"Putin is no longer the right man to lead our country"

Now where did we leave it?

Did I mention how well the New Year started?  No?  Well it didn't really...the house was burgled.  Not too much taken (money, mobile phone, credit cards...not mine - The Cat's Mother's), but that's never the point.  As it happens I'd left the day before to go and see The Boy in Austria, so The Cat's Mother was Home Alone, and left deeply unsettled particularly as the point of entry wasn't immediately obvious.  Having had a look at it now, you can't help but be impressed with the ingenuity of how they got in, and wonder how much money they could be earning if they put that to good use.

Over in Austria, The Boy took me skiing every day which was nice.  He managed to dine with me one evening, and I don't begrudge him spending the evenings with his ski buddies.  For January it was incredibly warm...in fact it wouldn't have been a hardship to have been skiing in a T-shirt such was the temperature on the last day.  I managed to drag him away and ensure he returned safely to Edinburgh, so another academic term has begun for him.

My last evening in Kitzbuhel was spent in conversation with a Member of the Russian Parliament, which was probably one of the most entertaining discussions I've had for years.  Essentially he said that the collapse in oil prices will within a couple of years cause political unrest, and that will cause problems for the rest of Europe - "You know how the Russians negotiate - we win, you lose!", Crimea was not something he approved of, although he didn't disagree with me when I pointed our that it had been part of Russia until 1954 and was only given to Ukraine when there was no thought of the possibility of the end of the Soviet Union.  Finally, he felt that Putin was no longer the right man....not something that would be repeated in Moscow I thought.

Of course whilst I was away, the terrible events in Paris unfolded.  Ultimately whilst I feel very sorry for the people who died, I feel much more sorrow for their families who have to face the future with the terrible burden of knowing how, when and why their loved ones died.  Their pain will never fade.