Things that make the No cry lately: people sneezing, people blowing their nose, people laughing. Which is a bit of a bummer because I have a cold and we've been watching 30 Rock on telly.

Really?

Did I never put up a single picture of the No? Okay, here's one:

Who knows why she's so sad. I suspect it's all an act.

Return To Lisbon

Having agonised for ages over where we should go for a holiday, we finally (last week) made a decision to go back to Lisbon (next week. Well, tomorrow actually). I'm thoroughly looking forward to going back to somewhere that we've been to relatively recently, so we don't have to face all the usual drama of finding out where we are and how we get where we want to go. Plus we had a really great time there last time, and even though it seems very unlikely that we'll happen across a film festival this time, I'm full of optimism. Plus we seem to be staying at some wacky interesting hotel that Reto found, and not a return trip to the B&B from last time, which, although not bad, does suffer somewhat from being above a wine bar full of drunken people who don't know which is the light switch for the toilets and which is the light switch for the B&B room.

On a potentially negative note, it will also be the No's first flight, which we are all bracing ourselves for. Good practice/terrible advance warning for her first flight to Australia, which we are thinking will happen in Feb or so next year.

Seasonal Confusion

Apparently the supermarkets here are in denial about it still being summer. My local Migros started selling the "autumn" themed yoghurts weeks ago, and yesterday in Coop I saw some Christmas biscuits. Specifically, I found pfeffernusse, which I love and have stupidly missed out on for the last few years because shops seem to sell them briefly in October (or September, I now discover) and I think "ooh, it's too early for that" and then they vanish forever. Anyway, there they were yesterday, sitting on the shelves and giving me the eye, so I bought them and now I seem to have scoffed the lot.

They're not really as good as I remember, actually.

Ways In Which I Will Never Be Swiss

1. Answering the phone by saying my name instead of by saying "hello". Some junk mail caller got all stroppy at me the other day because I wouldn't tell him my name. He didn't seem to know how to proceed if he couldn't call me Madame whoever.

2. Writing 1s, 7s and 9s with all their extra tails and lines.