Berlin, 30.11.00 Things are returning towards an acceptable equilibrium, I think. I have been able to train. I am enjoying adequate sleep. Life is acceptable. I've been fighting a cold all week; yesterday I left work early and took a long afternoon nap, then we had a relatively quiet night and I managed a shocking 7+ hours of nod. Shocking, the restorative powers of sleep. I felt much healthier this morning. On the way to work today I swung round to the Canadian Embassy to collect Madeleine's passport. It's hilarious, a passport with a picture of a month-old baby. I'd hoped the actual passport might be half the normal size with Peter Rabbit stamped on the back, but no such luck. It's only good for one year, a temporary travel document until her citizenship certificate comes through, at which point she'll be written into our passports. Then it will become an amusing, if expensive (cost me 246 DM) souvenir. We fly home in two-and-a-half weeks. Ye gods. Hope it goes well. I think I'm beginning to like Madeleine a little bit more. It will become easier as she develops a personality, becomes an automous individual. Right now it's hard not to see her as little more than Annette's bad-tempered detachable body part. Tonight I shall skate up in Hohenschönhausen, on the indoor 400 m oval. I'm finally back on the ice. Tomorrow morning, early, I leave for a day-long business trip. Can't say where, or that would reveal the identity of my employer, which I have chosen not to do. It's not that I ever come into contact with anything senstive, but I signed a piece of paper that makes most software company NDAs look positively toothless, so better safe than sorry. And it's not that interesting anyway. Work is pretty much as expected: zero stress, easy hours, adequate pay, excellent health insurance. Just what I need for the year. Enough for now.