Ireland!

So I did it ... passed the ‘haven’t driven in 7 long years’ test.

There was the flight from Brussels to Dublin, with the politest airline I’ve ever been on ... Aer Lingus.  So polite, so sensible, so amusing.
Loved them!

Boarding order was strictly enforced.  Really. Then, so sensibly, they had the people at the back of the plane board first ... so we didn’t have to wait while those at the front of the plane faffed about with their overhead lockers.

I laughed, thinking ‘they’re teaching us manners’, as they enforced the order of boarding ... with charm.  A first over here, I have to confess.  It was so like New Zealand's way of being that I could only smile.

My first drive in 7 years was only a Peugeot 308.

A 2011 Peugeot 308!!!


I think the Hertz guy almost smiled (and he didn’t seem like a big smiler) when he asked if that was okay.  I was surely a little bit sparkly and enthusiastic.

It’s a diesel, with 14,000kms on the clock.  It handles like a dream.  I thought I might just stay in the slow lane and sit around 90kms for the 200km trip across Ireland, from Dublin to Gallway and beyond but ummm no ... it handled well at the speed limit of 120kms.

Along the way, we stopped at Athlone for a little food but made sure we picked up a Christy Moore cd.  He was just the perfect traveling companion, up loud as we drove.

We arrived, found Rob and Angie’s, met Gus and Jessie - their big beautiful dogs, had a lovely glass of red wine handed to me and we sat down to chat some of the night away. 

This morning, I made myself get out of bed just before 8am ... groaning a little, as the bed is one of those ones that are good to just kind of stay in but there’s talk of a bit of a sail today, out on the water here where we are, after we’ve walked the dogs in the forest.  This New Zealander is just beside herself with excitement over it all.

Sadly, I did forget that Ireland is an hour behind Belgium, well, it’s on GMT actually.  And it may be that my 7.45am, ‘feet on the floor, Di’ was really a 6.45am start.  Oh well, it gave me time to write here before I go off and harass Rob for some coffee.

So, good morning, and I’ll let you know how it goes.

In a Country not your Own ...

I think, if you have lived through a war
or have made your home in a country
not your own, or if you’ve learned
to love one man,
then your life is a story.
Anne Michaels, extract from Blue Vigour

I think, that when you have made your home in a country not your own, you never take the good people you find, out there in this new land, forgranted.

A few weeks ago, I photographed a family and met a woman who has the sweetest soul I’ve experienced in a long time.  Since then, she has quietly opened doors into her world, determined to connect the people she is leaving behind when she finishes her time here in Brussels.  She’s another world wanderer.

Spending time with her has felt like time spent around the warmth of a small sun.  And I’m writing of it here because I think, sometimes, we forget to thank the people who are like this.  And honestly ...I know more than a few really good people.

As I waded into the reality that is being a professional photographer, I had to shift my focus from the passion I feel for photography and people, and deal with the fact that I had I market myself and play a little bit of hardball to get paid.  I have had to learn so many hard lessons along the way about things like contracts.

I’m not like that.  I love photography, I love people.  To price everything was deadly but every 3 months I had a minimum social security payment of 600euro to make.  Just one of many many bills.

Lately, I’ve gone back to just being me and my photography, chasing the passion again, instead of turning myself inside out about paying all the bills. 
And lately, the magic I had been missing has returned.

First there was Karla, then she introduced me to Marcia and these two, they’re just so absolutely lovely. 
Yesterday, they invited me into their circle of friends.  I should have known not to worry about meeting new people ... it was the sweetest few hours.

It turns out, our host Doug, is one of those special people who just knows how to be with people and he delighted me with a small taste of the stories from his life.  We have both lived in Turkey and share a love for Italy.  He’s a writer.

There were babies involved, 3 of the most beautiful roly-poly baby boys and I left with the badge of motherhood imprinted on my black top ... banana fingerprints.  Champagne and most incredible food.  Quiches like I haven’t tasted since New Zealand.  A chocolate mousse by Felix, one so good that Doug got goosebumps from tasting it.

I was lulled into a sense of a forever afternoon ... you know?  Where time feels like it has stopped fora while?  I guess it’s the mind’s way of protecting you from the idea of it all ending.

So yes, that’s what I did with my afternoon.

