Back home The holidays are over and the attacks have begun. Coincidences. They used to fascinate me a lot in the past. Right now they don't mean anything to me anymore. I do not believe in them. A coincidence is a matter of interpretation. Out of the millions of events you pick one and it seems to relate to your own life. Totally random. Selective perception. As long as you think in terms of coincidences you try to make sense of your life.

Bombing Afghanistan is as pointless as rolling Sisyphus's stone up the mountain. The stone will roll back down again and Sisyphus will be in charge of rolling it up again. Afghanistan's Taliban have been supported by the US before and now they will be decimated. But they cannot be eliminated. They are hiding in the mountains and some will survive. They are just a pawn in the game. But a pawn can become very powerful as in chess where it is a potential queen i.e. the dearest piece. And the king is the US. A slow mover but THE piece. Checkmate or stalemate that is the question. The US cannot win this war. They are either going to lose or to draw whatever that will mean.

I had forgotten how nice it was to live in a country where time was so much less precious. Where you are not terrorised by your watch but where people take their time. It must be the light. So bright. The shutters closed so well in our gîte that I was literally blinded by the light the first morning we went swimming in the Mediterranean. A country where people smile and joke and talk. But in the end I felt as a stranger again. Had the feeling that I was only accepted as a cash cow. I was just a tourist. Tourists pay. The native take the money. Grenaches noires are the sweetest grapes I ever tasted. The sweetness almost hurts on the palate. As in almost all holidays there was this bitter aftertaste. Just a preparation for the everyday life attending me in Frankfurt.