Marking time #BlessedAssurance

In some ways, nowadays, no-one is really, truly gone. All I need to do is go on Facebook to see old posts, hover over his image on messenger, upload our skype chats, browse through photos and blog posts, read diary entries, open his USB key, or even do it the old-fashioned way: scan my own memories, look at my children's faces, analyse my own personality, notice the slate the kettle is resting on...

People live on in many different ways.

And we miss people in lots of different ways too. Sometimes it's just because he's not there anymore, or other times it's seeing an advert, reading a book, or having an experience that I know I would have shared with him. Sometimes it's the loss of what never was  - meeting grandchild no. 10, my kids knowing their grandpa, expecting to process all this at least 10 years later than I had to.

In some ways, the past year has flown by, but when I look at it in another way, it's been the hardest year in at least a decade. And sometimes, I think I haven't come very far at all. I still echo the words I first posted a year ago today:

Farewell to Thee! But not farewell

To all my fondest thoughts of Thee;

Within my heart they still shall dwell

And they shall cheer and comfort me.

Life seems more sweet that Thou didn't live

And men more true Thou wert one;

Nothing is lost that Thou didst give,

Nothing destroyed that Thou hast done.

- Anne Brontë

And with all my heart I remain convinced - as I believed but didn't feel in those first few days - that my dad chose eternal life, that this was his - and our - blessed assurance, that we shall see each other again, and that he is in a much better place, free from suffering and pain. 

As I said at his funeral, the name David means beloved. He was loved, he was missed. He still is. And like him, I stand on the solid ground of the name of Jesus, for there is no other name by which we can be saved.

And so tonight we celebrate. El Puma and I have tickets to a show...deliberately. I wanted to focus on the positives, the abundant life we live, to actually live in the assurance of what I believe.

And so to all of you, big hugs.

And I was doing so well... #Workfatigue

These boots were made for walking #Worktravel #keepingfit

My arduous 8-day work trip began with the ANUGA food and drink fair in Cologne. ANUGA is the world's largest food fair and it takes place every second year in the city. It's actually 10 separate fairs, each covering a different category (such as Fine Food, Organic, Frozen Food, Wine etc). Around 150,000 people visit almost 7,000 stands over the 4 days of the fair.

For me, it was a chance to eat all the German things I love and that a diabetic should probably not be eating. 

The fair is held at the Koelnmesse, just outside the city centre and was well served by stuffed full public transport in both directions. But it was still a lot of walking...we calculated we did around 8 miles on the first full day. And that was with regular breaks at our stand and the British Pavillion a couple of halls along...free and real Typhoo tea every morning with a digestive biscuit, and then along to the French pavilion for my morning smoothie. The Italians had the best coffee and the Turks the best desserts.

With a 10am opening time, it gave us a few minutes in the morning to look round Cologne itself, which was basically only enough time to check out the amazing Cathedral. The Cathedral has been a World Heritage Site since 1996 and is now Germany's most visited landmark (attracting 20,000 people a day). It is the tallest twin-spired church in Europe, at 157m, and the choir has the largest height-to-width ration of any medieval church and the Cathedral has one of the highest Gothic values in the world.

Having spent too much time standing, I now spent too much time sitting, now in San Sebastián, Spain, for our annual Scientific and Technical Committee meeting, followed by the Board of Trustees meeting, followed by the internal organisations effectiveness meeting.

So while everyone else was flying in, I took the funicular up the hill overlooking San Sebastian in the hot morning sun.

And a visit to the aquarium

The centre of town

How dinner came each night

And this being a fishy meeting, we of course went to the local fish market. This one is where all the locally-caught albacore and bluefin tuna are caught. Despite many a fish market visit in my time, I had actually never seen whole, fresh bluefin tuna before. The trade in bluefin is so valuable and exploitative to the species, that each individual fish is tagged and can only be traded with its official documents, even if a local fisherman wants to take one of his catch home.

The largest bluefin tails sticking out the box

Albacore (white tuna)

The bluefin with tags (yes I know they look like they have yellow fins but the blue name comes from the colour sheen on the top of their backs)

I also got to have a beautiful walk into San Sebastián from the hotel, and met up with my dad's cousin Stuart, who lives in the hills above the city.

And a 6am flight from Bilbao got me back home by 9.30am.

 The kids of course had a great week with Oma... 

Thanks Oma!

Sweetie pie #pumpkin

Like last year, we used the opportunity of Oma coming to visit La Ferme de Gally near Versailles. This year's apple harvest was dismal across northern France, so Oma could only make about, oo, 3 big jars of compote and 5 boxes of sliced apples....

 ...and the obligatory pumpkin carving.

Thanks Oma!

Cutting the cloth #Diorexpo

A nice morning just looking at pretty (and very, very expensive) dresses.

Wednesday mornings are English mornings #andfun

For yonks and yonks I have been wanting to go up in the Paris sightseeing balloon, a tethered helium-filled balloon in the 15th arrondissement in Paris. Last year when I first suggested it to Small Fry, he was still too scared. But this year he has a new found interest in balloons and was reassured that it doesn't actually fly anywhere. 

Plus we now meet every Wednesday morning with our anglophone besties: Rachel, Wendy and Eleanor, and this seemed the perfect activity to do together. 

The Aerophile balloon they currently use is the largest balloon design in the world, measuring 22m in diameter. It's tethered to the ground with a winch-controlled cable and rises to about 150m - high enough for a good view of Paris for about 30 adults or 60 people in total. This being autumn and the balloon not being so well known, we were all of about 10 people.

It's also an air-quality indicator with the underbelly changing from green to orange depending on pollution levels. 

Going up

Showing the protective cage hanging under the balloon

The green underbelly and tether

At the top: 

 And then I played with some filters as it was such a beautiful day:

 From the bottom:

And as it's situated in Parc André Citroën, well, that was the rest of the morning sorted...

Mama went shopping #afterschoolactivities