Christmas 2002: Beach cricket in Switzerland

Christmas 2002 was the year we went to visit a good friend, originally also from New Zealand, who was living in Switzerland.*

That Christmas was the year of improvisation.

Our friend hadn't lived in her apartment very long, and just about the only piece of furniture she had was covered with an enormous unfinished jigsaw puzzle. So we improvised.



We didn't have a Christmas tree, but we did have a music stand, a green towel and some fairy lights, so we improvised. (And yes, that really is a glowing sheep on top.)



We thought about having a traditional Christmas dinner, but hey, we were in Switzerland! So we improvised.



We didn't have a beach. Or a cricket set. But we couldn't bear to part with the tradition of playing beach cricket on Christmas Day, so we found a cardboard kitchen roll, a ping-pong ball, and a swimming pool to play beside for that extra authenticity. And we improvised.



On Boxing Day we awoke to discover that we didn't have the traditional Boxing Day hangover. But we were able to find a nasty virus that was willing to take us down one by one, making it impossible to do anything but lie collapsed on our beds clutching a (medicinal) glass of whisky. So we improvised.


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* I didn't get around to asking her permission to post this, so I'm going to fudge it by not using her usual pseudonym or linking to her blog and by putting a blurry mosaic filter over people's heads. If she is reading this and it isn't anonymous enough, hopefully she'll let me know and I'll take the photo with her in it down.