Summer 2011. The younger generation. Always a disappointment, what are young people thinking these days! Walking round half naked, mumbling a lot of hip nonsense, enigmatic stares and inappropriate laughs out loud (though not actually ‘walking round’ yet) – we were all better behaved in my day. As I recall. Anyway, we moved to the village of Féchy (that was an adventure), then spent most of the summer in the Northwoods, entertaining and being entertained by Young William and his handlers Marlowe and Dima, and then entertaining and being vastly entertained by Lowell and Sheila, after too long an absence. Then back to Féchy for the wine festival, and that’s the lot for the summer of 2011.

Winter 2010-2011. Our winters are nothing like what they once were. The Gods of Climate Change taunted us with much more snow than we've had in years in early December, and then They just went away. So mostly, we just traveled instead; that's good, too. A comfortably long spell in the Naples subregion in October and November: Ravello, Capri, and a week or so in Naples with side trips to Paestum, Pompeii, Herculaneum, and smelly Solfarata. Followed by some time in Colmar in the Alsace. A ton of snow then, late November and early December, more snow in one night than the Geneva airport has seen since 1982; oh, lovely. Long working hours over December and January, just as well though, with no more snow at all and no Kristin. But in early February Kristin was back and we were down for two weeks in Florence, blissful in the off season, Pisa, and Mantova, and then in early March, some time walking all around Strasbourg's old city. It's been a successful winter for collecting photos of statues of Dante. And the snow never did come back.

Summer 2010. Settling into desuetude. Venice, Bride of the Sea, harbinger of the acqua alta we’ll all be seeing a lot more of everywhere soon – the city’s always been a favorite tourist stopover among our circles, but now, semi-retired, we get to take our time and break out of the Rialto/San Marco axis. A week ambling about the Lido, Chioggia, Torcello, Burano – all worth the time and the bus fare. And with La Donna Partigiana. And a Night at the Opera. MOST of the summer, though, got spent basking at Kristin’s in Wisconsin Northwoods sunlight, when it appeared from time to time, boating about, hiking with Alison and Marlowe and friends in the Lake Superior mountains, checking in for work from the Secretariat that seldom came, chasing down distinguished Wisconsin micro-brews, and stopping in to see Marlowe and Dima in Ottawa on the way back Europeward. Semi-retirement is beginning to agree with us.

Winter 2009-2010. Leisure requires discipline. Or not. This is the year we’ve been yearning towards for the past six decades, give or take. On 1 February, we officially went into retirement after a long, varied, rewarding, undistinguished career. Sort of. Henceforward, we’re on a flexible half-time schedule at the Secretariat, working on documentation, publications, and rapporteuring major meetings. We got the winter season underway with Alison’s and Kristin’s visits in a snowstorm at Tanay in mid-October, and then I and MY WIFE (newly) soared off for our nearly-annual coastal hiking in Cornwall and Devon. Subsequently, MY WIFE came back to spend the Christmas season with some excellent coastal walking in Corsica, and then in February, newly semi-retired, there was another splendid visit to Rome, once again with MY WIFE. Rainy spring hiking and a lot of political blog-reading when I should have been working-from-home ensued, till finally the whole Secretariat took off to Georgia in late April for a big meeting, and MY WIFE came along with us, with a stopover in scenic Istanbul. Next week, MY WIFE’s coming back to get the summer season off to a good start.

Summer 2009. Things are looking up again. After a convalescent springtime, we rolled into the summer in the middle of a nasty project at work, migrating Web sites with not much idea of how to, so when Kristin showed up in early June, we downed tools and went off to southwestern France for a couple of exploratory weeks, based in Salers in Auvergne and in Bourdeilles in Périgord, in one of the world’s most wonderful places. Two midsummer months ensued with our nose to the grindstone/keyboard, racing pell-mell, with our poet’s eye in fine frenzy rolling, glancing from DreamWeaver heaven to “content management” earth, from earth to heaven, and not much sleep, to complete the nasty project (more or less) and rush off to go get married in Wisconsin. Well, that went very well. But now we’re back here at the keyboardstone trying to clean up that still nasty project. But Kristin’s coming along next week for some October coastpath hiking in Devon, so that’s the good news, but it's going to make the nasty project seem even nastier in the meantime.

Winter 2008-2009. The best snow we've had in the Jura in a decade, and we nearly missed it. A great sigh of relief, and some protracted moaning, in early November 2008 as the Highlight of our Triennium, the 10th Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, went off swimmingly in Changwon, South Korea. An exhilirating experience, all in all, and we got to learn a little about Korean culture as well, especially the fabulous mall adjacent to the convention centre. Kristin came along in November for a fortnight of castle-hopping in southwestern France, principally near Sarlat and Carcassonne, and discovering the cassoulet! But: then ensued a few medical issues -- fewer adventures in the most copious blanket of snow we've had in Switzerland in many, many years -- which brought Kristin back to Europe to make the chicken soup, with some days on Lago Maggiore in northern Italy for the sun and some walking tentatively about. Alison and Mark visited from their astronomical observatory in Chile for a few days in early April, a treat as always, and for the rest of the snowshoeing season, we were back on the hoof again with increasing vigor and enthusiasm.