Oh, and I’ve found somewhere so perfect to hold my photography workshops.  Details and dates to be announced by the end of August.

Hmmm, I think that’s all.  Now to pack for Ireland.  Dublin tomorrow ... first time driving in seven years.  Just a couple of hundred kilometres ...

A Delicious Day here in Antwerp

Note to reader: The words ‘delicious’, ‘delightful’ and ‘lovely’ are used often in this post.  Just so you know …

Yesterday was one of those delicious days I don’t want to forget but today finds me train-traveling to Leopoldsburg, with no time to sit down and savour my yesterday howevere I have packed my tiny blue travel laptop and so, here I am, writing from the train.

But perhaps it didn’t begin yesterday.  It began months earlier, when a woman called Karla wrote me a note enquiring about family photo-shoots.  It didn’t work out then but later it did. 

And the shoot was so much fun.  There was the pleasure of meeting the loveliest family, photographing the baby with the bluest eyes, hanging out with a friendly black labrador … stuff like that.

We stayed in touch, worked out a date for the photographs to be picked up and voila, we arrive at my yesterday.

Karla came over, toting her beautiful blue-eyed baby, accompanied by this lovely Irish woman who brought her very own chuckling bundle of delightful baby boy.  Really chuckley … I can’t emphasise how delicious his giggle is.  I’ll photograph him one day, it’s written all over his face when he laughs.

We sat down at my kitchen table, with tea and coffee, and talked, in that intense and delicious way that strangers sometimes do and voila, my marvellous yesterday had begun.

We looked through the photographs first, we learnt something of each others lives, I was introduced to my very first colour therapist and did I mention … we TALKED.

The babies played while we toyed with new ideas for each others lives and businesses.  There was that delightful click of like-minded souls meeting, it’s something that always amuses me.  While right-wing populist politicians work at making us fear ‘the other’, there we were, as is more often the case, finding connections across 3 different cultures and histories.

Karla and Marcia didn’t really know Antwerp at all and so we wandered into the city for a lunch.  I couldn’t resist and despite rain, I introduced them to my most favourite square here … Hendrik Conscienceplein … created by the Italian Jesuits, it soothes my soul sometimes.

We stopped in at the soup cafe, Comme Soupe, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.  It’s tiny but the soup is a truly satisfying work of art.  I should have taken a photograph but I will return there, I promise. 

Tiny cafe + two pushchairs meant that we didn’t like to stay longer than need be but afterwards, we crossed the small space to the Cupcake Cafe called Lojola Coffee and Cake, at Hendrik Conscienceplein 14. Oh my, if in Antwerp, you must pop in.

We chose divine little cupcakes to compliment our coffee and we were happy.  Delighting perhaps, in the dollhouse-like playfulness of that little cafe.  Mmm, photographs to follow.

And it was almost 4pm … so suddenly. 

We said our goodbyes in the city, and off I wandered on my next big adventure.  The buying of the Nespresso coffee machine.  Just the espresso part … inspired by a desire to avoid future pain when searching the city for good espresso. Genova and her beautiful coffees ruined me.

I felt childlike but I don’t think they knew in the shop.  Remember that feeling of having that birthday money clenched in your hot little hand as you marched off to buy that thing that you really truly wanted, forever?  It was like that.

I chatted with the woman in the busy Nespresso store, staffed by many.  She had been in Australia.

You know, the more years I am away from New Zealand, and realising both my brothers are married to Australians and living there, the more I feel that we downunder people are fairly similar and there is no insult in mistaking me for an Aussie.

Beaming, and still feeling like a small excited kid, with my coffee machine bagged up and in my hand, I boarded a tram home and had this nice looking guy beckoning to me, wanting me to sit with him.  Gert and I had managed, quite by chance, to find the same tram to ride home.

Well yes, he did have to suffer quite some Chitter-Chatter by Di on the way home.

I didn’t dare caffeinate myself after dinner.  Chitter chatter on a tram after work is one thing, he can do it … just.  Chitter-chatter at 3am, of the over-caffeinated kind, is something else.  I had my first little espresso this morning and it was good.

Lately, life has been all about intensely good friends and meeting lovely people.  Thanks guys.

Anyway, you see it, yesterday was a very good day…

 

Madrid, and a second beautiful wedding photographed

In Madrid, beautiful people who love hard and laughed often, gathered from all over the world however ... weaving their feline way in and out of the wedding preparations were 4 incredibly special Spanish cats. 

