Thank you Summer 2017

So yes, it’s been a while. A long while in fact. A while as in a whole beautiful summer in between this blogpost and the last one. So to tie the two together I thought why not do a “summer-summary” of its greatest hits:

Baditime

  • The first time (yes) I actually went to the Badi (Swimming baths) with the Mimis. Twice, in fact. I know I know there are Mums who spend their entire summers there but I’m not (yet) one of them. For various reasons but mainly because I’m a lazy parent and I find getting there and back again bloody exhausting. It means moving a shedload of things to that place in the blistering heat. Like enough towels, sand toys, foodstuff, rubber animals on top of the usual crap a parent takes with them. Not to mention the suncream.
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    Thank God, Grandma thought of preparing some food other than chips & ice cream!

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    See all that crap behind us? Yes, I carried that… ALL of it.

    So that should explain I believe. Although I am painfully aware that my kids will only learn to swim when they actually get to be in the water and only once they swim, the Badi experience will be more enjoyable for the parent involved, it’s a vicious circle guys!!!!

  • Tied very closely to 1.: The re-emergence of me in a bikini, something which last happened when I was pregnant with Mimi 1 so about 4 (!!!) years ago. Not entirely sure if that is a good thing for people watching, but you know what? I decided to not care about what people think that much anymore. I have spent already too many years of my life worrying about “what people think”, and I still do it way too often, so if it’s me in a bikini, it’s just me in a bikini and that’s that. Really, I think this world has much bigger worries than that. Full stop. (and no, no Pictures here, I am still working on that one!)

Eco-Sins

  • A giant baby pool in our garden which almost flooded the grass in the evenings. I think the bugs and ants must have started to think it was monsoon time in India… And I’m quite sure that in our absence they did fire-drills on how to evacuate the lawn in case of an emergency. Plus my conscience went hiding under the covers every time we emptied those litres upon litres of water in the evening. Is there any Co2 compensation available for that?
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    See, if you’ve got this, you don’t really need to go anywhere else, right? Right?

     

    An actual Holiday abroad

  • A great Holiday in the UK again. Since this was probably the main attraction this summer, I am going to spend some lines on it. We were in Devon again, meeting our dear friends with kids, enjoying beach life all the while I was gathering courage to not wear a jumper at the beach.
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    Dresscode has to be Jumper, shorts and no shoes (or Flipflops). That’s summer in Britain for you. Beach is lovely though!!

    BeachlifeBoth

  • Mimi 1 going “Surfing”. Unfortunately I failed to take a photo of her in her wetsuit, but I assure you she looked adorable. And also, she seemed to really like the sea and lying on the bodyboard, being pulled through the waves. I wish you saw how proud Twomimidad was of his badass daughter. I could just tell that he was actually waiting and acheing to buy her a totally overpriced wetsuit. But that look was entirely worth it. Mimi 2 was put in a borrowed wetsuit for a test only, and she hated it so much, she started crying “noooo” every time we simply mentioned it. So she was left in peace and played in the sand very happily.

City life

  • We got to show London to the Mimis which I absolutely loved.
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    Covent Garden, totally rocking the sparkling shoes.

    Of course it helped that weather was brilliant almost every day (I have never before actually worn a short dress and open shoes in London!!!). If you’re interested in what we actually did in London, check out my Instagram account where I gave a short summary every day.

    All I can say is: London with kids is totally great. It also helped that our Airbnb flat was located in St. John’s Wood, a part of the city I hadn’t previously ever visited but which was great for being with kids. It is, of course, a location which is utterly inaffordable for normal mortals but hey, that’s why you go on Holidays! It offered a nearby park with a great playground, a cute highstreet with a great selection of child-friendly restaurants and even some quiet roads where Mimi 1 could practice her biking skills plus a direct bus to Oxford Street and Covent Garden.

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    Spending a day at the South Bank was one of the unexpectedly great experiences.

     

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    That’s London Zoo with some added non-animal related cuteness.

