide-and-seek.

Christmas table
The Christmas table

Christmas table
The Christmas table

Christmas dinner
Roast goose, spaetzle, stuffing and red cabbage

Daisy by Christmas tree
Daisy gets into the Christmas spirit.

Daisy asleep on the bed

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz….

Actually, it’s a cat’s life. Sometimes I wish my life was as simple as curling up on the bed and snoozing in the sunshine. Which is exactly what I did yesterday afternoon.

I used my last day at work as an excuse for leaving at lunchtime. I came home to find the cats curled up on the freshly-made bed, totally relaxed in the afternoon sunshine, and I couldn’t resist crawling into the bed myself and having a little afternoon snooze.

I won’t lie. It was bliss!


Jerome came to spend a weekend with us in Paris recently. We managed to grab a few snaps. I particularly like how Daisy and Calypso managed to work their way into one of the shots.

Daisy, Jerome, Aude and Calypso

Daisy, Jerome, Aude and Calypso

Jerome and Aude

Jerome and Aude

Daisy decided that she wanted to play last night, so into the stereo cabinet she went.

Daisy playing peekaboo

Daisy playing peekaboo