Winter 2008-2009, wonderful despite everything

Dwight Peck's personal website

Winter 2008-2009

The best snow we've had in the Jura in a decade, and we nearly missed it.

A brief chronicle of futility and fun in the Last Days

Ramsar COP10 in South Korea

The utter drudgery of 2008 was rising to a culmination of sorts with, at last, the 10th Meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties (COP10) in Changwon, South Korea. All the documents, all the logistics, all the Everything were finalized, and off we went in late October for two weeks of more utter drudgery at the COP. Click on the photos to proceed.

Very hard work for a while, but it was a lot of fun at the same time. The Koreans put on a great show, the city was tastefully modern and prosperous, and it was great working with our old translation teams again. Successive late nights of revising and translating documents, and it went off flawlessly as always; whether humanity and the wetlands are better off for it, well, it's too soon to judge, but we did our part of it.


Flattened by fatigue, just time for a walk around Changwon	General sense of relief on 4 November 2008

Southwestern France for castle-hopping and cassoulet

Kristin's in Europe, mid/late-November 2008, and here we are in Sarlat-la-Canéda in the Dordogne region. An absolute treat.


Castles everywhere: Beynac Castle	Castles everywhere: Fenelon Castle

Castles everywhere: Castlenaud Castle	From Sarlat to Carcassonne for several days

Peyrepertuse and the Cathar country	Carcassonne by night

Engineering marvels on the way home	Early snow in the Jura

Christmas amongst the Durhams

Nth in the series of Christmas sofa photos

Wintry views in the Jura

Fantastic snow throughout December and January, but situations were deteriorating, lungwise, and charging harder up the hill was not providing the expected remedy. But the scenery was as beautiful as ever.

Northern Italy in convalescent mode

A week in hospital, and Kristin's here to make the chicken soup. We're off to northern Italy, Verbania on Lago Maggiore, to work on our deep-breathing exercises with regal scenery all about. Mid-February 2009.


Omegna on Lake Orta	Isola San Giulio, from Orta

Therapeutic walks at a leisurely pace, mid-March 2009


Last walks before Kristin's return to the other hemisphere, early March	Hike to Mont de Bière Devant with Lisa, Terry, and medical support staff

Grand Cunay - Expanding Our Horizons


Half-hearted first attempt, solo, 28 March 2009	Earnest second attempt, with reinforcements, 29 March 2009

Alison's visit from Chile, early April 2009


Alison and Mark in the Château de Chillon	Alison and Mark in the forest of Grand Rolat

Appendices: Additional Hikes


Direttissima in the underbrush, 10 April 2009	Crêt de la Neuve as a medical test, 11 April 2009

Easter services in the Jura, 12 April 2009	Cave-dwellings and fixer-uppers in the Jura, 13 April 2009

Map interpretation in the Jura, 18 April 2009	Hard-won views of La Correntine, 19 April 2009

A walk in the Holey Woods, 25 April 2009	The Ruins of Oujon, 26 April 2009

Winter's over! But whilst there's still any snow around anywhere, it's hard to let it go.


Rainy days in Bois de la Bassine	Mont Tendre in mid-May

Mont Sâla, late May 2009	Les Rochettes of Mont Tendre

What's Next?

Confusion. Just pure confusion. The Ramsar Standing Committee came here in mid-May, that's always a treat that takes a week to recover from. Otherwise, we're meant to be working full-time on the migration of the Ramsar website into some goofy new technology with a proprietary application that works most of the time. Not pleasant at all.

Never mind. Kristin's coming for most of June, and we're going back to southwestern France (for the cassoulet!) for ten days or so, and then in August we seem to be going to Wisconsin, apparently to get married or some such, and then in September or October to Wales to throw rice at somebody else's wedding and (we hope) stop in to see the Tims in Devon.

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