7th July 2015 Geneva, Switzerland
UN diplomats spend much of their lives fretting about securing exactly the right words in international documents. I’ve seen a whole day of negotiations conclude with only a comma added, to mutual back-slapping and a general sense of a job well done, and have spent weeks painfully debating the insertion of a footnote or an […]
29th June 2015 Geneva, Switzerland
It’s been a tiring week. The middle part of the Council session is always hectic as delegates scramble to finalise the version of the resolutions that they want to table by Thursday’s deadline. But my sleep levels have taken a heavier battering than normal thanks to the Women’s World Cup, taking place in Canada’s far-off […]
22nd June 2015 Geneva, Switzerland
The more time I spend at the Council, the more things seem to be getting out of control at home. The kids cope well enough, but our cat Pixie has spent the week continuing her recent hunting spree in a blatant show of attention-seeking. This week I’ve had to dispose of a shrew, two field […]
14th June 2015 Geneva, Switzerland
It feels like we’ve hardly been away. I’m starting to suspect that someone has airbrushed April and May from the global calendar. The only clue that the months have been and gone is our hedge growing high enough to receive a letter from the estate agent ordering us to cut it by 10 centimetres and […]
9th March 2015 Geneva, Switzerland
While I was never the life and soul of all night parties – prone to having a little nap while others danced round me – I did at least used to be active and go out on a regular basis. These days, instead of thinking about finding new places to ski within easy reach of […]
1st October 2014 Geneva, Switzerland
I don’t get much time to read any books of my own these days. With two young children, most of the literature that comes my way tends either to have sparkly shapes, no more than about 10 words a page or contain clearly accessible lessons in morality. Which makes them the exact opposite of Human […]
23rd September 2014 Geneva, Switzerland
It’s been an interesting week to be a Brit at the UN. No matter what else has been going on in the rest of the world, all anyone wanted to talk to me about was Scotland. Mostly people just wanted to hear my prediction of what the result was going to be, as though I have […]
15th September 2014 Geneva, Switzerland
For those of you who may have noticed me looking a little down in the mouth last week, this had little to do with work and almost everything to do with the temporary disappearance of our pet cat. She was obviously not getting enough attention having to compete in our household with two small children […]
8th September 2014 Geneva, Switzerland
This year has been the summer that never was. Usually by the time the September Council session comes around, colleagues look relaxed, healthy even, after enjoying the Geneva sunshine and seem genuinely happy to see each other after a decent break. But a combination of bad weather and incessant work has left many of us […]
1st July 2014 Geneva, Switzerland
It’s been a difficult month. Like many other Council goers I’ve been trying to find enough time for the essential trinity of work, family and football. This is a struggle at the best of times but I feel that however many late-night shifts I’ve put in trying to make time for my council workload, my […]