What Mark Did ...

Mark is an old friend, from those days when I was a kid growing up in Green Street through to now, in this European life of mine and last night, I found a package from him in my letter box ...

One of the gifts inside came with instructions that it had to be viewed at 6pm.

Being an obedient creature, I waited until 6pm and pressed play here on the laptop and guess what ... I am viewing New Zealand's 6pm Channel 3 News and it's truly excellent ... ads and everything!

I haven't been home for 4 and a half years so this is a wee slice of heaven. There is more in this package from home.

Grazie, dank u wel, gracias, tesekkür ederim, Mark.

Note: Did I mention, it's so very different to Belgian television.
I miss New Zealand tonight.

The Song that meant Christmas was coming In New Zealand

Don't ask me why, I've never known the 'why' of it but when we heard this song all over the radios back home in New Zealand, we knew it was Christmas time ...

If you need something beautiful today ...

then my idea is that you might find some of what you need over here.

Nina's blog has become the place where I go when I need something thoughtful and beautiful and peaceful.

Her latest series on her time in Ocracoke is blowing me away. I chose her latest but it's part of a series.

Beautiful beautiful blog.

But wait ...

there's more!

The Dangers of Skype ...

Mark and I are in the midst of the equivalent of dueling banjos ... finding old songs from our pasts to torture each other with, presently using the immediacy of skype to up the ante on our our email battle.

Oh the memories.

I was cackling like a small but very wicked witch as I sent him this.

He replied with this.

However, for the moment, I think I'm ahead with this .

To quote Mark, who said, shuddering via the phone ... That one was a weapon of mass destruction. You got me.

To be continued ...

Today ...

Just in from a photography gig over in Brussels.

I love that kind of photography ... the documentation of a reception, with speeches. I imagine the feelings I have are akin to those experienced by a passionate big game hunter, although instead of going in for the kill, I'm hunting for that perfect photograph, a capture of something real and beautiful in people who don't even know that they are in my view-finder.

It did my soul good to get out there and I got to meet my first European Commissioner as a result. Rattling back through launches and receptions, I don't think I've met any others so far ...

It was a room full of good people, an excellent day really. One that began with Paola and an afternoon coffee.

Grazie Paola, it was just what I needed.

For my sister ...

Sisters.
And like all pairs of sisters, with that curious distinction of chosen territories: the mappa mundi boundary drawn between the civilised world of the responsible sister and the 'here be dragons' realm of the sister who wanders off.
Andrea Lee, extract from Lost Hearts in Italy

A Cure for Complicated Dreaming

I had dived into a new book and they were racing through Rome, heading for the coast and had Madness and One Step Beyond playing on the radio of their little Fiat.

Books are my ultimate luxury ... can you tell?
When I have a little extra money, I buy books. Lately I've needed them for traveling and have returned to my habit of buying. Today, while Christmas shopping, I ended up with 3 for me.

Wickedness indeed.

They all look fabulous of course ... to me, with my peculiar taste perhaps.
There is Love in Exile by Bahaa Taher and Jason Goodwin's On Foot to the Golden Horn - A Walk to Istanbul and finally, Lost Hearts in Italy by Andrea Lee.

Viva De Slegte and the excellent bookshop on the corner near the end of Tram 11 here in the city, De Groene Waterman.

I Dream Dreams .... and wake grouchy.

And you will immediately note that I'm not saying 'I have a dream!'no ... this is something else altogether. I dream dreams full of life and intricate details that leave me exhausted, making Gert laugh when I wake grouchy or sad and recount them to him.

This morning, after dreaming of the big old gloomy house where the sad young couple lived with their small daughter who was dying due to an allergic reaction she had to eating melon at a child's birthday party ... I woke deeply depressed, both from the weight of the couples sadness and from the fact that my little sister, the nurse, had detailed the care the young couple had to give their daughter as she slipped away ... peach droplets on her skin but of course. And there was the exhaustion from keeping little Miss 4 quiet as we changed from our swimsuits in a room in their house after swimming in their pool. The sad young man was Colin Firth, as he appeared in Bridget Jone's Diary and the house had the look of the old house next to the place where I used to ride horses as a teenager.

This morning I tried slipping back into bed after breakfast was done but my daughter, the one who has loved sleeping since she was small, came and told me she was running a shower because we were going to the city to shop for Christmas presents.

Anyone who knows my daughter will laugh over the idea of her hustling anyone out of bed in the morning ...

