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We went out for an 'we survived the first week back' meal this evening. 

A little umbrella in my dessert made me smile - so twee! 

I stuck two in my hair and Isaac told me I looked "like some weird umbrella rabbit". 

When we left, Isaac got into the back of the car where Jude wanted to sit so, before Isaac even had time to make full contact with the seat, Jude cannonballed him over to the other side of the car, taking possession of the preferred seat. 

Earlier in the day I went for a bike ride, smiling at a cat, a mouse (or rat - it ran across the path too quickly and it was quite dark!) a fox, five dogs and three swans. 

And watching Would I lie to you? over lunch made us all laugh, especially Lee Mack and the spider, and David Mitchell and the goldfish. 

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Sunshine in the garden reading a book (finished it too)

Lunch at The Pear Tree Creperie - delicious! 

Boy smiles - Jude made us smile suggesting someone might be taking a leap year before going to Uni. We knew what he meant! 

Cycling smiles - Cav won the final stage of Tour of California - but only just as he celebrated as he approached the line and was nearly caught. And Wiggo won the whole thing. 

Shopping smiles - a SeaSalt sale shop proved too exciting to resist although I wish I'd found it before my size was virtually sold out - or that I could fit in an 8! 

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I am a smiley person, it's true. But I can be a grumpy person too sometimes and this morning I was feeling very grumpy. And cross. And fed up. 

And things didn't improve much when Liverpool were beaten, Johnny Brownlee was beaten and Dan Martin fell with 100m to go in Liege-Baston-Liege. 

What made me smile again? 

We sang "Crown him with many crowns" at church, we sang the proper words and we sang my favourite verse about God being creator of the rolling spheres, ineffably sublime. Anyone who knows me well knows that this is very important to me. And that includes our minister Donald who commented in it as I left church. 

Secondly I discovered the picture at the top in a post about iPad apps, made especially for me. Thanks Erzsi! Sorry it took me so long to see it!

Then I couldn't fail to smile at the prize Mark Cavendish received for wining the stage in the Tour of Turkey. He'll get very bunged up if he eats all of those...

And then there was this picture someone tweeted earlier. 

Most of all though it was realising, prompted by some tweets, that I have two lovely sons and a wonderful husband, and that means I'm very lucky. 

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Thanks to John for today's pictures, taken on his cycle ride. I do wonder if he doesn't take so many photos to give him an excuse for a rest...

A run today that felt good - and was under 10 minute/mile average - now THAT made me smile a lot, especially as it involved a very long drag of a hill.

John and Isaac came back from shopping for a new school bag proudly brandishing a Brussels sprout tree.

Jude made me smile with his speed arriving in the kitchen when I mentioned that there was a cake bowl to scrape. Life is made richer by doing such things.

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Two big smiles today!

We went to the Pear Tree Creperie for lunch - spinach and cheese galette with carrot salad followed by pear tart and Mövenpick ice-cream. Jude was impressed by John's flambéd crêpe :)

And I went for a ride on my bike. My first exercise in 7 weeks and it felt soooo good! Not quite as good as running but I cycled as fast as I could so I really got my heart pumping.
And the Country Valley park is still wonderful!

My phone died as I tried to Runkeeper my ride so here's a photograph from my archives! My bike when it was new in front of the Lindengut Museum in Winterthur. (Miss my Winti but it always makes me smile to think of it!)

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I often run past this QR code outside das Medienhaus and think "must scan that" but, as I'm out running it'a never the right time. Tonight we were out for our after dinner wander (aka rubbish drop) and the time was right. 

And it was worth it as it linked to this - (video embed doesn't show on mobile devices)

http://vimeo.com/m/31716559

The artwork is rather funky too!

And there was breakfast with friends - always bound to make me smile despite it being 'au revoir' to Yvette, Krislyn and Gabriela - and nearly to Lisa! Delicious - and there were left overs so the boys were smiling too.

One more thing from today. Jude and I rode our old bicycles to Brühlgut Stiftung and donated them to Velos für Afrika - fun as a) the saddles were too low for us  b) I wasn't quite sure where it was (I had Google Map in my pocket in case) and  c) we got to go on the Töss bus at last - from Töss!

