Recently my life has been what the French call “Métro, boulot, dodo” which roughly translates into “Subway, work, sleep.” At times like these, when the pressure is high and getting through the day is an achievement, it’s possible to lose sight of what makes life worth living.

It was a beautiful, hot, sunny day today and I spent almost all of it in my home office in back to back conference calls with people in various parts of the world.

One of the advantages of working from home is that, at the end of the day, instead of being in a hotel room in a distant city, I’m at home with my wife. So at eight in the evening we had something to eat on the balcony and then decided to go down to Vevey for ice-cream.

The views from Vevey plage are spectacular. The picture above is pretty much what it was like tonight. We had ice-cream right on the lake front with a view of the Dents Du Midi lit up by the late evening sun.

A big international youth gymnastics contest is just drawing to a close here and Vevey was full of excited fit young people wearing laminated badges on lanyards with their country’s flag on them. Young people were swimming in the lake and playing in the fountains of just hanging out on the rocks, eating Pizza.

Towards sunset, my wife and I went to the beach. This is a man-made affair, set beside the lake in the main square. It is a very large sandpit with a full size beach volley ball court, palm trees, deck chairs, beach umbrellas, and a couple of bars.

As the gibbous moon shone over the lake, we drank Pecheresse, a sparkling, peach-flavoured beer that tastes like summer in a bottle.

Tomorrow, another day of work looms, but I will face it refreshed by the memory of time spent with my wife in a setting that soothes us both.