Journey to nowhere

The dread morning after the night before, on zero sleep.

Quite a few people on here know what I do for a living. Well just in case anyone was in any doubt about how I feel right now, I'll just say one thing: I feel like pretty much like my entire life's work has been vomited upon. I said stuff about citizenship and learning across borders in the preface to my 2007 book about which I dedicated to the memory of my mother from whom I acquired my love of language learning and certain habits of travel. I hold to it now. The only reason I haven't had a cry over this (so far) is that I'm away and I don't do crying in hotel rooms.

And because today's a day for being mawkish, I went ahead and found the bit in the preface that refers to my mother (and I'm fully aware of the fact that I'm not the only person on here whose mother she was, but that other person has probably never seen this before - or not before I put it on FB earlier). So here it is:

"Most importantly, however, I would like to dedicate this book to the memory of my mother, Freda Shaw, née Baxter (1931-2004). My mother studied Modern Languages in the late 1940s and early 1950s at the University of Reading and went on to spend a ‘year abroad’ in the days before SOCRATES in Clermont-Ferrand in central France. But even before going to University she was a pioneering participant in the early exchanges which developed in the postwar years between the West Riding of Yorkshire, where she was born and brought up, and Lille in Northern France. She maintained an enduring attachment to the people of Northern France whom she met and became friends with, attachments which extend across our family and their families, and which have lasted beyond her death. While I perhaps owe my interest in the law to my father, I certainly owe my interest in the languages and cultures of other European states primarily to my mother. I am very sad that she is not here, today, to see what I tried to build, with the help of others, on the basis of these ideals of transnational exchange and cooperation."

I'll fill in the gaps when I feel up to it.

The only light relief was being something of a "media star" in Neuchâtel. Believe me, it's a very small place.