Winter Days

Even though the days are shorter this time of year, they often feel much longer, due to the constraints that the weather put on our movements.

We're a one-car family and Denis almost always needs the car for work. Despite the excellent public transport in these parts, I don't always feel like schlepping around on buses and trains with a stroller and then making sure we get back home in time to start lunch or dinner, so I often keep my excursions with Bas pretty local.

In summer we go to the park across the road almost every day, but the park is freezing at the moment, so I'm trying to find indoor stuff that the little guy likes.

One big hit of recent times has been the Zoology Museum, which is packed to the gills with a World Wildlife Fund's worth of endangered animals that appear to have received the taxidermist's attentions many moons ago.

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Basi's favourite (as he delights in telling everyone within earshot) is the 'gros requin' (big shark). When we're getting my ticket for the museum Bas walks up to the cashier and shouts 'gros requin!' and she laughs each time and hands over just the right ticket for the right museum, despite there being a number of other museums in the building.

Bas is actually a bit scared of the big shark when he actually comes face to face with it (it's 6m long and as wide as a car), and he usually like me to hold him while we look at it, but then he asks to go back and check it out numerous times during the course of each visit, never failing to greet the guy who collects and checks my ticket stub with a hearty 'gros requin!'

Me? I like checking out the koala, who clearly arrived at the Swiss taxidermist's with minimal instructions as to how koalas behave in their natural habitat. So the guy obviously did the best he could and went with something a little bit Razorback, a little bit monkey. I think it works...