Ben’s cooking school held an apero on their last session of the year.
Toques Junior Christmas apero
Tag: The Peanut
Grey windy day
Both the child and the dog have wet feet.
St-Nicolas
Le 6 décembre, jour de la Saint-Nicolas, est fêté traditionnellement dans plusieurs pays européens du Nord et de l’Est de l’Europe (notamment la Belgique, le Luxembourg, le Nord et l’Est de la France surtout en Lorraine et en Alsace, les Pays-Bas, l’Allemagne et la Suisse) « où il distribue des cadeaux à tous les enfants sages ».
Lors de sa « tournée », saint Nicolas distribue traditionnellement une orange et du pain d’épices portant son effigie. Le Père Fouettard, vêtu de noir et porteur d’un grand fagot, parfois le visage barbouillé de suie, l’accompagne, et distribue une trique (une branche de son fagot) aux enfants qui n’ont pas été sages et menace de les frapper. Saint Nicolas est censé voyager sur un âne; aussi les enfants doivent-ils, le soir, préparer de la nourriture (foin, paille, carotte ou grain) pour l’animal. Au matin, ils trouvent les friandises (ou la trique) à la place de ce qu’ils ont préparé pour l’âne.
Boys night out
Ben’s birthday bowling bash
We had a bowling/movie/pizza party for Ben this year. It was also mainly drama-free, shocking! Ben’s happy because he got a Nintendo switch, some games and was able to buy himself a bluetooth speaker with the money he got from his friends.
All pictures here: https://www.flubu.com/blog/pictures/ben_birthday_2018/
R&B album cover? Or maybe grunge?
Katy sent me a picture of Bean’s new haircut (he doesn’t like it). Why could I imagine this being an album cover from the 90’s?
Happy Halloween
Katy pretty much single-handedly organised the building’s annual Halloween evening. It was really cool – the neighbours all thanked to her for organising it, and some people brought wine to go along with the nibbles and drinks that she’d put out, with the pumpkins and candles and chimenea. It seems that people are always chuffed to have it happen and ask about it around the start of October.
Of course, Bean raked in an obscene amount of candy.
Comptoir Suisse 2018, 2nd try
Being gluttons for punishment, we went to the comptoir again. It went much better this time. The child had churros and was happy. Katy found her Spirit Cow (a real one, not a balloon one).
As a side note, that taxidermied fox is over 25 years old, and seeing dakimakura in real life is a bit creepy.
Comptoir Suisse 2018
We went to the 99th edition of the Comptoir Suisse, in Lausanne. We saw the wine producers, the food hall, the farm animals, the Japanese exhibit, and then we left because we ran out of spending money and the child threw an outstanding tantrum. We tried to sell him to gypsies, but there were no buyers. These pictures are a lie. They show us actually having fun.
Small blessings
Our flight has been delayed by 2h but at least the airport has a goodly supply of easily accessible USB charging ports to keep a certain small person’s Internet available.
