Conversations during the weekend did turn towards the future.
Here we are on a weekend away together, pretty much left to our own devices. I'm not checking the Flakberry. I'm not taking calls. It's a small moment of liberation amidst the clatter and din of many working weeks.
Come October, all bets are off. It's not something you can prepare for, despite listening to all the stories from those already experienced in the martial art of baby-fu. From cleaning up vomit and changing nappies, to enjoying baby's smiles and wonderment at contrasts and shapes, building their own model of the world from scratch. Don't matter what you learn, theory ain't practice.
Will we have weekends like this in future? If we don't - will we mourn them? What happens after that tricky moment when two judders into three?
Over the last few years I've been feeling like it's the end of a cycle, that the way things have been - it's sort of been done. Like when I left Japan, it was time to change. I think it's that time again - and here we are. Oh there will be other changes to come, I can see them in the distance, holding court on the horizon. But this is the one for 2008.