A return to Brussels and to the office is also a return to familiar rhythms and habits. Thus, the dog was pretty insistent about taking me for a walk around our favourite circuit at Berthem early this Friday morning. The agricultural landscape here is constantly changing. Some of the wheat fields have already been harvested. The potato crops seem not to have suffered from the persistent rain. But the maize/corn crop and some of the barley fields seem stunted. Nettles in the lanes and footpaths, on the other hand, have rocketed up. At a small pond where normally just a few ducks hang about there was a large gang of geese. Now what, if anything, should that tell us? Could they already be migrating south again? If so, does that signify anything about expectations for the autumn and winter this year?