Here I am ...

I've been busy with putting together advertising texts and images.  Busy with family matters.  And with other complicated things too.

Basically I've been messing with my life/work balance ... that's to say I haven't really had any balance as my life is a blend of 'both' and 'everything'.

Then today ... I began pulling out all the equipment and cables I travel with.  Charging camera batteries, adding my USB modem to my camera bag and finding sunhoods for lense.  And that cable that hangs from the window in Genova, enabling me to receive an internet connection that has to fight its way through the massive stone wall built centuries ago, the one that was inspired by a Genovese desire to keep the Holy Roman Emperor Barbarossa out in the 1100s.

As it turns out, that city wall is still an effective barrier today.

Miss 10 changed schools a few months ago and the route is no longer 2 trams and an hour each way.  These days, when I take her, we ride through the park and arrive after 10 minutes of cycling.  This morning I came home raving about the air out there. 

It's Spring and it rained all night.  That beautiful juicy, sweet-smelling rain that inspires me to open windows while I work at my desk.  This morning we woke to moist warm air that smelt of flowers, wet beech trees, and oaks, and the earth too. 

Nature was in the ascendent and it was divine.

Steel-grey clouds have filled the sky for now, and as I write this, a massive torrential downpour is happening.  The rhubarb will be loving it.  And I am too.

Spring in Antwerpen

Spring is so very definitely happening.  The neighbour's Magnolia has been flowering for a few weeks but Friday was our second 20 celsius day.  I am daring to hope that that long grey winter is over.  It wasn't particularly tough except for the unrelenting greyness of the days.

My pharmacist told me that 80% of Belgians have a Vitamin D deficiency ...

I'm in Genova in a few weeks and truly looking forward to getting back to that exquisite city full of people I really enjoy spending time with.

Until then, it's all about continuing work on the website, about rewriting my photography workbook, and enjoying the sunshine when it appears.

Our Clients Wrote of Our Workshop

What can I write ...

I feel so extraordinarily grateful to the three women Helen and I invited on our A New Way of Seeing workshop, in Genoa, Italy.

Since then Lisa, Leah, and Laura have written of working with us in ways that have filled my wee kiwi soul to overflowing.

Leah, from Help. I Live With My Italian Mother In Law, wrote of her experience with us in an English magazine. 

Laura, from Ciao Amalfi, wrote up her experience with us over on her blog. 

Today, I'm just in from reading Lisa's account of her time with us over on her blog.  That would be Lisa, from Renovating Italy ... the Lisa who had me laughing so hard that I could barely stay standing out there on Via Porta Soprana.  She has a talent for laughter but the weekend was full of laughter, of stories and photography too.

I borrowed one of Lisa's photographs from her post about it all.  I love this particular image, taken by Silvana, wife of Pino.  Pino is the man nestled in-between Lisa, myself, and Helen ... late on that laughter-filled evening in Genova.

Silvana and Pino own the very best pizzeria in the world and I adore them.  Their pizzas too. And so it seemed entirely appropriate to be photographed together.  Silvana, after a hot and exhausting evening, decided she would be the photographer ... and no begging her to join us would change her mind. 

I have to admit, I'm looking a little rumpled at this point in the day.  We were almost home after that first workshopping day.

I would work with any of these women in a heartbeat.  They were magnificent.  All of them. 

Huge grazie mille's to Laura and Lisa, Leah and Helen. 

It was a most magnificent weekend!

A New Way of Seeing ...

The new website has launched ...

And we are on Twitter and Facebook.  Places are selling.  It's so exciting.

The newsletter is still coming, I had to wait for my fabulous graphic designer and the marketing guru to ride to the rescue, in terms of logo design and site building. 

More to follow on them in the weeks ahead, as they are superb.  Speedy, efficient, inspired, talented ...

Come wandering in Genoa, Italy. 

A Most Beautiful Day ...

I don't know if I have the words to capture half of the beauty that happened todayon our Beautiful Truth Retreat.

I am learning that something extraordinary happens whenever women come together in a small group to talk and learn.  Something so powerfully beautiful that it feels a privilege just to be a part of it.

Yesterday some of us met for the first time.  Today, dare I claim it ... we're friends.  It has been an intense day.  It's only 9.42pm as I write this but I could easily sleep now. 

This morning we gathered for breakfast ... a divine breakfast of fresh fruits, Italian coffee, tea, muesli, and pastries. Freshly-squeezed orange juice too.

Then there was a photography workshop with me ... out by the pool.  It was made up of more than a little laughter and many photographs were taken out there in the blue-sky summer's day that was today.

But then a most extraordinary thing ... we jumped in the car and headed off to Carla's restaurant.  We spent the next few hours learning how to make pasta and bruschetta the old-fashioned way ... no machines.  Carla made us all smile as she opened a bottle of some divine Piedmont white wine and we began with a toast. 

Of course, as the hours unfolded, there was more laughter and so many courses of beautiful food that we almost had to be rolled away from the table.

There was bruschetta, a pesto cream sauce for our handmade pasta. There was this turkey, pot-roasted, in sauce made from its juices, some cream, dried mushrooms and other secret ingredients.  Some of us could have attempted that as the soup course.  The gravy was divine.

And we ended with a bowl of plain gelato ... no flavour, not even vanilla just gelato and I had never tasted anything so good.  And understand, I could have stopped with the bruschetta, I definitely could have stopped after the pasta.  But I ate it all, well most of it, like everyone else.

And like everyone else, I left having absolutely fallen for Carla.  She hugged and kissed us all when we left and, I think I speak for everyone, when I write that we left feeling like the sun had been shining on us ... just us, for those hours spent in her company learning those everyday things that meant so very much to us.

Dinner tonight and we gathered in the kitchen, a selection of beautiful Italian meats and vegetables there in front of us, some red wine ... all of talking, and laughing.  I needed this laughter.  Life so serious so often and to gather with these women who simply astound me ... it is good.

Perhaps the photograph that follows captures a little of fun of it all.  Then again, I said quite a lot ... didn't I, writes this bemused woman, hoping she will be forgiven for raving, again.

There is more, there was the visit the ancient home of an artist, his lovely architect wife, and his film-making son.  But I don't dare try to add that on here.  That story is a whole other post.

The photograph below ... Diana and Carla, serving up the pasta we made.