Quiet platitudes

It's very traditional to wish people a "Happy New Year", and if you didn't, you'd no doubt be considered as being most rude. However it annoys me that the phrase is uttered so frequently without any real meaning or genuine intent. As such I have taken it upon myself this year to ask someone what would constitute a good 2013 for them each time I wish anyone a "Happy New Year". The responses have been most interesting, although the one that keeps popping up over and over again (especially at work), is "serenity".  It seems like the overriding unscientific finding from a non representative section of my circle of acquaintances is that people want to stop living at a hundred miles an hour and to have some peace and quiet in their lives. Interesting. Given that I am still waiting to understand the exact nature of my professional responsibilities in 2013, at least I can say that I am living that dream of many - I've never cleaned or fed so many small children as in the first ten days of 2013 although I'm sure my Air Miles count won't have suffered too much by the time December 31st rolls round again. 

Ryanair blonde

I'm not sure where or when it went wrong for Sandie, but this evening she tried to book a Ryanair flight ticket for her and Maxime. Admittedly Ryanair's website has won many awards for being the worst website ever, and is widely accepted as being way too complicated to use, but when she turns around and asks me, in all seriousness, "my first name is Sandie, right?" then I can't help but think Michael O'Leary isn't completely to blame. I thought women were only meant to suffer a hormone induced loss of common sense during pregnancy, not for a period of up to 26 months after the birth... She's now lamenting the fact that technology and the internet have moved on so much that her grandmother would be incapable of buying a plane ticket. Maybe I should stop blogging and put her out of her misery. Right, where's that shotgun.

Papy John Fix

I think Maxime must understand that Papy John and Mamy Moi are about to head off to England for 3 months. For each of the last four mornings the first thing he has said as he has stormed into our bedroom before daylight has been, “what time am I going to Papy John’s?” He’s clearly looking to get his his grandparent fix (and quite possibly a fix of pizza and chocolate pancakes as well). Things even went so far as when he said to Sandie this morning that he hated his current family and that he wanted to be part of Papy John’s family. Sandie carefully explained to him that he was already part of Papy John’s family because he was his “petit-fils” (directly translated as “small-son” or grandson). He took great offense at this and rapidly exclaimed that he was not small, but that he was actually “moyenne” (translated as “of medium size”) now that he was 4 years old. We’re now going to head off to see our estranged son at Mamy and Papy’s so I’ll be interested to see what type of welcome we get…

The future’s bright? The future’s globalized?

One of the thoughts that has been festering in the back of my mind during this festive period has been the kids’ future in what I think will be a more globalized world despite the recent findings of the DHL Global Connectedness Index (http://www.economist.com/news/business/21568753-world-less-connected-it-was-2007-going-backwards). It seems obvious to me that as a parent you want your children to be in a better position than the one you find yourself in, not just in terms of financial rewards, but also in terms of opportunities plus other dimensions of their lives e.g. sport, travel, comfort, housing, music, friends, love etc. The other, often underestimated, part of this equation is that it is me, as a parent, who is setting the baseline of their expectations. This is a significant responsibility. I can’t help but think that if I am lucky enough to be able to provide a comfortable and happy existence for the children, then surely I should also be ensuring that they also have enough opportunities as they move into the adult world otherwise they will never be in a position to surpass the current existence that I have carved out for them. The obvious question then is that in a nation who enjoys penalizing high earners despite the limited financial gain to the rest of the population, of surly shopkeepers on who you almost have to thrust your custom, and of cobblers who refuse to mend zips on a pair of riding boots because “it’s a pain of a job”, is France really the best place for the kids to get the opportunities and experiences that will be necessary for them to compete in what is likely to be a more globalized, cost conscious and competitive world than the one today? Interesting Christmas conversation with the in-laws I can assure you.

Facebook Cleansing

As I sat in front of the tail end of Christmas holiday television, I decided on some root and branch Facebook reform. Inspired by the example of my Dad who carefully manages a very exclusive list of friends, I decided I would “unfriend” many of the random connections (groups and people) that had made their way into my virtual life over the last few years. For a long time now I had found logging into the site somewhat laborious despite what everyone else waxing lyrical about it. I always felt like I was wading through legions of irrelevant guff before stumbling across a nugget of interesting information about someone I was actually interested in. So I removed about 100 contacts and the end result is that I am now experiencing something of a Facebook renaissance – it’s actually quite a useful way of keeping up with people! If only real life were so simple!

Mrs. Pot

It was only the third day of 2013 when Sandie made my year…I nearly choked on my Basque Piperade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piperade) when Sandie said, in all seriousness, “What I hate in life is people who you can’t say anything to because you don’t know whether or not they will fly off the handle”. Priceless. Thankfully she was in good enough of a mood for me to try and explain some famous English idioms to her such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_pot_calling_the_kettle_black

A year of contraction

In my waistline that is. I had my annual self imposed weigh in this morning - I tipped the scales at 76.9kg a whopping 600 grams under the weight recorded this time last year if my memory serves me right. Obviously it's nice to have some sort of stability in my weight given the job and kids etc. However I did start to wonder what might be different on January 1st 2014. I think the major difference will be that I will have worked out how to really use all my new Garmin gadgets to the extent that I won't be monitoring or comparing just weight, but also things such as body fat, cardiac rhythm, average speed achieved on the bike etc. I don't think that I'll be measuring the number of strides per minute nor the power output of each, but I do think my Garmin inspired revolution of personal health data will continue. Long live technology! And maybe this is a better way to ensure I don't have to renew last year's New Year's resolutions which were, "So, for me, in 2012, I have decided to eat less (by refusing second helpings, which increases the importance of the first helping obviously, and eating no desserts in the evening), and to do 50 sit-ups and press-ups per day (on the clear understanding that if I manage to do this until the end of the first quarter then we can consider that resolution achieved)."...