I cannot quite believe it. This evening we joined a throng of proud parents for N° 1 sprog’s bal du bac. Only yesterday, it seems, she was knee high to a grasshopper. Now, like all of her contemporaries, she’s a few weeks away from the end of school and the beginning of adult life. It has all gone so fast. Nothing makes you feel your age quite so much as your growing offspring! At the same time, I never cease to be impressed by the maturity of these young Europeans (certainly compared with how I was at their age) and hence to feel optimistic about the future that will soon be in their hands.