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I loved this image shared by a friend on FB from this blog. I saw poppies today but in such profusion! They were popping out from between ears of wheat near Neftenbach.

This made Jude smile - he's a sucker for cuddly small animals!

Isaac and I  cycled 13 miles which made us very happy! And it was beautiful.

Isaac saw a shop called Barf today on our cycle ride.

The drama of Wimbledon also made for lots of smiles.

And I finished another good book. Got to wait until October for the next one in the series though :(

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After a drizzly start ("it won't rain until 5pm' said my usually very reliable weatherman!) the sun came out = :o)

And look what I nearly cycled over. It was playing dead - or may actually have been dead - and had disappeared by the time the boys came past later. Disappointing.


There was much smiling this evening as Jude told us about his 'boys only' lesson today. The conversation included talk of Speedos, rudders and sharks, and was unrepeatable but very funny.

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John made me smile whilst we were making dinner by arranging the vegetables to make traffic lights! And then Jude starting giving advice on improving the arrangement and told me to look at it from above. So I did. What do you think?

Jude came back from a shopping trip full of stories of how he threw a tennis ball at a target and had a marshmallow teacake catapulted at him 'very quickly because my ball hit so hard!'
Isaac made me smile trying to choose a pair of scissors in Wachter - he's left-handed and is unused to having to choose such things!
And Mark Cavendish made me smile by winning the opening stage of the Giro de Italia, and promptly swearing on live TV when his earpiece wouldn't do what it was supposed to do. He looked very sheepish and apologised immediately, then got on with the interview.

And this is genius! I even know how to say at least half of these in German!

Say cheese in other languages
In Greek you say Πες τυρί! (Pes tyrí!) which means Say cheese.

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A picture from my Scoop it stream today (you can look at all the posts via the 'widget' on the right hand side of this blog.

For those of you that don't speak Spanish, it says 'Smiling is free. You should do it more often.'

May Day is a holiday in Winterthur so we had a family bike ride this afternoon to see the alpacas. The uphills were not popular with Jude and I but we enjoyed swooping down a hill towards the river!

And as we watched the football, Isaac once more commented that the name of Shakira and Gerard Piqué's son, Milan Piqué Mebarak, sounds just like festival. He has a point!

Say cheese in other languages

In German, you ask people to say Käsekuchen or cheesecake.

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We recorded the RSI coverage of Tour of Romandie last night and this evening we watched it back to see if we could spot ourselves.
What a great game! There were many sightings but mostly so fast that you blink and miss it. And the pause button on the TV wasn't always very good at pausing the screen in focus...
Still... below you have some evidence.

Chris Froome on his way to 3rd place in the TimeTrial and an overall win - and I'm below the Arrivée caption in the silly sunglasses (freebies!)

As Rui Costa powers to 3rd overall, you can see Jude (yellow cap) and me (white cap) yelling - in a blur! The black blur is Isaac!

Here you can see Richie Porte about to finish - you can clearly see John by the red elephant (top left) and the peak of my white cap to his right.

And here you can see Jude (yellow cap under Arrivée) looking bemused and me (face split in half by a pole) looking thunderous as I'd just yelled in Spanish at Tom Danielson as I was reliably informed by my husband that "Valverde is the next rider!'

Other smiles today came from Zumba (see the end of the post for more Zumba related smiles), rescuing a friend in need in Lidl and being amused by the ability of non-events to be blown out of all proportion!

Say cheese in other languages

Continuing with French, another way to make people smile is get them to say Pepsi!

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Cheap accommodation in Geneva - only 9CHF/day for this compact bijoux living space as modelled by Jude!

Modelling Tour de Romandie goodies - I've eaten the cheese and drunk the Chicco d'oro coffee!

Chris Froome won the Tour of Romandie, and my family disowned me as I shouted so loudly for all the Sky riders. I can shout very loudly, it's true; however this sounded louder than usual thanks to the lack of anyone else shouting encouragement at all! If you're watching the highlights, I'm at 200m to go by the red Raiffesen pig!

A lovely family day out with lots of fun and laughter!

Say cheese in other languages
In French you can also just say Souriez! which means smile.