Mid life retirement

I remember a few years ago asking a recently retired mother in law what the week ahead held in store for her. She started her response by pausing, and then saying, “well Monday, I need to go to the Post Office, Tuesday...” I’ve made fun of her ever since suggesting that when going to the Post Office becomes the main activity of your day, then you really know you’re on the downward slide. However when I look at my activity report for this morning it runs something like, “got up, dressed three small children and had a shave”. And the worst thing is that I was actually quite proud of myself to have been able to get everyone in a state of dress with freshly cleaned teeth! Maybe I should put those stones back in a box now that I’ve discovered that the house I live in is made of glass (http://www.goenglish.com/PeopleWhoLiveInGlassHousesShouldNotThrowStones.asp). On the bright side, at least Frodo managed to save the world last night so it's not all bad...

Spanish Sharks and the Return of Kings

Today was meant to be an afternoon of physical exertion up the col d’Ibardin. Instead it turned into a day out in San Sebastian with Sandie, Maxime and Gaston. Eating a chocolate brownie and drinking a vanilla milkshake after a visit of the aquarium took a lot less effort than slogging up a Basque mountain on a bike. The day was made even easier by the fact that Capucine spent the day with her paternal grandparents in Biarritz. San Sebastian is a wonderful place. We saw the old town, the aquarium complete with seahorses, star fish and sharks, and some parts of the modern town. I was really taken by it. It’s only 50km from Biarritz so definitely within striking distance on a bike, although I suspect I’d need some tapas and pincho (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pincho) style re-fuelling on arrival before contemplating a round trip. After getting back to Biarritz the evening was dominated by the third part of the Lord of the Rings triology. I have amazed myself as much as anyone by being able to watch all three films this week. I decided I wanted to see it after the last au pair, Jessica, waxed lyrical about it. I really didn’t think it would be my type of thing, but I have to admit I’ve really been quite taken by it. I have definitely preferred some of the other films I’ve seen recently e.g. Argo (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1024648/) or the intouchables (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1675434/?ref_=sr_1), but I’m very happy to have invested the time watching the Tolkien classics over the Christmas period. Right back to the end of Sam saving Mr. Frodo…hopefully!

Christmas Precision

I took Maxime to mass on Christmas Day. He still struggles to sit quietly for an hour (or any period of time longer than about 90 seconds). I was however very appreciative of his precision when he told me he had decided to go for a wee..."outside" (the church). Both Father Christmas and Baby Jesus heaved a bit sigh of relief.

Santa's French

This Santa thing is brilliant. It's not just the fact that it is the best child behaviour management technique ever invented, it's the level of sophistication in that technique that has been developed over the years. Maxime has been wonderfully behaved for the whole of the month of December, well ever since we started opening the doors on the advent calendar to reveal little chocolates. Chocolate at breakfast?... On the 1st December he thought all his Christmas' had come at once (they almost did - this is only his fifth). Needless to say Capucine and Gaston also cottoned on quickly. And just when you think the "Santa only brings presents to good little boys" must wear out after the first two weeks, it doesn't. And even better, from the middle of December onwards introducing the phrase, "you have to be in your bed because Santa comes round to count the little boys in their beds to understand how many toys he has to bring", merely serves to add extra authenticity to it all; I have never seen Maxime run to his bed like he did tonight. Tremendous. It's just a shame that we can't do this all year round, but that's when I realised that full time work in the months of November and December roughly equate to fourty-one 35 hour working weeks...clearly there's a significant chance that work-shy Santa is French.

A hangover worth having

It was more difficult to get to Madrid yesterday than expected. A passport mix up with Sandie meant I missed my original flight after having driven 90 minutes to get to the airport in San Sebastian. Thankfully I managed to get to Spain a bit later in the afternoon after the au pair had transformed herself into a motorway passport delivery service. It was worth it. 2012 isn’t finishing in Spain the way I wanted, but I was adamant I wanted to see the team again before the end of the year. It was the right decision. I went to the office party and it was good to relax with the team and have a few drinks after a few draining months. The headache I had when I got up at 6.30AM to fly back to France this morning was well worth it. I’m now in Biarritz after a round trip to Pau during the day to pick up the family. We’ll be here for the next two weeks and I’m looking forward to the break. We’ll see what 2013 brings, but for the minute I’m more interested in seeing what Father Christmas will bring.

Strava and my imaginary friends

What’s all this about Big data? Everyone seems to be talking about social media, open, machine to machine and now personal data lockers http://www.economist.com/news/business/21568438-data-lockers-promise-help-people-profit-their-personal-information-know-thyself. Could this really be true? As the end of the year approaches I am managing to find a bit of time to play around with some of the gadgets I’ve bought over the last couple of months. I received a personal GPS and heart monitor for my birthday and which I now use religiously whenever I take my bike out or go running. I just worked out how to upload all this information onto the web. Apparently I can start to link to my friends to compare our respective workouts, speeds and power ratios. What’s even better is that whilst I try and find some real friends, the website www.strava.com gives me some imaginary friends to compare myself against, because “Frederic Tonera” and “Mark Telfer” are obviously real people…

BMI Book Cover

I read the following Economist article recently http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21568389-state-can-do-some-things-encourage-people-eat-less-not-lot-fat-chance. When I first read the initial article, it fell into the “mildly interesting and thought provoking” category and no more. That was until I sat on very small plane with an extremely large chap. That particular flight was a most unpleasant experience – having the window seat whilst the man on your left literally overflowed into your own personal space wasn’t great. The fact that he drank Coke and ate Air France cookies the whole time just rubbed salt (or sugar) into the wound. That hour long flight got me thinking about the time when I lived in Denmark working on a project for a pharmaceutical company with a load of diabetes statisticians. Oh how a BMI tax sounds so seductive and easy…except for the fact that I recall endless debates about how exactly one measures BMI – it doesn’t seem to be that simple http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index. However, this theoretical debate, which would indeed limit one’s ability to implement a BMI tax, was not as compelling as the following letter from Dave Powell in Bristol who said, “muscle is a lot denser than fat, so BMI doesn’t necessarily indicate fitness. To give an example, Mo Farah, one of Britain’s outstanding Olympic champions, has a BMI of around 21 (based on height and weight figures I found) which puts him in the BMI’s healthy category. But another great Olympic champion, Steve Redgrave, at a towering six-foot five, would have had a BMI of around 26 at his peak, which would indicate that he is overweight. Taking things a step further Mike Tyson would have a BMI over 33, which was off the scale on the BMI calculator I used. Now I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to be first in the queue to inform Mr. Tyson that he is morbidly obese”… But the real moral of the story? As I got off the plane, the fat chap passed me my jacket and was the most charming of gentlemen. I suppose one really shouldn’t judge a person by his BMI score.