A taste of reality

Mother: Did --insert child name-- pee in his bed?
Father: No, why?
Mother: Because he stinks of pee.
Au pair: I never want to be a parent...

Me, but not me

This latest piece in last week's Economist didn't come from me... http://www.economist.com/node/21560546 Even if I had the time, I am sure I couldn't write so eloquently. I couldn't help but agree with the contents of the article, and it also made me thankful that we've got four grandparents close by in the south of France...

Old but amusing (no, not me)

1. Money can't buy happiness, but somehow, it's more comfortable to cry in a BMW than on a bicycle

2. Forgive your enemies, but remember their names

3. Help a man when he is in trouble, and he will remember you when he is in trouble again

4. Many people are alive only because it is illegal to shoot them

5. Alcohol doesn’t solve any problems, but neither does milk...

Beleuchtung, Kamera, Aktion

It's well known amongst my friends that I'm no film buff. However one of the advantages of having young girls in the house as au pairs is that they keep you in touch with Generation X (or Y or Z or whatever it is now)....The latest one, Jessica, introduced me to a wonderful website which allows me to watch movies online for free (the end of Netflix you understand www.netflix.com) ...check out www.1channel.ch. It was me however who informed her that a .ch suffix denotes a Swiss registered website (Confoederatio Helvetica for the (other) geeks amongst you...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation_Helvetica). She even went one step further and wrote a complete list of all the movies an old fogey like me just has to watch...some more homework then...

Old dogs, old and new tricks

Shortly after getting back from Spain we had some old friends come and stay in Biarritz for 4-5 days. It was great to relax and spend time with them. I really appreciate being with old friends – it’s so easy just to slip into old friendships regardless of how long it has been since you’ve seen each other. I was also proud to take them to a show jumping competition with me in Prechac near Bazas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazas). I’ve been rabbiting on about the horses for a few years now, so I was happy to finally show them what it was all about. We also had super weather – they arrived lamenting the poor weather and rain in Northern France, they had definitely changed their tune after 5 days of “canicule” and temperatures of up to 40C.

Mormons, Tattoos, Spanish Dancers and a sore shoulder

It was definitely a good thing to get away for a week. Too often we fool ourselves into thinking that spending the summer in Biarritz will be like a real holiday. It is not. The fact that we could disconnect from everything domestic was really beneficial. I managed to get up to date with all my outstanding copies of the Economist (I learnt that if it wasn’t for the lack of a spell as a missionary I’d probably be a Mormon… http://www.economist.com/node/21554173), I did some open water swimming in the Atlantic, I spent large amounts of time in the pool with the kids, I also spent large parts of the week trying to count the number of Spanish, German, Scandinavian and English people who didn’t have tattoos. I even managed to strain a muscle in my back lifting a Spanish dancer (don’t ask). Sandie really enjoyed the fact that someone else did the catering all week, Maxime loved the pool, Jessica lapped up the sunshine and the twins were just generally happy with everything. The only downside was that Maxime fell out of his bed on the last night (no drink was taken m’lud). After a fall of only 30 centimeters, one week, three doctors and six x-rays later we are still trying to work out what is wrong. Hopefully a trip to an orthopedic surgeon next week will shed some more light on a troublesome left shoulder. He has however learnt the meaning of “man flu” and “milking it” and he still makes a pretty good stab of opening chocolate yoghurts with his arm in a sling even if it is in a degree of genuine discomfort. I sense a week of excessive pampering with Papy John coming up…

Check in and chill out

The new flip flops not only played an important psychological role in the holiday preparations, they also played an important role once I’d arrived. I am sure the person who originally designed them did so in such a way that he made it impossible to walk quickly with them. This more than anything else forced me to slow down and take things a bit easier (although I do confess temperatures of 44C and an open bar did also play a part)…

Check out, check in, and don’t forget the new shorts

I remember with fondness our family holidays to hot getaways such as Greece or Portugal when I was growing up. Obviously today I wonder if the exchange rate was more favorable given the current Euro crisis but that’s just because I’ve become old and boring. At the time I was much more focused on the new set of summer clothes and shoes that we were always allowed before we set off. Newcastle is a cold place so a trip to buy summer clothes was a noteworthy event indeed. This shopping trip to Northumberland Street and Eldon Square in Newcastle was always a big event and often ended with a trip to McDonalds before we all trundled back to the car parked in the Relate car park. This (and invariably getting up in the middle of the night to go to the airport) is what really told me that a holiday was upon us. However when you live in a hot place such as Biarritz you typically already own shorts and flip flops. That said as I packed my suitcase for Gran Canaria the absence of any special shopping trip to get an article of summer clothing or two really prevented me from feeling like it was a real holiday. So less than 24 hours before the flight took off I whisked myself off for an hour or two of summer retail therapy. Two pairs of short, a pair of swimming trunks and some new flip flops later, and I was finally ready.

Good morning!