I guess last night's dream was slightly less fraught than the one where the albatross was standing in the ruins of his wings which had dropped off for reasons I didn't get round to dreaming. I remember being devastated that I didn't have my camera to record this mind-blowing scene ... which wasn't as terrible as it sounds because the albatross was fine without his wings, as in he wasn't dying, although he was incredibly annoyed and did end up chasing me around something that looked suspiciously like a small village hall from my New Zealand past.

Liz, Fiona, Jessie and I did attempt to escape by scaling a tall chimney-like cliff nearby by, with me leading but at the top there were these bars. But that was the other night when, I just kept getting horribly terribly lost and further away from wherever it was that I was staying.

And parts of that particular dream, most particularly the 'lost' part, were close enough to recent realities to confuse me on waking.

So you see how it is ... my life is more bizarre once I am sleeping.

To The Wedding, by John Berger

I love books.
I've loved them since I was small.
They allowed me to wander no matter how young or poor or busy I was...

Last week, I finally had time to visit De Sleght, my favourite second-hand bookshop here in Antwerpen city.

The more time that passes between these visits of mine, the more truly superb books in English I have to choose from. This time I bought a beautiful book called The Rare and the Beautiful by Cressida Connolly, finished as I rode towards Amsterdam last week.

And then I couldn't resist a book titled To the Wedding by John Berger because ... Michael Ondaatje, a much-loved favourite author of mine had written the following on the back of the book:A great, sad, and tender lyric, a novel that is a vortex of community and compassion that somehow overcomes fate and death. Wherever I live in the world, I know I will have this book with me.

It has been a 32 page free-fall into the story so far and I love it.

It opens with this:
Wonderful a fistful of snow in the mouths
of men suffering summer heat
Wonderful the spring winds
for mariners who long to set sail
And more wonderful still the single sheet
over two lovers on a bed.

A quiet day here in the land of low temperatures and grey winter skies, sneezes and sniffles as I sit here tonight. I hope your weekend was a good one and the week ahead is all that you need to be.

The Piano, a movie

I was looking for something else and found this and noted it here for me ...

Madness and Mayhem Reign Here ... at my place

Lut and her man are coming to dinner tonight so we're talking roast New Zealand lamb, Australian red and white wines, roast kumara, potatoes, carrots, onions and garlic, gravy and beans I think.

And then there's this Belgian dessert, a custard and cherry concoction that slips down rather nicely with a daub of whipped cream afterwards ... oh, and Di's Pumpkin soup as a starter.

The madness and mayhem that has gone into this dinner prep, the jobs left undone so long that have finally been done ... here's to a good night in the apartment where the kiwi and the Belgian have made their home.

Have a lovely Saturday night, World.

Suketu Mehta and his idea about dealing with terrorism.

I admired the words of this man, as they appeared in the NY Times ...

But the best answer to the terrorists is to dream bigger, make even more money, and visit Mumbai more than ever...

If the rest of the world wants to help, it should run toward the explosion. It should fly to Mumbai, and spend money. Where else are you going to be safe? New York? London? Madrid?

So I’m booking flights to Mumbai. I’m going to go get a beer at the Leopold, stroll over to the Taj for samosas at the Sea Lounge, and watch a Bollywood movie at the Metro. Stimulus doesn’t have to be just economic.
Suketu Mehta, Op-Ed contributor, New York Times.

My mother always dreamed of a house by the sea when she retired.

My mother never lived by the sea, she died before she retired.

While I don't have a death wish, neither do I wish to be a victim of fear or buy into the idea that I'm going to live until I am an old woman. I remember reading that hijackers would now have a problem taking over an airplane ... since those passengers who fought back on that final plane in 9/11, managed to avert a greater tragedy than the one that they suffered.

Here's to the courage of Suketu Mehta in speaking out.

Today in Amsterdam ...

Gaudi, Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, originally uploaded by - di.

A truly stunning day where the mysterious project that involves travel, photography and me working as a documentary and art photographer was discussed over Mexican food at a restaurant in Amsterdam.

Then, as always happens whenever I'm on any kind of gig with this remarkable woman, I was swept off on her magical carpet to the city centre where we met with a hugely talented and interesting man and I almost wept because I wasn't carrying my camera however the conversations between academic and artist, between philosphers, between visionaries ... that was quite possibly as much 'powerful' as I could stand in these early stages.

It looks like Cairo for 5 days just before Christmas and from there ... well let's just see how it unfolds because at the moment I'm learning, just about anything is possible.

Note: the photograph is a little more of Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. The windows astounded me.