Lost in the City

My health is gradually improving. I threw the crutches away back in March and started running for real a few weeks after. I have made good progress since then. I started with occasional 5-minute runs. It quickly morphed into 10 or 15-minute runs every other day. Now, my average run is 30-minute long. I tend to run 5 times a week… even if I sometimes happen to run every single day of the week. Well, that may be pushing it, so I’m trying to stay reasonable, particularly since my knee has been bothering me during the past week. It doesn’t mean I won’t try for a new record soon. For now, my longer run (last Saturday) lasted an hour. Not bad, right?
Oh, and I have a running mate! Well, for now at least…. We’ll see if this lasts. Thierry is a colleague from IRSN. We aren’t in the same department, but we are on the same floor. I had spotted him at the stadium before, but he hadn’t figured out who I was (well, I _do_ look different in running gear compared to work clothes!). The seminar solved that problem. Since then, we ran a couple of times together, as we were at the stadium at the same time. It would be nice if we could do that a few times a week. First because time passes more quickly this way, second, because he runs slowly, which is good to keep me in check, third, because I don’t have to walk all the way back to IRSN alone!

Third trip on the job. After Cherbourg and Grenoble, here comes Arcachon. The whole division spent three days there for the yearly internal seminar. We all flew in on Monday afternoon and flew back home on Wednesday afternoon. Frankly, I’m not sure such expenses were needed for what it was… we could have done the same work in a single day in some Parisian location. That said, I had a good time. It was pretty intense, with the workshops starting early and ending at 9 PM the second day, but a very nice experience overall. Since I am still quite new I didn’t know everyone in the division yet. The seminar was a good opportunity to get to know people, and get to know better those I already knew.

That was fun! As part of Dominick’s visit to France, we dashed down South for my mom’s birthday, combined with mothers’ day, fathers’ day and my father’s birthday. It’s amazing all we could squeeze in a single day!
We started with a bike ride. At lunch, we celebrated my dad’s birthday and got a piece of the infamous “charlotte aux fraises”, his birthday cake. We then drove to the beach, which is about half an hour away.
That’s where we had some baseball fun. Well, frankly, it was more than fun: I had a blast! I played catch with Dom and my father while my mom took pictures. Then we switched to batting practice. That was great! After that, we drove back home in time to have drinks with my aunt, uncle and cousins. Finally, we celebrated my mom’s birthday. Her cake is a “Black Forest”. It has been since I came up with this idea a few years ago. You see, since she is the family’s baker, she never had ‘her’ cake when we grew up. She would have a different cake every year, depending on my dad’s mood. There once was this memorable strawberry pie, whose sticky syrup almost glued our teeth together... Anyway, when I started baking on my own as a teen, I came up with the Black Forest idea, and have been making it ever since for her birthday. Very good cake. Of course: with cherries, chocolate and whipped cream, how could it not be delicious?