A Week of Snow and Monsters

And Ale’s last day

Poster for Monsters Church Road Richmond Park Stag Elaine Lower lake, still under ice

Strange sense building this week that 2011 is going to take off like a rocket – almost as if Volans is in the process of casting off the booster rockets of its first two-and-a-half years and headed for a new trajectory. The sense of a watershed was in part created by the snow that swept across the country this week, partly by the tempo of requests for our involvement in interesting projects and partly, sadly, by the team’s celebration of Al(jandro Litovsky’s) last day with us. He’s planning to set up a not-for-profit organisation focused on earth security, in effect our first spin-out. More anon.

On Friday, Gaia asked us to go to a viewing of Gareth Edwards’ new film, Monsters, which she had seen ages ago when it was still in production – and had loved. I did, too: quite remarkable, even if you didn’t know that it was made on the proverbial shoe-string. Sadly, I missed a joint get-together of the Volans and SustainAbility teams, but I think/hope there’s another before Christmas.

Picked up a new pair of glasses (spectacles) yesterday, late evening, and walked through a Barnes transformed, with all the snow gone, even if the Pond still sported quite a layer of ice. As we walked through Richmond Park, there was still ice in parts, but the sun was bright and it felt good to be alive. Have been working flat-out on a secret project – and it was wonderful just to be able to stretch my legs and breathe real air.