Sortie #classtrip #aquarium #teachersareamazing

Small Fry's teacher invited me to join the class trip to the aquarium today. It was absolutely brilliant, but I have a whole new respect for all teachers everywhere, and especially this one.

Am so glad Fingerling will be starting with her in Small Fry's class after the holidays tee hee.

Future super star? #sunglassesmicrophone #theplayparkgottalent #redcarpetmother

12 months on #osteomyelitis0 #Fingerling1

I was home for half an hour: enough time to cuddle and kiss the kids, shower and then turn around and take Fingerling to the hospital for her 12 month check up after her osteomyelitis. 

Thankfully, she's been discharged, but she took the opportunity to borrow a little boy's crutches and muck about with them. I'm so glad we never got to that stage.

Sooth Bah-ston #LotschangedsinceGoodWillHunting #BostonSeafoodShow

St Patrick was a fifth-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop of Ireland, and is now the primary patron saint of Ireland. In the mid-19th century, the Great Potato Famine was in full swing in Ireland, driving over a million people to leave the country. By 1850, a quarter of the population of Boston was Irish, mostly settling in Southie (South Boston), which quickly became a working class Irish Catholic community. 

Today, South Boston is home to young professionals and families (the median age is 32 in a population of 33 000 people), as well as to misfits attending the Boston Seafood Show and staying in a cheap and close AirBnB.

And I'm telling you, their descendants are more Irish than the Irish. The seafood show fell over St Patrick's day weekend and Saturday night was a mess:

It's literally -5

But it was the green-beer I'm-totally-jet-lagged kind of mess for me, which really equals good fun.

Holy Guacamole! Look at that bowl of the stuff!

It was my first Boston seafood show visit, and it was just as chaotic as they promised. I met up with our Policy Director who is based just north of Boston, and we spent 3 days in hectic side meetings that rotated every hour from the first 7am breakfast meeting until the final 23h cocktail reception. I couldn't hack the pace by the end of the second day, mostly because I was only sleeping 4-5 hours a night with the jet lag anyway. But it was still really good fun. 

We didn't leave the Show, which meant we didn't see the world famous South Boston St Paddy's day parade, and the only thing I saw of Boston was what I could snap from the taxi on the way to the airport. So saying I visited Boston is a bit of a stretch. But I did eat well.

Never above 1 degree the whole time 

The main hall. It looks big: Brussels is 7 times bigger

Lobster in ice

The New Zealand stand. They know how to do seafood shows.

A frozen parrot fish

We ate and drank in the show. Here you can have Lemonade, Naturally flavoured with other natural flavours. Umm...

Hawaiian style tuna

The view from the Show. Yup, that's what I saw of Boston.

I got back to the airport in plenty of time, and so took a couple of minutes to visit the 9/11 Memorial.

The memorial with the skyline of Boston in the background

It was a beautiful glass memorial that reflected the evening sun. The bits of glass that made up the ceiling reflected rainbows of light around the memorial, but they didn't come out on camera.

The numbers are the times at which the two planes were hijacked - both ended up in the Twin Towers.

It was a poignant end to a wonderful, tiring but fascinating trip. And I can't wait to get home!

Confident Speaking #Acting #Gottalearnmore #IUUForum

Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported fishing is not strictly my area...but it's a subject that has come up almost everywhere I have worked...Brussels, Worldfish, my PhD, the OECD...and so apparently I know enough to speak about it for 15 minutes and then contribute to a 45 minute panel discussion afterwards. 

Turns out, I don't, but it was a good learning experience for me. Mostly because I decided to revamp my powerpoint: I put up only photos and then talked about the photos. It also helped that I was on a panel with Nicole, the girl who was my successor at the OECD and co-St Jean de Luz summer holiday member. And it was an opportunity to make some very good new contacts. Apparently people don't necessarily remember what you say, but they do remember a connection or something in common.

