Bonjour à toutes et à tous.

It is rather astonishing to realize this is our fifth Christmas since coming to France. This year we will stay in Paris for the holidays to welcome three of four kids (Meghan, Gosaye & Lauren) as well as Leslie's sister, Andrea, and brother-in-law, Eric. It will also be an opportunity to celebrate Andrew's 60th birthday - although he doesn't feel particularly old. He hopes 60 really is the new 40... This might have been our last opportunity to spend Christmas in the City of Lights as Andrew's contract was due to expire in March, however the Nuclear Energy Agency has determined it would be useful to have him stay on for a few more years and provide some flexibility for the transition in staff. And for us, we are pleased to have a little extra time to continue our European explorations and will likely return to Canada in 2021.

As usual, 2017 was another busy year of travel and welcoming guests, some for their second or third visit and we are always happy to see the return of friends we met here in Paris who have resumed their lives back in their home country. Most of the people that we met when we first arrived are no longer here, but fortunately lovely new people continue to appear. Leslie has made a few friends among the locals, particularly Coco who leads tours around the city and meets with a group to speak French every week. The language continues to be a challenge for us as the OECD and our largely expat friends use English as a common language.

Our second great trip of the year was more recent. In September we headed off an even more ambitious drive that took us all the way to Montenegro. We headed through Slovenia and Croatia, stopped in to re-visit Dubrovnik, and then saw the beautiful Bay of Kotor before heading into Bosnia-Herzegovina for sobering visits to Mostar and Sarajevo. The countries of the former Yugoslavia are so recently out of war that the scars are still quite apparent; visible on the buildings, but also apparent in the comments of residents. Mostar still shows a lot of actual war damage in bullet and shell-holes on buildings, some abandoned, some in use, shocking to those of us who have never lived through a war. In Sarajevo, the physical damage is mostly repaired, although the water was turned off at night for system repairs, and the fading Sarajevo roses still mark the spots where people were killed by shells. How do people, who allowed themselves to be so divided by religion and ethnicity that they engaged in sieges, massacres and attempted genocide against their neighbours, learn to live together once again? It was a thought-provoking holiday. More here

Summer began with a month-long visit by Lauren and her boyfriend, Collin. Andrew had not met Collin before, and I'd only met him over lunch with a couple of times. I'm pleased to report that after four weeks, including two short road trips, we still like him and look forward to having the two of them back for another visit next May. July saw us back in Canada for the wedding of our nephew, Chris, to Sara Fedy, a lovely addition to the family. We enjoyed the family time in Waterloo and Oakville followed by a relaxing few days in Saskatchewan at Andrea's cottage on Torch Lake where Leslie's dad joined us. And as usual, Leslie spent some time in Deep River catching up with friends and doing some home maintenance tasks. Rounding out the summer, Meghan joined us in August and, comme d'habitude, we enjoyed a couple of short road trips to Ghent and Bretagne. Along for the ride was Valeria, a young Salvadoran-American who spent a year as an exchange student in Deep River and has dropped back into our lives in Paris where she is studying fashion design. She is a delightful surrogate daughter for us with our own kids so far away and humours us by showing up regularly for Sunday dinner and Andrew's home-cooking.

The kids are all doing well. Meghan graduated from McGill in the spring and has begun a masters program in mathematics at Concordia. She was happy to be able to stay in Montréal where she is living happily with her long-time boyfriend, David. Gosaye continues in Ottawa where he works at a vegan restaurant and is involving himself in a variety of musical pursuits, making it up as he goes along. Biniyam is living in Melfort where he continues to run his DJ events business, Timeless Entertainment. Although we've never been to one of his events, all the comments are positive. Lauren is in the third year of a psychology degree at Trent University in Peterborough where she has settled in very well.

We hope that all is well with you and yours as we close 2017 and head into 2018. We look forward to hearing your news and perhaps seeing some of you in Paris in the upcoming year.