Bing's Bright Idea

I now understand why Bing Crosby sang about White Christmas’ – because rainy ones are rubbish. We had to endure a good few inches of the blue stuff in the run up to the 24th / 25th December and the visit of Santa Claus. Thankfully now we’ve had a couple of dry days and bright blue skies.

Apart from the inclement weather it’s been a happy Christmas in the O’Brien clan of the South West of France. Maxime is now a confirmed present opener, including even those of his 2 month old brother, sister and his parents (who are slightly older than 2 months). Mrs. O’Brien was deservedly spoilt so at least she can say 2010 ended on a high after such a difficult year. And both Mr and Mrs O’Brien managed to avert any disputes over Christmas dinner because one was seafood based at the parents in law and the other was meat based at the parents. There really was something for everyone.

A few different things struck me at the start of the festive period. I particularly enjoyed going to Christmas mass this year. As Maxime starts to understand the mystery of Santa Claus I found myself musing about how I’m going to have to start explaining to him the mystery of baby Jesus and the Holy Trinity (admittedly made more difficult because of the lack of any super presents other than spiritual strength and eternal life). I suspect I’ll have to talk to him in terms of Jesus being a special friend whose opinion I respect and that I go to see for an hour each week. Thankfully I’ve got a few more months to hone my story. I suppose that the good news is that for all its failings the Catholic Church is very welcoming – so much so that the French parish priest even refused to acknowledge my mum’s Protestant faith and thrust a consecrated host down her throat during Christmas mass. I suspect the German Benedict would disapprove of such indiscriminate by hook or by crook French attempts to increase the size of the practising flock.

Despite the religious aspect to Christmas there is an undeniable materialistic part to proceedings as well. Whilst I genuinely believe that the word materialistic doesn’t have to have pejorative connotations (people take pleasure in giving and received gifts), I think I must be getting older because I now have the beginnings of some sort of formal sliding scale of presents in my head. When you are small, the most important thing is the size of the presents, afterwards it becomes the number of presents, when you’re a bit older their value seems important. Now I’m definitely getting older because it seems like the things that are most important to me are both the difficulty it takes to source a present (a blank envelope with an IOU in it (hastily scribbled on Christmas Eve no doubt) or online purchases from Amazon typically score poorly); and the utility of the item / whether or not it has been specifically requested; as an example receiving another pair of functional socks or underpants which can always be used is particularly demoralising, whereas receiving a pair of requested riding gloves is particularly pleasing. Again, something else for me to refine over the next 12 months to help my family find presents for someone who, admittedly, has everything he needs and is generally very picky.

Another thing which struck me was that although Christmas is a time of traditions, traditions are there to be created. Having grown up childless in Newcastle (successfully avoiding teenage pregnancies and the like), now it’s a case of living in the South of France and having children. This has clearly changed how Christmas is going to be over the next 20 years or so. I suppose it is up to us to decide how we want Christmas to play out e.g. parents in law on the 24^th, parents on the 25^th, midnight mass or not, all presents opened in a mad rush at the crack of dawn, or spread out over the course of the day etc. One of the nicest traditions that I’d heard about in talking with my clients was a Swiss family that put their odd pennies in a big jar over the course of the year. During the Christmas meal they all guess how much money is in the jar. The person who is closest gets to decide on the family outing or activity which is paid for using the money in the jar. That sounds like a great idea although he did confirm that even when he wins it is still his wife who decides what the chosen activity is. It seems like some traditions are the same the world over.

Daily Status - 24 hours and counting

A morning with Maxime looking at Clark Kent glasses before the rain started, a late afternoon outing with Pich de Toulven in the rain, two small twins who eat so well they look like they're being fed up for Christmas, a wife with a new fringe, and only 8 emails in my inbox outstanding. A good day all in all. Feels like I'm almost ready for Christmas - I've got a whole day tomorrow to get some presents for people!

Pich de Toulven

I'll also have to tell you how the latest addition to the family, Pich de Toulven, is getting on. Check out his vital statistics at the following site by typing his name into the "Nom du Cheval" box and hit "enter".... http://www.ffecompet.com/chevaux Sandie even seems to have a soft spot for him, and it's thanks to him that I'm developing a passion for hoof grease and disinfectant.

Blog or Bust

What a month December has been. I have spent quite a bit of it in Paris, Zurich and Basel as well as a few days in Biarritz. It’s been a bit manic as we come to the end of the quarter and the end of the year. It was a case of trying to see lots of people face to face before the holiday period (the internet can only take you so far even if I am now a confirmed Skype supporter). I realise I haven’t posted since the 4th December but I realise I must...not because of any particular commitment to my blog, but more because of a commitment to my bank manager.....Sandie has been on at me over the last few days that because I haven’t blogged it means that she has nothing to read in the middle of the night when she is feeding the babies. She has threatened that she will start logging onto eBay more frequently if I don’t post something – my financial health depends on it apparently!

So what have been my major musings over the past 3 weeks? Don’t judge a Swiss man by his pot belly, embrace the chaos and Christmas is most definitely coming (and thankfully the family is all well and together for the big day this weekend).