Strutting my stuff

Fake Country #realplace

Easter chicks #littlemorepractisethen

Because babycino is a drink #parisiancafé #petiteparisienne

Alternate use of the seat #justgettingcomfy

Sprunged #isspring

Sibling rivalry #SmallFry&Fingerling

Small Fry, 4.5 years:

108 cm tall

17 kg

Fingerling, 2.5 years:

90 cm tall

13.1 kg

So how do they measure up, like for like? Well, not far off, surprisingly. Small Fry was 2 cm taller at the same age but they both weighed the same. And most importantly: both very healthy.

International Women's Day #WomeninSeafood

Says it all: http://winsc.org.au/international-womens-day/dr-ingrid-kelling/

Fish out of water #Mummy&Me #Belowthesurface

After literally months of discussing, learning and painting about space, oday for our Mummy & Me Morning, Small Fry and I decided to visit the Pavilion de l'eau. Ever since I first saw them turn on the street taps to wash the pavements and gutters (like, 12 years ago), the Parisian water system has fascinated me.

I found the sewer tour really interesting and would love to do it again now that my French is better. But Small Fry has a bit of an aversion to the dark (it's not very well lit down there) and I have a great aversion to not picking up Fingerling from her day care (children's tour times clash with the end of the garderie shift), so we gave that one a miss.

The Pavilion de l'eau has got to be the next best thing, or perhaps even better as it turns out. It's a museum devoted to water in the City of Paris and is managed by Eau de Paris, the municipal agency in charge of production and distribution of water to and in the city. There is a permanent exhibition about the water supply history of the city as well as temporary exhibitions including the one running at the moment: 'Below the Surface', which is basically a load of photos half in and half out the water, showing the riverbanks along the length of the Seine above, and the wildlife, fish and other animals thriving in the water below.

Of course the first best thing was getting this great view of the Eiffel Tower when we got out the metro. I don't know if it's learned or innate to all French people, but Small Fry gets excited already whenever he sees it. 

Right in the middle of the Seine is the little copy of the statue of liberty (another story)

Small Fry found it all interesting enough, and was particularly taken by the pictures of fish (as always). I found it all f-a-s-c-i-n-a-t-i-n-g. Supplying France's capital city with both fresh and non-drinkable water (since the 11th century) is no mean feat, and I enjoyed learning about the first aqueducts, what happened next (basically, Hausmann, a while later) and now how the water enters the city, is distributed around it and gets cleaned before re-entering the Seine.

Small Fry in front of the exhibition poster

The Seine and its tributaries cover around 14% of the French land mass and 30% of the French population live in the Valley of the Seine, with 25% of the population of Paris dependent on it for its drinking water. 

This shows how the different water sources supply the city. We in the 17th are dependent on water treated from the River Avre.

As usual in France, much of the exhibition was arty and philosophical, rather than technical or scientific, but I still learned a lot, and even more from wikipedia afterwards.

And, of course, then it was time to taste it. So, you know, exactly the same as from the tap. But one of the cool things is that the taps are everywhere: streets, metros and parks all have drinking water fountains. Our closest one is beside our local Church, about 100m away.

I reckon I drag out this topic for a few more weeks.

Sunshine on a rainy day #excepttherewasnosunshine #gofigure #knowsherownmind

38 Birthday Reasons #EverythingisAwesome

38! How did that happen?!

So here are 38 fun facts to get you as excited as I am about the number 38:

1. 38 is a square-free number.

2. All those born in 1979 turn 38 this year.

3. 38 is the largest even number which cannot be written as the sum of two odd composite numbers

4. I turned 38 on the 4th!

5. 38 is the number of flowers in my birthday bouquet from El Puma.

6. 38 is the atomic number for strontium

7. Turning 38 means I'd better start thinking about The Big 4-0!

8. The 38th parallel north is the pre-Korean War boundary between North and South Korea.

9. An American roulette wheel has 38 slots.

10. St Andrew the apostle (patron saint of Scotland) died in the year 38 AD.

11. 38 is the number of games that each team in the English Premiership plays in a season.

12. It takes about 19 seconds to count from 1 to 38.

13. Pope Siricius was the 38th Pope.

14. 38 was the calling code assigned to Yugoslavia.

15. 38 in binary is 100110.

