Gearing up for spring

Gotta admit that there are far worse places to be quarantined than Switzerland in the springtime. Given the mild winter that we've had this year, the grass has been growing for weeks already, the fruit trees are budding and the rose garden has started to produce a few early blooms. And of course there are weeds and wildflowers everywhere. First, Davy took a crack at lawnmowing - which went well right up until our grisly neighbour reminded him about the Swiss tradition of quiet hours around lunchtime - grrr.

Fortunately we had a nice activity for the kids after lunch, to help take their minds off the surly surrounding folk - the Migros has been handing out seeds to their loyal customers and today is planting day! Meg got to plant five flowers in her pot (one of which might have been an empty packet) and Davy got five herbs. Since Davy's pot was a bit larger, we decided to throw a gratuitous sunflower in the middle. We shall shortly discover a) how well the free Migros seeds work and b) how big sunflowers can grow.Read more