    I think back to that time with a smile still. The only thing I would change in hindsight is to bring a proper pram, not just the crappy travelbuggy. You walk a lot in a city and it would have been much easier with our Bugaboo… and it might have saved Twomimidad getting a really bad spell of his hip ache which would have made me much less angry at him for having left his medicine at home. But apart from that, it was AWESOME and we’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Proud parenting moment

  • And the best thing was when we asked the kids if they had liked the beach or the city better and they said “both”. These are our kids. Makes me so happy for the Holidays ahead. They are really up for the ride and they did equally great on the plane as in the car. Thanks Mimis!!! 
    London_Flight

    She’s looking like a pro already. And since screentime at home is so limited, having lots of it at your hands is a huge thumbs up for flying…

    Riding that bike!

  • Mimi 1 got the hang of biking! To be honest I didn’t even think about when kids start to bike, but she got quite interested in it this summer and especially Twomimidad shows insane amounts of patience with such things (thanks TMD!!!). So really, by the time we got back Mimi 1 actually started riding off on her own. I was -am- so proud!!! And so was she, obviously, she had a huge grin on her face.

    Me-week, the short version

  • Oh – almost forgot- I had a whole week to myself in the Engadin. And you know what? it was way less transforming than I thought it would be. In a good way. I started off with the drive to Schuol and a hike to the Lischanahütte where I stayed for the night. The plan was to then hike to Sesvennahütte via the Fuorcla d’Aua and Passo Sesvenna for another night and then all the way back the day after. That was the plan. After a crappy first night in the cabin, I hiked to Fuorcla d’Aua and about a third down my legs just could not take it anymore.
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    This is where I hit rock-bottom. Quite literally.

    They weren’t hurting, but they just weren’t holding me up properly . It was a very strange feeling for me not being able to control them the way I’m used to anymore. So gingerly, gingerly I made my way down in babysteps. It really was about the same speed as if Mimi 2 were with me, that was as fast as I could go. So I went down all the way to S-Charl, called the Hotel and told them I would come one day early. After a nice lunch in S-Charl and a Postauto ride (I really had to do my best not to fall out of the Postauto when I climbed out at the stop) I drove to Pontresina and “home” to the Hotel Saratz. And there I stayed for the rest of the week.

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    The mandatory selfie with Piz Palü backdrop

    It was thoroughly un-spectacular in a very soothing way. I feel at home there and I did not do much apart from going to Alp Languard innumerable times, doing some hikes, read a lot (!!!) everywhere, going to the Sauna and having nice dinners with a beautiful view. I had a really good time just by myself and realised that I haven’t changed as much as I’d thought I had. I’m still totally ok to be by myself. I didn’t miss the Mimis. I missed my husband a couple of times, especially when having an Aperitif on the beautiful terrace, but that’s a good thing. It shows I care and I really just like being together with him. And that was that. Thoroughly un-spectacular.

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    Dinnertime view

    The takeaways from my time to myself

  • What I have learnt from my week alone, and especially from my forced plan-change is that I will, more than ever, have to learn patience. Patience, first and foremost with myself. I will not be able to do it all at once. I will do “it” (whatever it might be at that point in my life), but one step at a time. I would love to do an MBA, and get a new, more challenging job and do more crafts with the Mimis, and learn them how to swim, and travel the world, and spend time with TMD alone but I cannot have it all at once. I will have to allow myself time for things to happen. Good things. Maybe different things than I had planned for, but the Universe will eventually help me along for sure. I know that right now I’m in a good place and I do not want to spend more time away from the Mimis than what I do now. So I will not be able to focus on studies on top of my job, that would just break me. Also, if I decide to take something extra on, it should be something extra just for me. Such as probably one Yoga class more per week, or a really cool seminar on digital marketing, or more blog-writing, or whatever I feel fills me up with joy. I am usually just too tired for everything by the end of a day so I just collapse in front of the TV, but eventually this has to change somewhat. Else I will end up empty of passions (apart from the Mimis, who are the passion of my life, for obvious reasons) and passions are what we are made of, they are the glow from within, and I need to replenish that. I want to glow more, become more full of different things again, so let that journey begin. In babysteps, let’s just do babysteps since, eventually, they will bring you where you want to be, in one piece.

 

Thumbs up for London

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So that was it now, my two nights alone in London. And tell you what: after all that whining in the last post, I didn’t miss the Mimis one bit, and that’s the honest truth. I was far too busy to do so actually. And see, that’s why I sometimes need a little shove to get going. Because afterwards I enjoy it immensely.