Earlier in the month I went out for dinner with one of my project teams in Zurich. After underestimating how many people wanted to eat sausages and cheese on a Tuesday night, we finally managed to find a restaurant. Whilst you can work as much as you want with people, it’s only when you get them out in an informal setting do you really get to know who they are. Our dinner reminded me you can’t judge a book by its cover. Two of the people there that night were a short stumpy Swiss fella with a pot belly and a tall Cypriot guy with hands like shovels. Both were near enough 50. During the conversation it turned out they had both played a lot of football in their past – despite being someone who played football for almost 25 years I still managed to guess incorrectly what position they played – my Swiss friend had been a goalkeeper in the first division and the Cypriot had been a tricky left winger (or so he tells me). It made me smile. Neither of them guessed that I had been a cynical centre half!

The other thing which Wipro’s Head of Europe told me when I met him in Paris was that I should not expect process and organisation in a company that is experiencing 20% year on year growth. Wiproites often talk about the company being a 6 billion dollar start up (our annual revenues). He talked about “infant mortality statistics” (the number of people who leave Wipro within 1 year of joining), and he told me I needed to “embrace the change” if I wanted to survive. I’m a bit German in my outlook on how things should be run, but that one comment helped me put my first 6 months in Wipro into some sort of perspective, and it reminded me of one of the main reasons why I left Accenture. I chose not to explain to him he could have chosen a better term than “infant mortality statistics” given recent family events!

The other thing which has struck me over the last few weeks is that Christmas is coming. Whilst the UK heaves under a heavy dose of the white stuff, the key thing which has made me realise this is not the number of fat men in red pyjamas walking around Biarritz but more the number of English TV series that are being concluded. I’m not a big TV watcher but I do have English TV in the south of France and for some reason over the last 3 months or so I have managed to more or less follow Strictly Come Dancing, The Apprentice and X-Factor. The finals of each show have been happening over the last week or so - Stella has been hired despite her modest background, Kara has a glitter ball and a new boyfriend, and I have just heard that Matt Cardle has been crowned Christmas number 1. Surely I shouldn’t know this type of thing! I need to stop having so many small children requiring regular feeding of hot milk meaning I am chained to the sofa on a Saturday night.....

On that subject the news is pretty good – Capucine is now out of hospital. She’s putting on lots of weight and this time it really seems like she is back on track. She’s 2.7 kg and Gaston is 3.6 kg for the statisticians among you. Maxime is increasingly interested in both of them, well at least removing dummies and putting blankets over their heads when we are not looking. He also seems to have really cottoned on to the idea of Le Pere Noel pretty quickly which is fairly impressive – why just this evening he told us that he has already baggy’sied the mince pies and pint of beer we’ll leave out for Santa Claus on Christmas eve.....

Bloody Sandman and Snowmen

What a week. It’s been another hectic one and I think everyone was more than happy to see my parents come back from a short stay in England. I think even my parents were surprised by the welcome party that greeted them at the airport (to discuss babysitting requirements amongst other things).

Work wise I was up in Zurich for a day on Tuesday for a couple of important clients meetings, both of which went well thankfully. I think I hid my sleep deprivation well; I suppose that’s the beauty of adrenalin. By the time I had driven home from Pau it was about midnight on Tuesday. I wasn’t just tired by the time I got home, it was as if the sandman had emptied the contents of the Sahara desert into my little peep holes. I was looking forward to snuggling up in a nice warm bed. Gaston on the other hand had other ideas. Ideas he was particularly keen to share at 1AM, 3AM, 4AM, 5.30AM and 7AM. The sandman only came to visit him about 8AM upon which time he then slept for the rest of the day. If only my work commitments had allowed me to do the same.

I was actually meant to be in London from Wednesday evening through to Friday afternoon but the inclement weather in the UK put paid to that. Whilst I flailed my arms around tut-tutting like a real Frenchmen when I saw the last minute cancellation of the meeting (meaning we’ll have to do it in January now), with hindsight it was actually most fortuitous because we had some less than good news about Capcuine. Capucine has struggled to put as much weight on as Gaston. Over the last few days she’d also developed a worrying tendency to have black outs, especially when she was eating (not typical meal time behaviour for an O’Brien!). The doctors were at a loss to explain this, and when we went to the hospital on Wednesday afternoon they decided to keep her in for observation. And observe they did. Whilst they are still not sure what the problem is, it seems that she has some form of pulmonary infection. They initially feared that a blood transfusion would be necessary because she is so tired by the whole episode, but thankfully that has subsequently been deemed unnecessary. She remains in hospital and we should have some more test results today. She definitely won’t be here for Maxime’s birthday tomorrow, but we really hope that she’ll be home for Christmas. In the meantime we’re rediscovered the 15 minute drive to the hospital 3 times a day and the wonderfully caring and professional nursing staff of Bayonne (who now automatically associate Capucine with a box of top notch Swiss chocolates so that can’t be a bad thing!).

It seems little Gaston is missing his little sister despite now having the whole bed to himself at night. Whereas his mother would kill for the same thing, he seems to be particularly lonely when the lights go out. On Thursday we kept him with us for large parts of the night – something we always said we’d never do; but oh my goodness how wonderful it was to sleep for a whole 6 hours in a row. He seemed quite happy too.

Maxime is two this weekend and I am quite sure that the joy of having his little cousins from Toulouse to play with will outweigh the delight of any new toy. I hope so because we haven’t bought him any. I am obviously only joking – in fact they always say you should give a present that you would like to receive yourself, so I am sure that Maxime is going to be over the moon with his size 8 riding gloves and a renewed subscription to the Economist for 2011. He’s a lucky lad.