Nappyquest 2007

At home, Archie wears reusable nappies. This is as much about saving money and the wellbeing of Archies bottom as it is about concern for the environment. Whilst reusable nappy wearing is all well and good at home, it is not always convenient or even possible when you are travelling. The dilemma is then what to put bub's botty in, which won't result in global deforestation and overflowing landfill sites. The best solution, I have decided, is Moltex Oko.

Moltex, for the uninitiated, are "eco-friendly" disposable nappies made in Germany. They have a wholemeal appearance and smell of damp cardboard when they need changing. In fact, only the bag they are wrapped in is compostable but they are made of recycled paper and have low gel levels, which results in perfectly satisfactory absorbency but no white powdery residue on sweetie's rear end. If it sounds like I'm trying to justify purchasing them, I am. Nappies are heavy items when carried in bulk and I object to using my precious baggage allowance when flying on something I can buy when I get there.

Or hope I can buy when I get there.... Herein lies the dilemma. Holidays are precious time spent with the family and should be relaxing and restful. Shopping is stressful and time-consuming. I must have been mad to assume that a brand made in Germany would be freely available in German-speaking Switzerland, but was I going to compromise, like I did after going into every Pick and Pay store in South Africa because the distributor said they would DEFINITELY be available, but they weren't? Of course not! Not while there was a chemist in the Zurich region unchecked!

None of the supermarkets or pharmacies local to Carol and John stocked anything apart from Huggies and Pampers. After 2 days searching and due to the dwindling pile of Moltex left in Archie's change bag, I admitted defeat. Carol kindly offered to ring Moltex, despite being unable to converse in German, and a couple of calls later, we found that there was ONE chemist in Zurich which had just started stocking Moltex. Off Carol, Phil, kids and I traipsed through the drizzle, on trains and trams, before Carol and I realised that we'd left the address of the chemist back at their house. Nappyquest 2007 was taking a dangerous turn. Phil was looking murderous.

Miraculously, I remembered the name of the Chemist and saw it from the tram. Even more miraculously, they actually had Moltex in stock.

Next time Pampers? Huggies? Whatever. Just give me some nappies for my baby. I'll put up with the chemical-factory smell for a week or two if it saves my marriage.