Author Archives: Lionel Stanbrook

Ahem When I work from home my window on the world overlooks the meadow facing north west in this part of the Leymen agglomeration known as Ehnerfeld. From the gentle swell of the Wolfsloch meadow to the visible top half of an avenue of trees lining the moody Birsig, the undulation leads up to ancient […]

Ahem, My parents-in-law Laurie and Kay paid us an extended visit on their way back from Austria, following a flying visit a couple of weeks earlier. Both Alli’s brothers live outside the UK; in Luxembourg and in Austria, their locations providing the shape of Laurie and Kay’s itinerary at least once each year as they […]

Ahem A complicated month was this. Normally, claims on my time and attention have arranged themselves in polite symmetry to take up my availability in a sequential and mutually ordained pattern. This made it difficult to keep my work commitments, meetings, diaries and suchlike in perilous balance, and I have had to engage in a […]

Ahem, The first days of the month saw me chasing around town in vicious and ever decreasing circles, scouting for credit to cover a temporary cash shortage; discovering, not for the first time, that access to credit is getting tighter (it has always been gasping tight in Switzerland). In fact, it seems to be available […]

Ahem, The uncertain winter continues. Every morning there is uncertainty about whether the mist will clear from the hills long enough for us to see the Landskron Castle; whether the ice on the car windows will need to be sprayed, scraped or hot water splashed; whether to wear a heavy coat or a very heavy […]

Ahem After our carrousel Christmas, the New Year started quietly and modestly. Jessie and I got our heads down for our respective workloads, and we committed to severe diets (mine to lose weight, and Jessie to veganism for “vegan-uary”). Gwen was delighted to have her friend Hannah from Holland to stay for a couple of […]

Ahem The morning wreaths of mist could not conceal the huge weather variations throughout the month, with sunny, ice blue skies as well as persistent rain over Christmas and frequent fogs. The snow could just be seen crouching half-hidden on the higher hills but mostly it left us alone. Alli and I went to an […]

Ahem November is the most useful month of the year. It gets used a lot. For example, as a considered pause before the rush of Christmas. November is an excellent month for contemplation and reflection, the calm before the storm. Even the weather, grey, white and black, is silent and somehow expectant, although peaceable. The […]

Ahem Marrakech is very bamboozling. The local compass somehow swings around every few minutes, with the effect that clever people with impeccable orienteering credentials, for example, I (Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, Bronze medal, 1972) got completely lost within ten minutes of sallying forth from our snug bolt-hole for the first time. But the magnetic center […]

Ahem One of the many drawbacks of living in a house full of women (where even the dogs are bitches and the chickens are hens) is that a bad haircut cannot easily be downplayed. I have endured the past three weeks with an unlucky haircut that left me a dead-ringer for a bilious Greek cruiser […]