Joy in many packages

This has been a regular weekend. At last! Exactly what we needed. Time to relax, catch up with friends and catch our breaths.

Saturday night we watched Gandhi (passed onto us by Daren) on our new telly and DVD player. That warranted a full TV dinner of crisps, pizza, cider and ice-cream. The film was compelling, daunting, tragic, stirring and inspiring all at once. There was anger, there were tears ... and heartened smiles. There was also plenty of action on screen.

Ste said I get too emotionally engrossed in epics. I was too emotionally engrossed to reply and jabbed him in the ribs - SHHH! Stop talking during the movie lah!

I contemplated having a bit of a lie-in on Sunday Morgen till I saw that the sun was out - it was an utterly beautiful day! We took a short walk to the Mobility car (a Swiss car sharing scheme) further up on Minervastrasse, then cruised slowly along the Gold Coast of the Lake of Zurich to Rapperswil. Lunch at Van and Wilfried's was a tasty Thai-Swiss affair: tangy veggie salads with rice and kartoffel gratin mit poulet.

Van and I met at Integrationkurs and have somehow managed to bridge the language barrier (our own Southeast Asian Roestigraben ... a Stickyreisgraben?) and foster enough friendly feelings to haul our spouses together for a group activity.

In the late afternoon, we made our way to Schindellegi, to visit the new little man of the Dhall-Mahan house, Siddarth. Or as Ste fondly refers to him, 'Sid the Kid'. Siddharth was on his best behavior most of the time, wanting to be where the action (and guests) were to show off his pacifier-sucking skills - very impressive for a 38 day old baby!

When he isn't exercising his lungs or refining internal bodily motions, the little Rocky Balboa subscribes to a vigorous regimen of push-ups, arching his head and body backwards when he's on his tummy, punching the air with sweeping uppercuts and hooks. We were extremely impressed ... though I couldn't get over just how tiny his training togs were.

Uncle Ste, with his nurturing side bubbling to the fore, couldn't resist carrying the adorable Baby Sid, impressing all present with his confident baby-handling technique. Not to be outdone, a markedly less self-assured Aunty Alicia posed next to Uncle Ste, artfully supporting his hand as it supported Baby's head.