16. There are 38 surviving plays written by William Shakespeare.

17. I apparently won't be middle-aged for another 7 years.

18. The number 38 is mentioned 5 times in the Bible.

19. 38 is the last Roman numeral when written lexicographically (XXXVIII).

20. 38 is the number of years the Israelites took to travel from Kadesh Barnea to the Zered valley in Deuteronomy.

21. 38 is the number of minutes it took me to make my birthday cake: a fabulous banoffee pie!

22. The 38th French department is Isère.

23. 38 degrees Celsius is 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

24. When the number 38 is spelled out, it begins and ends with the same letter (thirty eight). 

25. When 38 number is reversed (83), the first and last letters are again the same. No other two-digit integers are like this.

26. 38 is probably the number of glasses of wine I drank at my birthday meal (just kidding).

27. 38 is definitely the number of people I would have had at my birthday meal if I'd tried really, really hard (again, just kidding).

28. 38 is the sum of 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9

29. 38 is the largest known even number which can be represented as the sum of two distinct primes in only one way: 38 = 31 + 7

30. 38 is the number of minutes I got to lie in on my birthday (x3...lucky me!)

31. 38 is the sum of the squares of the first three primes: 38 = 2² + 3² + 5²

32. 38 is the number of times El Puma apologised for not getting me a present and card in time for my birthday.

33. 38 is the number of cards I got except that 33 of them didn't arrive.

34. 37 and 38 are the first pair of consecutive positive integers not divisible by any of their digits (the second one being 46 and 47).

35. 38 is the sum of consecutive number: 8 + 9 + 10 + 11

36. 38 is the number of steps between my front door and the bar for pre-dinner birthday drinks.

37. I share a birthday with Brooklyn Beckham (the day, not the year. Seriously, this was the most interesting celebrity sharing my birth date!).

38. In 38 days' time we will have been to Mallorca for the first time.

Good job I'm not turning 68 this year.

My favourite flowers: a delightful surprise when I arrived in London.

The boy done good: flowers in advance, a present in advance (not from him, but you know, you can't win 'em all), and my advance-arrival cards, all waiting for me.

Banoffee pie. First time I've ever made it. Best one I've ever tasted.

birthday dinner featuring #mysquad

#theygetme

El Puma's beautiful offering

The year that was - my 38th year - was at times bad, baffling, and sometimes even both. Who can forget Brexit? Trump? A cartload of celebrity deaths? The end of Brangelina for crying out loud? Then there were the big personal losses, alongside new beginnings at work, on-going adventures and counting my many, many blessings, especially family and friends both near and far.

So with a cocktail or two and a bucketload of hope, let's see what the next 365 days brings. It's quite a ride.

Big love to y'all! xx

The Flip Side #ShroveTuesday #PancakeDay #3timesatreat

Shrove Tuesday: Pancake Day. What's not to love? For me it's an instant link to my childhood and coming home from school to a dinner of pancakes and ratatouille, followed by pancakes and syrup. A good ol' family tradition.

It's so good that this year we did it three times.

There is no school in France on a Wednesday afternoon so last Wednesday we enjoyed our first carnival with Rose, her baby sister Clara and her mum Kelley-Anne. We made masks, dressed up as princesses and one storm trooper, and ate pancakes galore, with maple syrup and raspberries (to make them seem healthier).

A week later (technically Ash Wednesday), we did it all again with Wendy, her baby sister Eleanor and her mum Rachel.

But of course we also ate them on Pancake Day (minus the homemade masks and costumes). But much like Super Sonia, I also had the 'I want them to eat healthy things too on Pancake Day' dilemma. So I found a recipe that required 200g of shredded courgette in the actual pancake recipe, and then filled them with roasted red pepper, feta, pine nuts and a splodge of mint. 

Yeah, they didn't go down as well as the maple syrup ones that followed, but this year we definitely used up our fat, eggs and flour before lent begins. Now to cut out sugar for the next 40 days...(well, one or two)..

When mama's away #theplayingmice

I was in London from Wednesday to Friday again this week, so El Puma kept the up to date with the goings on back in Paris. I had a good work week, but nothing like this lot:

Practising his blinking

Eating out with daddy and his mate Hippolyte

The remnants of a party