Author Archives: Lionel Stanbrook

Ahem I have noticed that the year is hurtling through its course at an ever accelerating speed. A packed and passionate month with a strong family characteristic started with the visit of cousin Christine and a very convivial weekend with her and my brother Clive, whom she had not seen for many years.  We see […]

Ahem We had some welcome visitors at the beginning of the month, most particularly Miss Ana Kiera McClay and her family. Just over one year old, my god-daughter is already toddling around and talking a lot more clearly than her own father. Providentially, as the only daughter in a clutch of sons, she has her […]

Ahem The incessant rain, east winds and recurrent rolling thunder determined that August was wraithed mostly in November mist and December skies. This has been concerning, to say the least. “Terrible English weather” mutters my Swiss work colleague accusingly. Earlier in the month Jessie and I had decided to go out to have dinner in […]

Ahem While the girls have enjoyed some time in England we have all spent much of the month in La Hune, our house in South West France. Both house and location have been as alluring and enjoyable as ever. Sixteen different people have stayed with us over the past three weeks and we have spent […]

Ahem We have all been spending more time in the garden as the salad days have now officially started. The huge pile of garden debris, sticks, branches, assorted foliage, bamboo poles and other random rustic jetsam, which had been stacked in our parking bay for several weeks, were on the 8th June inst. reduced to […]

Ahem Alli and I have been going out together! Yes! We have had dinner together at least five times this month, in what really must be an all-marriage record for a single month. We ate at a Lebanese restaurant in Basel with another couple who made the evening even more enjoyable by paying for our […]

Ahem, A proud father reports: Gwen has been winning medals in the swimming pool. Two from two races, to be precise, at the Roche swimming pool during the 8th Annual ISB swimming gala on the first of April. She won her first after a flying start diving into the pool for the 25 metres freestyle. […]

Ahem We (Jessie, Ella, their friends and I) have been to see the Magic Numbers in Zurich, at the very venue where we failed to see the Killers last year, and where I promised I would never again go in mid week to a rock concert. The Abart Music Club is a very small venue […]

Ahem In the time of snow, always turn left not right at the motorway that goes through Basel. This Confucian statement appears to be true and it means that if you are going skiing just for the day it’s better to go to the Black Forest in Germany or the Alsace in France than to […]

Ahem A year full of promise started for us in the company of our friends the Stewards. This is a burgeoning family with ambitions to burgeon further. Father Geoff and Mother Julia, their children and ourselves on New Year’s Day went to Reigoldswil, a village nearby where there is a bracing ski lift to the […]