Since returning home from our holidays – a solid six weeks ago –  we’ve been on the down low. All is quiet, as they say. It was necessary for multiple reasons: my liver’s health, our bank account’s health, the fact that I am now a bazillion years old, extensive expected and unexpected travel for Tim, and the absolutely ridiculous weather that accosted us there for a spell.

We have always enjoyed visitors but last month we had our first unwelcome one: the Siberian front, or ‘the Beast from the East’, which hit most of Europe. We had lows of -12 and highs of -1, and there was a snow / ice / snow ice thing going on for the better part of a fortnight. I try to observe the ‘no bad weather only bad clothes’ mantra, but to be frank: it’s bloody bollocks. Sadly the three year old did not agree, so most days saw me reluctantly spending half an hour rugging us all up, heading into the biting cold for maybe a lap of the block during which Teddles would manage to take off and throw away three quarters of his warm clothing, and then heading back home to disrobe again. Exciting stuff. (Don’t get me wrong: I love the snow days, but only when I am not outnumbered by the clothes-shedding terrors. We’ve had some fab mountain times this winter, but they are not our every day. I shall not let that deter me from visually representing it as such, however.)

The quiet life has suited us, though. Always one for routine, I’ve appreciated the return to our (possibly dull and predictable, but I’ll go with cosy and satisfying) rhythm. It’s been good for the brats too. They travel marvellously, but have clearly been relieved to return home. (Addie had been concerned that ‘The Family’, the creepy Manson-esque moniker of the doll house occupants, had been crying as they had missed her.) Baby Bear has punched out his first few words. Like his sister, I am furious to note that his first was ‘Dad’. I am not sure about my thoughts on his second; I oscillate between amusement and pride that he has chosen to say ‘cracker’ before he says ‘mum’. We’ve also spent a lot of time utilising our newly acquired Swiss Pass, which lets us into a bunch of galleries and museums, most of which I wouldn’t even have known about let alone bothered with, and that’s given us a pleasant distraction from Old Beasty as well.

We’ve started a family routine of completing a nature journal each night. It’s a guided diary that helps you set nature-related goals (drinking outside totally counts, FYI), be aware of simple changes around you, and gives you basic things to observe (this week, the change in daylight. We need to mark the sun rise and sunset and note the different light, the different feel of our days). During dinner we discuss something we’ve seen or done, and we draw it. I am no artist but there is something liberating about judgement- and pressure-free drawing. We’re three months in and it’s still a pleasure. (What is not so enjoyable is the children’s clear favouritism for their father’s artwork. Ingrates.)

We’ve also fallen into a particularly delightful period where we have our own family lingo and understandings. As you might note in the snap above, we love to look at ‘croissant moons’. We also carry ‘rainbrellas’ and ‘packbacks’, drink ‘cup-of-chinos’, and countless other little not-quite-right things that have now become our daily parlance. Nothing about this is remotely unusual, I know, but it makes the mundanity of our day-to-day feel special, ours.

Just in case I thought this slowness would last, suddenly in the last few days: it’s spring. SPRING! We saw the snowdrops emerging a few weeks ago, that first hint that there’s something new around the corner. Now there are the nubs of daffodils poking through the ground – no glorious yellow quite yet, but the telltale bulging tips are ripe for blooming any time now. We spied the first cluster of crocus (croci? crocuses?) the other day at the Glacier Garden in town (Addie was particularly excited by this as she has decided her favourite colour is purple and thus any purple anything is specifically put there for her enjoyment. As you can appreciate, seeing purple foil wrapped Easter eggs is currently a very difficult negotiation point). And on Friday afternoon, returning back from Spielegruppe, Ads ran over to me and proudly presented me with a dandelion. I was totally delighted, not least because the mother next to me was given a rock from her kid.

It feels that this stirring and rumbling is reflected in everything. The anticipation of warmer weather, the idyllic Swiss lakeside summer. The kids, who are – almost impossibly – every day more and more their own wee wonderful selves. (And sometime their own wee horrifically screamy selves.) Exciting new prospects for Tim, and also for me; nothing major but enough to have us scheming and planning and feeling alive. And just like that – with that first badly-drawn snowdrop – the ol’ Western front is no longer feeling quiet.