Fashionista!

This morning I am tasting the delights of Ryanair, (thankfully not their cuisine), for the first time in about 3 years as I fly to London from Biarritz. Once again I have to conclude that they are bang on time, they do what it says on the tin, and that even with a screaming baby next to me (my niece), the journey has been good. Air France et al could definitely take a leaf or two out of their much maligned book (read “Ruinair” for more details http://www.amazon.com/Ruinair-Paul-Kilduff/dp/0717144348/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343039270&sr=8-1&keywords=ruinair). On arrival I’ll take the train to Liverpool Street. I’ll be in London today, travel to Paris tomorrow night for the rest of the week, and then on Friday night I’ll fly to Milan for a friend’s wedding on Saturday. Needless to say it was my 22 year old female au pair, not me, who pointed out this morning that I was doing all of Europe’s fashion capitals this week…

As much as I’m looking forward to the different parts of this particular trip, I doubt whether any of them will be as lucrative as last week’s visit to Madrid. I took my new boss down to Madrid last Thursday to meet my Spanish team. As a surprise they had organized a night out at the horse racing. It was a really fantastic idea – the guys had obviously picked up on my love of the four legged animals. We had drinks and tapas followed by racing that started (started!) at 10.30PM. We stayed for the first three races and I had two winners which enabled me to pocket a healthy 45 euros! Crisis? What crisis? More importantly was that we had a really good night together and that I think the team really appreciated some good quality “down time” with the big boss (Lorenzo that is, not me!).

You can judge a man…

There is an old age adage which says that you can judge a man by the friends he keeps. Whilst I do believe in that, even if the waters are muddied by social and professional networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ (you see I am cool with the kids) etc, I also believe that you can judge someone by the reaction of either animals or small children to them. Another bizarre theory I know, but I believe that if animals (prey rather than predators such as crocodiles and piranhas you understand), and small children, are prepared to trust someone, then that’s a pretty good sign. This sounds like the start of an argument to convince someone at work to buy me a horse for the office, (definitely more preferable than having more small children given my current multiple offspring situation).

Online, offline, breath….

The holiday in Spain is fast approaching. I’m looking forward to the break. At the minute it feels like I’m living life in a series of sprints or bursts. I’m “online” in a very intense way meeting and talking to lots of people in my different countries; I then go “offline”, often in the evenings, to allow myself time to catch up on blog postings or emails (both are like London buses – nothing for ages and then a whole host come together); but if I’m not careful I’ll forget to take a step back to breath, evaluate the progress we’ve made so far and then recalibrate where we need to go next. I’m hoping that I’ll get a chance to do some of that this week or maybe at the weekend on my way back from Italy.

Vive le velo!

We spent last weekend in Biarritz. I also stayed there at the start of this week. That was nice because the sun was glorious (does a blue sky make one feel better or worse when doing emails inside the house?), but the downside was that we weren’t in Pau when the Tour de France was passing through. The disappointment was doubled when Sandie rang last night to tell me that the Belgian TV programme Vive le Velo had turned up to do 3 days of filming from the stud farm in Gelos! She said it was an impressive affair with big trucks all over the place. They came with a staff of 54 people including 2 full time chefs! I didn’t even have time to think that Sandie was trying to tell me fibs to get me to come back to Pau before one of my Belgian friends who loves his cycling was on email exclaiming that he’d seen the stud farm on TV and that it looked wonderful in the sun! A small world indeed, and yet another opportunity to kick-start my TV career missed….

The music of the future

When I am in Zurich I always stay in the same hotel (http://www.zuerichberg.ch/en/home.asp). It is tucked away in the outskirts of the city by the zoo. It’s nice to feel a bit cut off from everything – the proximity of a huge forest and not having English TV channels such as the BBC or any real internet connection only adds to that feeling. As a consequence I typically watch MTV when I’m getting ready in the morning before work. When I was watching MTV on Friday it was clear to me that we’re at the start of the summer because there are currently lots of catchy tunes such as Flo Rida’s Whistle or Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe being played. On Friday I was reminded of this time of year when I was 18 and went to Majorca with a group of school friends after we had finished our A Level exams. The equivalent song at that time which has always stayed with me is Born Slippy from the film Trainspotting. What I like about this genre of music is the optimism which it instills in me. I hear a series of tunes like that and I hanker for being 18 again – or at least at an age, or a phase of life, where you feel like the world is your oyster, that all avenues are still open, that your future isn’t completely defined and mapped out for you, that there is still everything out there to do, achieve and play for. That’s a precious feeling. Although it may not be my reality at 34 with three small children, I’m always keen to go to my hotel in Zurich at this time of year to be reminded of that feeling.

Rain rain go away

I got my taxi at 6.15AM on Thursday morning to go to the airport en route to Zurich. As I stepped out into the darkness I felt a cold drizzle on my face. My spirits dropped as I realized pretty quickly that rain would mean the cancellation of Maxime’s school picnic in the mountains on the penultimate day of his first year at school. He had been looking forward to it for a number of weeks and I was sorry for him especially because when I got to Zurich it was glorious weather with a bright blue sky. As I headed into the office I couldn’t help but think that the sun was in the wrong place. It’s now Saturday and the good news is that, as is often the case at the age of three, the disappointment didn’t last for long especially thanks to a promise of a rearranged trip in September. His attention has now turned to our upcoming family holiday in Gran Canaria in 5 weeks time – he’s already worked out that this should theoretically be a good excuse to buy new “Cars” flip flops, a new “Barbarpapa” bag and new “Spiderman” T-Shirts and the like. He didn’t get any of what he whined for, but he’s not daft that one.