London has kept me very busy

First of all I slept until 10 AM UK time on Friday, which means 11 in Swiss time. Something that hasn’t happened to me for ages, since my body just got too used to get up at around Mimi #1 o’clock… Maybe it was due to last weeks’ broken nights. Or my beatiful room on the top floor which I’ve had far too little time to enjoy properly.
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Therefore I had a bit of a late start into Friday but since there’s no crying over etc., I just decided to go with the flow. So I was late at Tate Modern, plus it turned out that they only let people in to the exhibition in badges since it is still so popular. I was in complete awe of the fact that even now you have to queue up for it. I only had to wait for a good 30′ however, and this actually gave me time to explore the building a bit. And what a building that is!

Kunsthaus Zürich go home, hide and cry

I’ve visited Tate once but only stood in the big hall and wasn’t really interested anyway (teenagers, I tell you…). It is absolutely jaw-droppingly HUGE. And what I liked about it particularly was the massive carpet on the entrance ramp down, where plenty of children tumble about, what a great idea! It makes the whole place feel really cool in an including way. I still wont bring my kids into the actual exhibition (or let alone to London) for some years though. A decision that was being backed-up as I saw one woman with two kids in the exhibition and she ended up sitting on the floor with the kids, holding the iPhone with kiddie videos on it to keep them entertained…
Toptip for all of you who have kids who are into books, there is a great selection of children’s books in the museum shop which will also make adults happy, so I spent a bit of money there….

befunky-collage

View from the tenth Floor is amazing… btw. someone still owes me a night in The Shard I believe…

The actual exhibition was great in the sense that it manages to really convey O’Keeffe’s life (and contradict the sexual interpretation of her work, for all of you out there who just think of lady bits when they hear O’Keeffe!). It didn’t feature many of my favourite pictures, but that didn’t matter to me. I spent a good hour watching and reading and just really BEING there, completely immersed in a different world. I forgot how great it is to really just take stuff in wholeheartedly, rather than trying to do five different things at a time. I think it has given me a sense of how O’Keeffe has led her life and how this has contributed to her art.
Coming out again was as if coming out of a tunnel, so I took some time to stroll over to St. Pauls, and then tried to find my way to Covent Garden. Since I am a very half-hearted user of Google Maps, I kind of meandered a bit through fleet street and found the house Dr. Johnson lived in, and a very green place, which is what I like about meandering. You find stuff you didn’t look for and it is a luxury which costs time, so I hardly ever do it nowadays.
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Top left: Covent Garden!

The Shopping bit

Finally I did find Covent Garden though (evil people hid it, see picture above), had lunch and the went proper shopping. Yes, I mean proper shopping, and I will not tell anybody how much money I spent (probably not even myself). I have found that I am at an age (ugh, even just writing this makes me feel old), where I can’t be bothered to buy the really cheap stuff. If I make the time to go shopping and find something which really fits, I want it to last, so it’s not cheap anymore. Worst thing was that I kept telling myself that the pound was so low, basically everything is a bargain. We’ll see when I get the actual credit card bills. I’m really apt at lying to myself when it comes to these things.

Heading Out

Anyway, then I rushed back to the hotel room (hello beautiful room!) to offload the bags and set off again to meet a dear friend in Surbiton. A train journey, you will be surprised to hear, I managed without getting lost (for those of you who know me, I’m talking about the “Grange-over-Sands” incident).

Some More Shopping

Saturday morning I made sure to get up early to get in 1.5 hours of very successful powershopping before making my way to the airport. Sweating along on the Piccadilly line of course, always part of the experience.

The Places I want to see…

So oh, how I could’ve stayed on!!! So many things I would’ve loved to see too, and what I also truly missed out on was to just sit in a coffee for an inappropriately long time, staring out the window. I had been hoping for a bit more idling, but that’s just not possible in 1.5 days. And I kind of also missed TMD, since he is my fellow London-traveller and companion and I have kind of grown used to him being around. Weird, right?

I’m looking forward though to a.) hugging the Mimis tight tonight and b.) coming back at some point, and this we will!
P.S: I discovered there’s something even slightly better than shopping:
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