Black Hanky boy

Our street name in Cham is Kleinweid, means 'little meadow' in German and despite living in an eight storey building we are literally next to farm houses. At one of these houses is a strawberry shop.  Mingyu and I decide to drop in and buy some strawberries for mum one day and found they had sold out. The shop lady said we could pick our own and gave us a punnet and pointed us in the direction of the rows of planted strawberries. While picking the berried Mingyu suggested we come back there at night as 'black hanky boys' to take the berries in black balaclavas. 

The term has caught on and we refer to any undesirables as black hanky boys.

  

Don't you hate it when....

This weekend the black friday bug bit and then continued with delayed reaction. Friday morning the washing machine had stopped working and making strange noises. OVernight was rough with kids waking and then when the doorbell rang at 915 we were suitably unprepared to receive guests. Two men at the door, one of them Gregor, Mingyu's german tutor, and his dad Erwin. Both looking fresh and bright while we scrambled to resemble normality. Saturdays are high pressure, because there is lots to do and little time to do them in. In Switzerland you need to be well organized for the weekends. Not only do you need to do the shopping (sometimes at 2 or 3 supermarkets) but you need to take the rubbish pre sorted to the waste station at the supermarket. All this needs to happen before the supermarket closes early saturday afternoon for the weekend. So when visitors arrived at 9.30am the schedule was starting to slip and hopes of taking an afternoon trip to Berne were fading fast.

The interview with the would be tutor was settled by 1030 after then it was skates on for Mingyu and I to get the pre sorted rubbish into the car and off to the first supermarket. Why two supermarkets well one supermarket is convenient and has almost everything we need, except baby milk powder and no rubbish depot. So we needed to visit the bigger market for unloading the waste and picking up the baby stuff. All this take 3 hours, yes 3 hours, then Sunny called saying she was walking the boys towards our direction with the stroller and would like a lift back. How she manages during the week with all the boys is incredible.

The rest of the day was like all the stuff you hate when

- your 4 month old boys wees on you

- the other one vomits on you

- one son does not recognize you

- the banana yoghurt smashes in the bag and gets on all the groceries

- the washing machine filter door opens with a torrent of water onto the floor..each time

- you forget to close the window in the kids room and its 15 degrees o/s

- your not sure which baby was just nappy changed

- dinner is always interrupted, minimum twice

- the Switzerland travel guide goes back on the shelf unopened