"Bada bada bada"

Last weekend in Geneva was warm and sunny, even though not as warm as today where it is 30° outside at the moment... in the shadow! Warm weather in geneva of course means going down to the "beach". Now the beach here is not the kind you might expect if you normally travel around the pacific islands, or even greece - there is no sand here of any colour. Instead we have geneve plage made out of grass mostly and with swimming pools, the wake board centre where they have put nice wooden floor to lie on, the popular and cheap "les bains de paquis" which is in fact a pier and hence made out of concrete, lots of rocks around the lake where you can make your own pick and where getting into the water is on your own risk and peril, and a bit further away from the centre a few other grass beaches. The only sand beach is of course fake, and minimal, hence the name "Baby plage" :) Anyway, a warm sunny day still means going down to the lake or onto the lake if you are lucky enough to own a boat or have good friends who own a boat which is even better, but which might not always be that easy to programme except if you chose your friends after their money/boat possession.... which perhaps is something i should contemplate but has not yet been my case ;)

So Saturday, which was my day with my cousin Susanne and her little boy Anton, after a lovely "almost home made" gaspacho soup while little Anton was sleeping, we made it down to Geneva plage, one of the more child-friendly beaches in this town (let me mention by the way that on the way back up through the park de la grange, i suddenly understood how come my cousin can be so thin and how she became so thin that quickly after having had her first baby, pushing a pram is hard work!!! - now she's not as thin anymore at the moment but the reason for that will soon be very evident ;)) Our main objective of the day according to 18 month old Anton was to "bada bada bada", hence to swim swim swim.... Luckily for us since the weather had been really cold the week proceeding this "bada"-day, and the lake hence very cold indeed, geneve plage includes swimming pools even for little ones. Thus, after having found a nice empty spot next to a tiny tree (and, as it would turn out soon, next to another group of swedes with a small child - these people are really everywhere...), having spread out our stuff and had a nice a bit over-washed ;) fruit salad, it was time to "bada bada bada"!

or at least so we thought.... after a first approval of the almost warm water, it soon appeared that water is actually quite scary business... and especially not very nice to get into your face.... and just when it looked like little anton would overcome this initial hesitation, he tried to clap his hands in the water and splash around him like his old-cousin did (yep, i'm the old cousin....sounds so old!!! an aunt or something sounds younger, so i'm usually just referred to as cousin helena, luckily),

anton lost his balance and dived head first into the water. now, he only stayed under lets say an approximation of perhaps 1 second before his lovely mum pulled him up into her arms but that was enough for one day and from then on "bada bada bada" meant being splashed a bit by water while sitting on mother's hip, and running around next to the pool (a real good idea of course, but guess he's not old enough to understand the idea of slipping and falling into the pool...). In fact, the idea of swimming/bathing was a lot more appealing than the actual act of doing it. It seems like "bada" is something best done hypothetically, at least for the moment, but then again the summer is just starting..... ;)