New Zealand Wins the Rugby World Cup ...

AMAI ! (the Flemish equivalent of ‘my goodness’ perhaps), I’m not sure how regular my breathing was during the final of the rugby world cup. 

So many times, we have known we have the best rugby team in the world ... so many times, they have failed at the final hurdle, that final rugby world cup test. 

For perspective on this fact, you probably should know that rugby is almost religion in New Zealand.

And, my goodness, there were times during today’s final where it looked like the All Blacks were going to do it again.  That is ... lose.  It was heart-stopping stuff, with just 1 point seperating New Zealand and France for the final 30 minutes of the game.  France was playing strongly.

But the All Blacks won and our little nation, of just over 4 million people, surely erupted with joy (and quite some relief).  Even there in the Embassy, just as it was beginning to sink in, in the photograph below.  There was another room, with a BIG screen and many more people there too.  The Embassy was full.

Gert and I stayed to chat a while with some of the lovely people who turned up to watch the big match at the embassy.  Apparently there were ambassadors from 5 countries there.  To me, they were all there for the rugby, nothing else mattered ... did it?

From there, we wandered on over to the home of a lovely writer.  I was photographing a man who is in the process of publishing his first book ... in Greek.  If it is ever published in English, be sure, I will let you know because it sounds like one I would enjoy.  He was a pleasure to work with and being there for a while, in his world, was a nice time out.

Home, and voila, our tram took us past a robbery-gone-wrong crime scene, with the police tent covering the body.

Then Oliver had time to film my first ever web video and could I? 
I could.

We spent 2 hours or more, with him interviewing and filming me ... using two cameras. Amai!!  it was intense.  It should appear on the website one day soon, although it is destined for the new website which is up but still being loaded.  Dank u wel to my Belgian bloke who, so very patiently, built me a new site using SquareSpace.  News to follow.

Now, with my glass of red wine almost done, I’m turning my attention towards flying tomorrow.  I jet back to Genova Italy in the morning.  It’s a 5am start, I believe.  A long day of wandering but, by crikey, I’m looking forward to being back there and beginning work on my book ... and organising the dates and the marketing for the first ‘come travel with me’ photography workshop for Spring 2012.

I’m glad I had Saturday.  I had a birthday and my lovely daughter cooked dinner for me, and baked a cake of Veronica’s that still makes me smile when I think of it.  I rested, as if I had an inkling of the sheer insanity of Sunday.  Saturday saw me enjoying Miss 7, hanging out with the Belgian bloke, talking with my sister and her daughter Katie, back home in New Zealand for 3 hours perhaps, there was a family dinner too.

Tomorrow ... tomorrow is coming at speed and I really must pack.  I hope your weekend was a sweet one.
Ciao for now.

All Blacks Vs France, the final of the Rugby World Cup

It’s been good to sleep through the night and not spend the day anticipating the big match being played in New Zealand in a couple of hours ...

New Zealand’s All Black rugby team is pretty much the best in the world.  Somehow though, when they reach the rugby world cup finals, stuff happens and they rarely win. 
It’s bizarre.
It’s devastating.

We’re a small nation of just over 4 million people.  Rugby is a religion there in our land downunder.  We love being the best, as a nation ...

Then there’s France, the team that reached the finals, not so much because they were the best but because they managed to get past some excellent teams.  Sport is like that. 
As Kay wrote on twitter this morning ... All NZ is one large, hot, tin roof tonight! Go the AB’s! If u support France; may the best team win!

Must go.  We’re off to watch the match with a whole lot of other kiwis ...

My Friend, Judy

It has to be said, I have the loveliest friends ...

Today, Judy was coming to town.  We had plans, that changed, and were all the better for changing I’m thinking. 

We immediately wandered from the train station to Caffenation, for some really good coffee.  Much talking later, we left, heading for my most favourite bookshop in Belgium ... De Slegte, in Antwerpen.  We both love books.

Lunch, and Judy introduced me to a cafe she knew once.  It was lovely and I recommend it so highly ... Moments, on the Meir at number 47.  Second floor, for those like me who have never noticed it before.

We walked on, finding delicious boots at Torfs (that were not purchased), my new favourite shoe brand, also found on the Meir at number 14-16.  Then to the Grand Bazaar ... which is nothing like the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul but still, place of some favourite stores of mine. 

There, she bought me a birthday gift that made me smile.  I have never known anyone quite so convincing in the ... ‘well-it’s-better-if-you-choose-what-you-would-like-rather-than-me-guessing’ line of gift giving.  I do adore her.  And so, after quite some sweating, I chose a favourite author’s latest book.  I have all of Joe Simpson’s non-fiction and I have to confess, his work of fiction had me totally in its grip by the time I reached the supermarket, via the tram home.

Then, I took her to Lojola.  This youtube takes you to the cafe ...  it’s the cutest little cupcake and coffee or tea place in the city.

From there, after much laughter, we wandered back to the train station where ... after running for the wrong train, she decided to walk me to my tram, as she had time to spare.  The most commonly used sentence during the long walk to my tram was variations on ‘Yes Di, I can find my way back to my train, as I did Cuba alone’.  But there was so much more humour that doesn’t quite come through in that sentence.  Both Judy and I are terribly amusing.  Modest though.

