The house is a metaphor for the self ...

The house is a metaphor for the self, of course, but it is also totally real.  And a foreign house exaggerates all the associations houses carry.
Frances Mayes, extracted from Under the Tuscan Sun.

I love the words I find written in Frances Mayes book, Under the Tuscan Sun.  I’ve been carrying this book with me, wherever I move, since before moving to Te Anau, New Zealand, and that was way back before 1999.

The book is so veryvery different to the movie.  My idea is that the book is for writers and dreamers, while the movie is a straight out chick flick ... humble opionion, of course.

New Zealand Guests

I just had the most delightful weekend with Leonie and Nick ... surely two of the loveliest New Zealanders living in London.

More stories to follow, I just need permission to blog some photographs.  Meanwhile, here’s one that Leonie spotted and I stepped back a bit with the telephoto lens and shot over her shoulder.

Thanks guys, I’m still smiling over spending time with you both.

 

Saturday Seen ... Scene ... Mis En Scene

1 a : the arrangement of actors and scenery on a stage for a theatrical production
  b : stage setting

2 a : the physical setting of an action (as of a narrative or a motion picture) : context b : environment, milieu

Origin of MISE-EN-SCÈNE: French mise en scène

First Known Use: 1833

Related to MISE-EN-SCÈNESynonyms: decor (or décor), mise-en-scène, scene, set
Sourced: Merriam Webster Dictionary

Gumboots and Muffins and Ruth

My life is busy ... it’s kind of action-packed.  And if it’s not action-packed, then my mind in one of those really really busy ones.

Mostly, I believe, my life is like this because I like it that way however there are days when I just run in the brick wall of tiredness & confusion.

My body goes along with me for so long and then, voila ... it just gets cross with me. 

So yes, I can zip over to Ireland, drive for the first time in 7 years, traveling over 500kms from east to west and then back in 4 days.  Go fishing, go boating (and find out I'm not good on boats), climb up the side of a small mountain to visit an extraordinary church, and spend those few days in a house full of delightful Scottish people ... and their accents.

I can have an Australian Blue Heeler dog run into my legs at the speed of sound and I can attempt to walk the resulting pain out but ... I believe it was about there that my body started rebelling.  The ankle swelled, it was painful all the rest of that day.  Less painful on waking, it continued with the attention-seeking swelling.  I ignored it.  It persisted.

Brussels Airport taught me a lesson about asking for help, when perhaps it was too little, too late.  So the ignored swelling went crazy and made me quite the miserable creature, with nothing but that long corridor in front of me.

Yesterday I did stuff I don’t remember ... but I did stuff.  Really.  There was laundry and dinner and answering emails and stuff.

Then came today, and I had the most hilarious appointment.  I do love my Belgian friend, Ruth.  She’s a writer who has just finished her first book (which went on to win the Gouden Meeuw award in 2011) but more on that when she has copies for sale.  Anyway, there was this thing she needed me to do today ... this thing that I can’t write of without smiling .  She needed a photograph of herself.  She had a plan.  She needed me to photograph her up on a roof with a book.  Not her book but anway ...

I couldn’t resist.  I started taking photographs the moment she got on the ladder, wearing her cute little gumboots pictured below.  Then there was this moment ... captured while she was between the ladder and the roof. 

And later, when she was climbing down, I’m fairly sure I would have stopped taking photographs in time to catch the ladder as it fell ... had she not stopped it with her feet. 
Yes, I’m sure I would have.

We recovered over coffee and her delicious homemade blueberry muffins.  I left the house with far more than I arrived with, including a signed copy of her book!  Dank u wel, Ruth, for picking up my tired self, making me laugh, then filling me up with delicious food and good coffee. 

Meet Ruth, or some of her.