Nene was my nemesis.  He had worked out he was the Alpha Creature to whom I should submit. 

I was torn between stopping him from eating the flowers, arranged for the wedding reception tables, and well ... photographing him eating those flowers.

A Slice of Life

It’s been busy lately, for weeks and months really ... an odd kind of unpredictable busy but these last 24 hours or so have felt slightly exceptional.  Full of good people, but exceptional.

Sunday afternoon found me feeling unwell.  I tried sleeping it off but only succeeded in messing up my ability to sleep that night.  Monday, I was up, on 4 hours of sleep.  I was heading for Brussels and had it all mapped out in terms of train times and which tram to catch to this new part of the city.

My idea was that, somewhere along the way during the day, I would find myself a really good espresso for strength.

I arrived at Antwerp’s Central Station with not enough time to join the queue that had formed in the coffee place.  I wasn’t prepared to have just any old coffee, I needed a really good espresso.  This much I knew.

No coffee ... I had no sooner settled on the train than I heard the conductor announce that this train would not be stopping at North Station ... my destination.  Okay, it said it would on the website but it wasn’t and so ... I climbed off in Mechelen to catch something else.  As I was waiting, a young man came sprinting up the stairs, just missing the Brussels-bound train I had left.  He threw his bag down angrily.  I waited a moment and mentioned the fact it wasn’t stopping at north station and then, voila, we ended up chatting a while.

His English was impeccable.  He was a student on his way to a mathematics exam but better than that, he was studying law and politics.  After talking of his year in Australia, we boarded the next train, held our breath while it tried to break down and the train guy announced that it had ... before it suddenly and successfully pulled out of the station.  We talked about Belgian politics all the way there.  Interesting, so interesting, as we head into a second year without a government since the last elections.

We said our goodbyes, I wished him luck although he was very relaxed about it all, and I wandered off to spend some time with the loveliest family over there in the big Belgian city.  They had a son with the most beautiful blue eyes I’ve ever seen and a delicious black labrador, as per the photograph below.  Anyone who knows me will know how I’ve been yearning for a labrador here in my Belgian life but never mind, it was enough to get a bit of a dog-fix for now.

After time spent in the park, the lovely family dropped me off on a tram that would get me back across the city more quickly however ... they assumed they were dealing with a normal adult who had a reasonable knowledge of Brussles.  I was ‘misplaced’ for a while but amused.  It’s never really that serious and getting unlost usually makes me laugh at myself.  I climbed off at Parc and found Central Station by some weird kind of instinctive luck. 

I NEEDED a coffee by now. But every place in the station, open at 3.30pm, looked like a place that make rubbish coffee.  I know ... it’s about me being a brat but I’m still readjusting to life after the exquisite Genovese espresso. 

I bought sparkling water, sadly, washing down the brie baguette thingy for lunch and boarded the train home ... falling asleep along the way. 

By the time I reached Antwerp Central Station I NEEDED a coffee.  I wandered into Starbucks, hoping their espresso was at least decent, as I can’t stand their other coffees. I followed the queue of people waiting, right to the end and voila, I was at the other exit door, so I exited.  Tram home, falling asleep, aching. 

Made it home and found it full of Miss 7 and her mum. 
Dinner was cooked by my very kind husband. 
Miss 7 was storied up and put to bed,then I couldn’t resist downloading and going through some photographs.

Getting late, I wanted to do one last check of the wedding photographs, before burning the 1,000 to dvds for the different bride friends who have been patient as I’ve sprinted through life since their weddings.

I fell into bed. 
Jess phoned, ‘How is Miss 7?’
‘Okay’, I replied. 
‘Okay ... good’, she tells me ‘but keep an eye on her because I’m vomiting’.
‘Oh ... she did say she had a sore tummy, I thought she didn’t want to sleep’.

1.32am ... Miss 7 starts vomiting.
I’m so tired.  The only solution seems, in that moment, to carry her bedding and put it next to my bed.
I do it.  I almost fall down the stairs doing it and ponder how nasty that would have been as I continue down.
We sleep until 3.23am when she vomits.
We sleep until 6.20am when she vomits again.
I consider this an uncommonly civilised kind of vomiting, as usually sleeping between bouts is all but impossible.

