LesBellansOfLondon

Dear Friends & Family, 

We are late this year in wishing you a very happy New Year 2023 - and sharing our 2022 Bellan’s of London family highlights. So here we are, on the cusp of February to wish you all the best, as we did not want to miss our ‘Rendez-Vous’.

2022 for many has been the ‘back to normal’ year, and it seems  life is in full swing again with French bises, hugs aLL back for the better. BUT 2022 has also been a strange year for the world - with the Ukraine war, economic uncertainty, political instability and increasing ecological concerns. 

For us, 2022 has been filled with train journeys - more than 70 train trips for me going back and forth between Paris and London and a lot of travel for Laurent too between London and Brussels. Laurent is now the CIO for the combined Eurostar/Thalys - which is being rebranded Eurostar. Demand for travel is back with a vengeance and EUROSTAR/THALYS teams are working hard to keep up. IN HIS SPARE TIME LAURENT PERFECTED HIS COOKING, BAKING BREAD AND TESTING OTTOLENGHI’S RECIPEES, making family and friends happy.

I am continuing my journey establishing Prime Video as the home for Entertainment and Sports in France. We hosted the exciting Nadal/Djokovic Roland Garros game THIS YEAR and I attended my first Emmy awards ceremony in New York where the wonderful Lou de Laage won the Emmy for best actress for ‘Le Bal des Folles’. This was all in all, a lot of fun.

Thomas is now a Bachelor of Science in Anthropology, exploring his next chapter whilst doing various jobs, living with friends in South London and cat-sitting for us when we are traveling. THOMAS AND I both enjoy long Sunday walks in London, usually stopping by Regent’s park for lunch or exploring notting hill.  Alice is busy completing her 5th year in Medicine at Exeter, going from placement to placement, and learning to drive. Alice and I continue to enjoy creative writing in our spare time and are doing (virtual) creative writing classes once a month. ELICE CONTINueS TO WRITe POetRY, FIND Her aCTIVIST WRITING ON THe OPIOID EPIDEMIC HERE.

In 2022, we also resumed going back to the Theater in London, most often with our friends Stephanie and Francois, and started traveling again, spending WE’s in Lisbonne, Paris, Milan, Napoli (with my wonderful high school friends Anne and Agnes), Saint Jacques in the house by the sea of our friends Bernard and Valerie and a week in Provence and in Pays Basque. 

My mum Therese had a bad fall, brEAKING her pelvis and has been slowly recovering since - still living in the family house of the Chevallon, full of memories of my dad and of many generations before. SHE SPENT CHRISTMAS WITH MY SISTERS ANNE AND CATHERINE AND THEIR FAMILIES. We all spent Christmas this year in Paris with Monika, Laurent’s mum, who is in great shape and continuing to live in Provence in the village of Malaucene. 

We lost our cat Platon for 16 days in August. PLATON came back one night at 2 am, looking like a distressed little kitten. He had literally ‘shrunk’ from dehydration and starvation but since this misadventure has fully bounced back to his fluffy self. HE now seems to limit his roaming expedition to the neighboring gardens and our sofa.

STEPHANIE AND I cOntinued to develop Ellpha.io and our E2E solution TALENTUUM.IO, aimed at accelerating diversity in organisations by increasing fairness in talent management with smart technology. We met many many prospects and potential partners but struggled to convert the high interest in our solution into concrete sales (although we have some active discussions which we hope will convert). We were also the proud winner of the 2022 COGX award for best AI product in HR and got the Diversity ‘Throphee Elles Bougent’ 2022 which opened the door to several prospects in France.

WE HOPE 2023 WILL BRING PEACE AND JOY TO THE WORLD AND TO ALL OF YOU and we hope to cross paths soon in London or Paris.

Brigitte, Laurent, Thomas and Alice (and PLATON)