At 7AM it felt a bit crowded in the bed. Whereas that might have had a completely different connotation 15 years ago, at the age of 34 that could only mean only thing…during the dead of night, little Maxime had crept into our bed. He was clearly very comfortable as I tried to crawl out of bed without waking either him or Mrs. O’Brien. If anything he looked just too cute…clearly too cute because it later became something of a regular occurrence during our Spanish holiday when we had to a share a room with him. What a little scamp.

Olympian positivity

What do I like about the Olympics? The fact that it is in London, the medal league tables (some people tell me I am highly competitive), the copious amounts of sport on every TV channel known to man? Nope, what I like is that news coverage is invariably more positive and upbeat than at any other time in the (four) year (period). It seems like stories of bombings, killings, floods and economic crises have to work that bit harder to steal some of the limelight. If it didn’t take 9 billion pounds and 7 years to plan the 2 week festival of sport, then I’d vote to do it on a monthly basis.

Are you hearing me?

I started to try and analyze some of my own conversations at home (obviously made more difficult because I’m trying to do it at the same time as actually having the conversation). I have started to wonder if it is just me who thinks that our conversations are constantly happening on two levels; firstly what is actually being said, and secondly; what the other person thinks you are actually saying. I’ve found myself saying out loud more and more, “listen to what I’m saying, not what you think I’m saying”, and oh yeh, let’s not even start to think about the subtleties of doing it across two languages. Great for mental agility, less good for easy living!

Rome, the Vatican and the CTO

I headed to Rome directly from Madrid. I travelled there with our global CTO (and his wife) who had flown in from Colorado in the US. He had wanted to spend some time talking through some things before our meeting in Italy, so I managed to convince him to come to Spain a day early. I was also very pleased to be able to introduce him to the team there. I continue to believe that to really learn a language you need to understand the culture of the country…another reason why I was happy to go with them to some bona fide flamenco dancing on the Tuesday evening. It really made me look forward to my week’s Spanish lessons at the end of August – I’m itching to immerse myself in all things red and yellow and to understand the land and the people more (even if I doubt I’ll get much of a flavor of it whilst in Gran Canaria...).  The two day meeting in Rome went well and that plus a fascinating visit of the Vatican archives, a roof top dinner and farewell drink for my now ex-boss, and a well-received wall chart all meant that the week whizzed by and that I was pretty exhausted by the end of it. After 11 months in two new jobs, I was ready for a holiday…

Yo vivo a Riberia del Loira

Before travelling to Milan last Friday I started my Spanish lessons in Utrecht (as you do). Some very basic stuff you understand, but it meant that on the Tuesday morning of my last week at work I managed to order my taxi in Madrid in Spanish for the first time. A small step but definitely one in the right direction! I was proud as punch all day until I told the story to one of my local colleagues. He didn’t know how to put it, but he was very kind as he explained to me that I had effectively proclaimed to my somewhat surprised Spanish taxi driver (who spoke perfect English) that I “live” (vivir and yo vivo) in the office, rather than I wanted to go (ir and yo voy) to the office… Back to the drawing board it seems…

Enlightened working

I worked from home on the Monday after the trip to Milan. I spent the day working on a 6 metre wall chart which I will present in Rome on Thursday. The only (series of) tables in Biarritz big enough were outside in my parents’ garden so I spent a pleasant day outside avoiding emails but still doing real work. It was glorious, if only I had thought to put some sun cream on the backs of my knees…

The turning worm the morning after

The weekend of July 27-29 was spent in Lake Como for an old friend’s wedding. It was unfortunate that Sandie and the kids didn’t come – it was such a beautiful place, they would really have enjoyed it. That said, they probably wouldn’t have enjoyed the drive out of Linate airport….I should know by now that I’m no good at multi-tasking… that includes trying to speak to colleagues and drive in unfamiliar countries. It was only after I finished talking to Jean-Francois about work that I realized I had been driving in completely the wrong direction (even despite the GPS having been configured by the Avis rep before I left the airport). It was even more unfortunate that the conversation lasted an hour… Thankfully I was meeting my schoolboy friends so despite arriving at Lake Como in the driving rain at 11.30PM (thanks to Kieran’s telephonic co-piloting powered by Google Earth), I still found them in the nearest local bar, just as I had left them the last time. Thankfully some things never change. The weekend was a success and Mick and Eva were married by the end of it. One thing however that did cause much mirth was the fact that I, “Mr. Organised” by comparison to my old school friends (and the vast majority of the world’s population if you listen to them), managed to get myself locked out of the hotel on Saturday night. At 2AM I finally ended up sleeping on the couch in an apartment that had been rented by the most disorganized member of the whole group. How the worm had turned…

De retour!

Although it’s been a month since I last posted I definitely hadn’t forgotten about my blog. Quite the contrary if anything; I’ve actually been travelling round Europe for both work and pleasure scribbling random thoughts on odd scraps of paper which I’m finally managing to make into full sentences tonight. I hope you enjoy this series of rapid fire posts which will seek to bring you up to date on the events of the last four weeks…