Category Archives: 2016

Ahem I flew home to France on a circuitous route to Basel from Abidjan after five pell-mell weeks of work to find Christmas in overdrive at home. Shortly after I arrived, the girls also came clattering back from their abodes in Brighton, London and Dakha. It’s been a grand year of travel, from family gatherings […]

Ahem I drove to the UK to visit my friends John and Jan as well as to pick up a year’s worth of our UK purchases (of long-awaited presents and books) sent to Laurie and Kay in Sussex. It was a long and hard drive to Calais from Basel, and a shorter but harder one […]

Ahem The mornings and evenings are becoming increasingly colder, measured by the increasing number of layers I use for walking the dogs at weekends. I can be relaxed about the oncoming winter as I am going to tropical Abidjan in mid-November to begin my contract there for the Banque Africaine de Developpement, or BAD – […]

Ahem A brilliant idea jump-started September: a swim in the Rhein. After the warm late summer weather prolonged the opportunities for Basel’s time-honoured Rheinschwimmen, I joined the Barneses for a leisurely and warm float downstream in the elbow of the Rhein. Almost no aerobic movement was needed, as we were soon barrelling past the Munster […]

Ahem Our increasingly populous clan is ever more global. A family wedding might in the past have meant a short trip to the local registry office or church, or perhaps a day trip to another town. Now, almost invariably, it means foreign travel. As does, less romantically, obtaining work for the improvement of my income. […]

Ahem The expression “making hay while the sun shines” was first recorded in English usage in the early 16th century. It was particularly meaningful this year, as the long-awaited improvement in the weather prompted the first cut of the long grass in the Wolfsloch field next to our garden. In medieval times, forecasting the weather […]

Ahem When Alli and Gwen were enjoying Venice for a few days together earlier in the month, and again most recently when Alli went to Belgium to see her old friends for the weekend, I was content to stay behind. I had plenty of writing commissions and I was looking after Bonnie and Max, who […]

Ahem Taking advantage of Jessie’s European stay following her London Marathon efforts last month, Alli and I flew to Porto for a short holiday and to leave the dank Alsatian spring mists. Jessie and Ella arrived separately, and we met up at a well-equipped apartment in the Avenida dos Aliados. Gwen couldn’t come because she […]

Ahem, Gwen arrived back in Basel after spending a few days in Brighton with her friend Heather and stayed a week with us. She and Alli tipped the scales of influence on TV viewing options so I retreated upstairs to the office most evenings, although we saw some good films together on Netflix. My TV […]

Ahem, With driving rain, padding fog, feathery snow drifts and hard bouncing hail just in the first few days of the month, I did not stray far from my home office. I tip-tapped away precisely in my corner on a revived and repointed lap top like a short-sighted stub-fingered stonemason. In the second week there […]