So yes ... it was a magical day.  Unexpected really but all the more lovely for it.  As I write this, I’m listening to the Chan Chan Compay Segundo cd that she slipped into that birthday package for me. 

Dank u wel, Judy.  Today was truly delicious.

Autumn means Easter to Me ...

I’m not sure my unconscious will ever adjust to this upside-down life in the northern-hemisphere.

The leaves are changing colour and we’re waiting for our first frost which means ... it’s almost Easter.  But no, that was a New Zealand thing.  Here it’s already mid-October. although Belgium had been enjoying high temperatures as late as last week. 

I took the bike out this afternoon, needing to stretch. I took myself and my camera into the park on our beautiful day.  We’re blessed with this city park, and mostly I love it even while struggling to forget the massively busy European motorway right next door, the motorway that, if I wake in the night, sounds like a Spring tide at Tautuku, on the lower East Coast of New Zealand.

Anyway, today it was pretty.  There was a blue heron down at one of the many ponds, hanging out with the big white geese and the ducks.  The moles hills were there mocking mans efforts to tame nature too.  I love those moles ... there to remind us, surely, that we’re not quite able to tame and maintain everything out there in the natural world.

Eugenio Montale, Christy Moore and Pasta Hippo ...

I woke this morning, with ideas for my book demanding I note them down ... I gave in at 5.30am, grateful I hadn’t lost them to laziness.

This book will be full of images but I need text too.  This morning the images came marching into my mind so I got up and wrote the words for them.

Yesterday was a day spent going through all of my notes; a day spent working out the structure of the workshops I plan on offering soon ... the workshops where I see if you want to come spend time in my worlds, either via the chair where you read this, or physically come wandering.

As I do these things, new ideas come knocking on my door. 
What about this idea for a book?
Hey, where’s that manuscript ... that story you put down and forgot to pick up in your mad rush to live?
Don’t you wish you could draw ... imagine, then we could do this with that idea?.

Wednesday was a stunning day.  I had no idea it was going to be. 

It was enough when the postman delivered a parcel and I opened it to find a book titled Eugenio Montale, Collected Poems 1920-1954, a revised bilingual edition, translated and annotated by Jonathan Galasi.

I had wanted that book for research.  And it arrived unexpectedly.  Thank you, Gert.

But that wasn’t enough.  That night we had dinner at my favourite Antwerpen restaurant, Pasta Hippo.  The food was glorious, as always.  I remember I stopped going for a while.  I believe I may have run into the owner one time, if not, a staff member who was so rude, I remained offended for months however ... the food is that good. And the slightly expensive glass of Chianti I had while waiting for Gert ... it was divine.

Then to the concert of an Irish singer I had been loving forever.  I remember gifting a copy of his cd to my ex-mother-in-law, more than a few years ago.  On our recent trip from Dublin to Connemara, my first time driving in 7 years, I stopped enroute, stating that we simple MUST have a Christy Moore cd playing, as we wandered in Ireland.  It was grand.

Christy, at 60-something, is one of those musicians I could listen to for a very long time.  He’s a story-teller gifted with the loveliest voice. Individual political songs he has performed throughout his career include Mick Hanly’s ‘On the Blanket’ about the protests of republican prisoners, his own ‘Viva la Quinta Brigada’ about Irish volunteers in the Spanish Civil War and his own ‘Minds Locked Shut’ about Bloody Sunday in Derry.

Moore has endorsed a long list of left wing support causes, ranging from El Salvador to Mary Robinson in the 1990 Presidential Election.[2] At Glastonbury Festival in 2005 he sang about the Palestinian solidarity activist Rachel Corrie.

I loved his courage.  I loved his voice. It was a grand evening out, with Gert and the lovely Stephanie.  You know, if a fortune-teller had told me the story of where and when and with whom I would see Christy Moore perform live, back in those New Zealand days, I would have known that she was a charlatan ...

One never quite knows where life might take them, does one.

Wednesday was the loveliest day.  Thursday was spent hunched over my desk, I worked through into the night after dinner.

Friday ... let’s see how plays out.  There’s a plan that involves a private art viewing, a castle, and lovely friends tonight.
Note on the editing and re-editing: I started writing this about 5.30am.  Errors were made.  Now I must go and find coffee.
Have a lovely day and tot straks!

A Little Glass Kiwi

It has been 7 years since I was last home, 7 years since I last saw so many people ... and now I have one of those long-ago people here at my house.

Valda was my first mother-in-law, mother to Chris - my first husband, grandmother to my daughter Jessica.  I’m not sure if you can imagine how delightful it has been to catch up with her.  This woman who has known me since I was 17 years old, something so rare in this life of mine.  I had my daughter when I was 21, so not even she has known me so long and no one in my Istanbul life, nor my Belgian life, has either.

So we have spent the last few days catching up on extended family news, with Valda delighting in time spent with her granddaughter and her great-granddaughter too.  It has been lovely.

But there this small thing that did make me giggle.  The photograph below ... the glass kiwi.  It’s a wine bottle stopper.  An exquisite wine bottle stopper that Valda brought me from from home.  And it shows me, even after all this time, Valda still does know me rather well.