The main event of the last week of May was the retirement of our director, Paul Maier. He has been my boss for the past 11 years, and has worked in our office ever since its founding in 1994, in many different capacities. He does not like fuss (we never celebrated his birthday etc.), but in this case he could not avoid it, and on the penultimate day of his employment here we had a cocktail at the office and a reasonable amount of fuss.
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I started the week with my usual cycling, to the mountains north of here. The road between Agost and Maigmó offers great views, especially on cloudy days like this:
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At a certain point, the road is close to the Vía Verde, the gravel trail on what used to be a narrow-gauge railroad:
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On the way back, I stopped in Agost and happened on a match of the traditional local sport, pelota valenciana. One of the streets in the centre is closed and becomes a pelota court:
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The game of pelota involves throwing a small, hard ball, slightly smaller than a tennis ball, at rather high speed. I never figured out how points are scored, but the rallies are very short:
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The play starts with a kind of serve, but what happens afterwards is rather blurry:
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This elderly spectator provided expert commentary and advice to the players throughout:
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Then the day of Paul’s retirement arrived. Paul had chosen the people to invite, and we were quite a big crowd. He made sure to chat with everyone:
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As usual, I walked around the crowd, picking off people or groups of people. Here my colleagues Véronique and Antoine:
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Paco, Carolina, Juan:
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My favourite “victim” Eri talking to her fellow Greek, Lila:
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And doing what I do, but with different equipment:
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Then three people (also selected by Paul) made brief speeches:
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Finishing with Alexandra, who has been Paul’s deputy for the past several years and is now acting director:
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Then Paul spoke…:
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…opened the various presents we had bought for him:
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And then some general merriment ensued:
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On my way home that afternoon, I stopped at the beach:
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I finish with two photos from my garden. This flower is technically not mine, it grows on a bush in the neighbour’s garden:
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But this one is definitely mine. The lemon tree and the Magic Cactus are the only plants in the garden I really care about:
