With final trips to Basel (for Novartis) and Paris (EcoVadis, including a dinner at Chez Fred, old haunt of author Georges Simenon, whose corner EcoVadis co-founder Fred Trinel sat in), an end-of-year session with David Grayson and his Cranfield U MBA and PhD students, a new Executive Director at Volans (Louise Kjellerup Roper, who also came to Basel, where we stayed in the intriguing Gaia Hotel, motto: ‘Come as a Guest – Leave as a Friend’), a team lunch at Nopi, a trip to see the family in Little Rissington on Tim’s 97th birthday), extraordinary news from Hania, and accelerated work on multiple fronts, including the next phase of our Carbon Productivity program, 2017 finally came to an end with a couple of weeks’ holiday ahead of 2018.
Confess I have slept for England in the days since. And listened to the rain falling and the foxes barking. And played with ideas for a new book, with the Triple Bottom Line resurgent in the world and our work. And read endless predictions for the New Year. And watched more of the stunning series The Crown on Netflix. And read through a mini-Alp of books, including Anthony McCarten’s brilliant Darkest Hour on Churchill’s May 1940 and one of several scientists-fi books in bought in Foyle’s after a glorious lunch at Imperial China with Gaia, Hania, Jake and Paul, Peter Watts’ Brightsight.
And mentally prepared myself for a 2018 that feels likely to be unusually significant, though I can’t yet exactly put my finger on the reasons why.
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