The grass is always greener
It seems that every time we go over to any of our friends' houses I always end up finding something about their place that makes me jealous. Maybe they live downtown and can walk to everything, or they have a nice balcony, or a garage, or a roof-top terrace, or more than one bathroom, or a normal cable TV system. Despite how much I like our house (or flat, I guess you would call it--it's the first floor of a huge house), especially considering we're only living here 2 years, I'm always comparing it to something better. And then the sun comes out, and it's a beautiful spring day (like today), and I'm reminded once again about why this is the perfect place for us. Just take a look at what I'm doing today:
Unlike most of our friends, we have a backyard! (Total unrelated side note: I've learned, since living in Basel, that a backyard is a "garden" in British English, regardless of whether you have anything planted in it or do any actual gardening) This afternoon I'm enjoying sitting in my pretty blue Ikea sun chair reading my book, with Grady lounging at my side. I would have liked him to be posing in this picture next to the chair but lately he seems to jump up and bark at me upon sight of the camera. There's no doubt that having a fenced-in backyard is a necessity for a dog-family like ours. I realize that lots of dogs live in apartment buildings with elevators, etc., but Grady never has and I can't imagine having to deal with all the Swiss rules considering our sometimes neurotic dog. There are lots of other reasons I love where we live. We have a beautiful field just down the street as well as lots of other great places to walk dogs, I can walk to the "selber pflucken" flower field, we have a neighborhood bakery where I can buy Zopf for Kirk every Saturday morning, there are cows just on the other side of the field which always make me smile, I often see sheep while riding the tram up to our neighborhood (someone keeps them in a small, fenced-in field on a hill), and we are surrounded by trees and lots of singing birds-- all of this makes us feel a bit like we live out in the country yet we're only a 15 minute walk (or tram ride) away from the heart of Basel. It is ideal. Now I'm going back outside to the sunshine.
Unlike most of our friends, we have a backyard! (Total unrelated side note: I've learned, since living in Basel, that a backyard is a "garden" in British English, regardless of whether you have anything planted in it or do any actual gardening) This afternoon I'm enjoying sitting in my pretty blue Ikea sun chair reading my book, with Grady lounging at my side. I would have liked him to be posing in this picture next to the chair but lately he seems to jump up and bark at me upon sight of the camera. There's no doubt that having a fenced-in backyard is a necessity for a dog-family like ours. I realize that lots of dogs live in apartment buildings with elevators, etc., but Grady never has and I can't imagine having to deal with all the Swiss rules considering our sometimes neurotic dog. There are lots of other reasons I love where we live. We have a beautiful field just down the street as well as lots of other great places to walk dogs, I can walk to the "selber pflucken" flower field, we have a neighborhood bakery where I can buy Zopf for Kirk every Saturday morning, there are cows just on the other side of the field which always make me smile, I often see sheep while riding the tram up to our neighborhood (someone keeps them in a small, fenced-in field on a hill), and we are surrounded by trees and lots of singing birds-- all of this makes us feel a bit like we live out in the country yet we're only a 15 minute walk (or tram ride) away from the heart of Basel. It is ideal. Now I'm going back outside to the sunshine.
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