Archive for the ‘switzerland’ Category

Posted on August 28, 2009 - by MG

Cake Frenzy in the Birthday Week

Cake Frenzy in the Birthday Week

Originally uploaded by mgharris

It’s a week of birthdays in my brother’s family. Michael, his wife and twin children all have birthdays in the last week of August.
And me too!
It’s been a week of cake. If you read this blog you’ll know how fond I am of me cake.
I type this on my BlackBerry with delicious red nails, fresh from a birthday manicure. One gift was a recipe book from the Hummingbird Bakery, source of London’s finest cup cakes.
Between trampolining sessions (see above) mountain strolls, and multiple birthday celebrations I have found a few minutes to spend alone with the ms of Joshua 4. And now I think I really am ready to hand it over to someone to read.
I know I’ve said this before but this time I think I mean it…
Meanwhile we continue to tweak the jacket of Zero Moment. Sneak preview soon I promise!
With Joshua 4 handed over, ZM in its very final form, could it finally be time to turn my attention to Quite Secret New Thing…?

MG Harris

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Posted on August 28, 2008 - by MG

MG and baby bro

MG and baby broOriginally uploaded by mgharris

Yes, yes, I’m fully narcissistic with all these photos of me-n-someone else but COME ON!

What cooler way to navigate the mountains of Switzerland than in a Porsche?

R kid is driving, Michael who lives in Switzerland with wife and kids.

Today we did birthday celebrations (including mine!) with cousins and all. Two of the boy cousins, Max and Cyrus, are 14, the same age as Josh Garcia in books 2 & 3. Watching them play like daredevils in the playground I wondered how they’d fare if plunged into the same kinds of perils and dangers as Josh. And decided that they’d probably do pretty well, no worse than Josh.

At 14 they’re MUCH fitter and stronger than…ooh, let’s say, for example, me. They may still be children but they’d survive jungle dangers far better than I.

I’d be a total wuss. I’ve seen the rainforest thicket into which I sent Josh. You wouldn’t get me more than 5 metres into that without severe panic…
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Posted on August 27, 2008 - by MG

Swinging under the Spitzhorn

Swinging under the SpitzhornOriginally uploaded by mgharris

Lying here watching my daughter on the swing, my legs are actually sizzling inside my jeans.

Yes, heat! Have hardly felt it all summer long but here in the Swiss mountains, there’s plenty.

Oh it’s lovely, very Swiss with log cabins and the gentle tinkle of cow bells and the smell of warm hay.

I feel a desperate need for cheese and milk chocolate…

The manuscript is taking a break while I work on my tan and play with babies.
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Posted on November 25, 2007 - by MG

Things I Learned in Switzerland

Tree opposite my brother’s Swiss chalet.

I’m back. It was an awesome week in which I got to swap being a mother/wife for being sister/aunt.

My nieces and nephews are so cute it hurts. I miss them already. My brother and his wife’s twin babies are still at that adorable little baby phase where they make cute little sounds and curl up against you to burp, and stare into your eyes as you rock them to sleep.

Broodiness alert…beware of spending a week with small ultra-cute babies!

My sister’s kids are also fabulous. I hadn’t seen my 22-month old nephew since he was 4 months old. Now he’s racing around, but occasionally stops asking to ‘Cuddle’ or ‘Kiss you’. And my ten-year old niece/goddaughter listened to me read out my new opening chapter of ‘Jaguar’s Realm’, and spent quality time with my sister and me down at Charly’s Tea Room.

But I’m back now, full of useful information for fellow travelers. Such as:

1. A winter’s supply of wood for a wood-burning stove costs around £45 and takes 4 hours to carry up stairs and stack in neat little piles near the door. In my brother’s Swiss mountain village, all houses have a lovely pile of wood outside the door. It’s probably an offence to stack it wrongly. Neatness is very high on the agenda in Switzerland.

2. Charly’s Tea Room will make any cake you like to order for a reasonable price and deliver it. After scouring the bakeries my sister-in-law was about to resort to baking her babies’ christening cake herself, until her older sister told her this useful bit of information. The chef at Charly’s loves to make imaginative cakes. He did wonders with a request for lemon sponge and white glaze icing. He’s quite some pastry chef, his mille-feuille is to die for.

3. The older version of the Catholic Rite of Baptism includes a mini exorcism, just in case the Devil’s already starting to get ideas…A few grains of salt in the mouth of the babes and a few exorcising prayers (which are best said in Latin) go a very long way with innocents. Fr. Julian of the London Oratory flew out to perform the ceremony and explained all the way through a very full-on christening service. My nephew and niece were good and baptised!

4. You can leave Gstaad at 3pm and take a train, plane and then bus to Oxford without waiting more than a few minutes for anything, except for the long airport check-in.

5. Even though the official ski season starts in December, an early dump of snow on the mountains will prompt the efficient Swiss to start preparing pistes and running the ski lifts. My brother and sister-in-law managed to get some skiing in on the Wispile, before the early gift of snow melted away.

6. You should eat a mille-feuille (vanilla slice) by first knocking it over and then tackling it side on, using the tines of the fork to snap the delicate layers of crunchy pastry, mixing in enough creme patissiere and jam to make each mouthful a little slice of heaven. If you don’t have jam on your mille feuille it is substandard; you have been ripped off.

7. Skiing is for people with strong legs. I learned that one a few years ago. Don’t ski unless you are fit and strong!

See, this is the kind of thing you won’t hear from Taki – a famous resident of Gstaad – in his Spectator column. With him it’s all about the Eagle Club and the Palace Hotel…

Posted on August 17, 2007 - by MG

Bound proof in Lugano

Bound proof in Lugano
Originally uploaded by mgharris

Well blog readers, all five of you, I’m back. Two weeks of driving across Europe close to the Swiss/Italian border in the canton of Ticino, where it’s all Swiss, but Italian style.

For example – they speak Italian but serve fresh Swiss muesli for breakfast. For example, where you can hire a motorboat without a licence and drive across the lake but the minute you moor it, a taxi-boat driver comes beetling across the lake, brow all furrowed and tells you off for going too near the rocks which might damage the engine. Yeah, we noticed that too…were taking care and everything… For example, where you get Swiss efficiency but instead of cheese fondue and raclette they serve yummy Italian food with pasta al dente and everything. See how it works?

The publishers of ‘The Joshua Files’ kindly sent out a couple of bound proofs of the book for me to peruse. Here I am holding my first copy of ‘Invisible City’. Bit of a thrill, actually. I was so excited at breakfast that I forgot to eat and the waiters were clucking at me, trying to get me to hurry up and finish that croissant and just go, already…