Morning finds me here at the computer.  Miss 7 on the couch, watching tv, drinking powerade slowly, sleeping a little ...

So it has been an active few hours, and then some, but by crikey ... I did meet some truly lovely people.  And a really nice dog.

Family ...

One of the things I loved about working to capture the weddings in both Suffolk and Madrid, was the time I was able to spend on the fringes of those families involved.  When you’re a long way from home time spent with families, anyones family, are pretty much never taken forgranted.

In Suffolk, a stunning manor house was rented over the weekend, as a place for the bride and groom’s families and friends to gather together.  The kitchen was the heartbeat, the hub of operations ... and there was almost always somebody there boiling a brew or simply gatheringto chat around the long kitchen island on those high stools. 

There were back stairs too, for the servants I imagine, as the main stairway was a little bit spectacular.  Anyway, I captured one of small stars of the weekend peering in at us all ...

I have a new laptop ... a Dell XPS Laptop

I have this new laptop and it has been a revelation in 21st century technology for me .... as I had no idea that photo-processing could be done at the speed of light. 

I have gone from my HP Pavilion dv2000, which started out life as a recall model that ran at boiling point, melted the second new battery invented to angle the base and allow extra air through, constantly required a cooling pad, and had a dodgy screen.  It was a laptop that had really just limped though this last year with multiple crashes and failing health.

Yesterday a fast and fabulous Dell XPS was delivered.  And no, they’re not paying me for this.

Frederika Flintstone is no longer pedalling the stone car ... Frederika is, in fact, flying a fighter jet at the speed of sound and is bemused by her wonder and awe.

Lorenzo Jovanotti is singing Bella as I write this ... it seems entirely bouncy and appropriate.

Somewhere in Suffolk ...

I apply my own professional oath, similar perhaps to the Hippocratic Oath taken by doctors ... although my oath is more of a commitment to not being photographed by anyone else.

And so it is, when I’m exploring a venue for ‘spots’ to work, I need models.  I have variety, some get grouchy after the 50th location test shot but by crikey, I do know some lovely ones.  The bride and groom photographed beautifully here the next day.

Dank u wel to my favourite model.

There was this party last night ...

And it was a most excellent party.

One of the delights in life are surely the people you meet along the way.  And so it was that last night, some of the people ‘met along the way’ all came together at my house and we partied up a storm.

Partying mostly consisting of excellent conversations with all kinds of interesting people.

Where shall I begin ... Peter and Julia flew in from Berlin, delighting us by staying a week.  They cook like angels and we have enjoyed pumpkin quiche and this stunning little Italian pasta dish.  Tonight real Italian risotto is rumoured.  I tasted my first neuhaus chocolates courtesy of them and have some lovely lillies coming into flower downstairs.  Grazie!

Michelle flew in from New York city a week ago and came to spend a night in our world, before heading off to Leiden and Rome - leaving me owner of a book on New York - that city I’m spending Thanksgiving in in 2010.  Shannon, the other New Jersey girl, jumped on a train and wandered in from Leiden yesterday.  She gifted me a beautiful new birthday scarf that I’m wearing now.

Stephanie, Patrick and Catalina stunned me with the gift of a pasta-maker, wine and flowers.  Paola and Simon rolled up with these STUNNING limoncello tirimasu (recipe at the end of this post) that were devoured almost as soon as they were set out, asking me if I had received their gift in the mail yet ...  Not yet but I am curious. But they arrived carrying stunning stunning food. 

It has to be said at this point that, I deliberately didn’t tell people it was my birthday or told them not to bring gifts.  I have obedient friends ...  but we love hosting these parties and having Peter and Julia staying seemed like a rather good excuse for a party before Christmas.

And so Shelia and Sandy, the Brits from Brussels, also rolled up bearing food - a most delicious New Zealand pavlova, with all the trimmings, charming everyone with themselves.  Lucy, a lovely Belgian, and her husband Charlie, with his Scottish accent, the one that pokes at my genetic memory and makes me smile came too, as did Cloe, Brian, Aidan, Jason, and I am going to do the unforgivable and write Cloe’s Mum - who I very much hope to visit with again in quieter circumstances.  The parties are excellent but I always wish it was simpler to talk with each and every person I know ...

Wendy and Patrice drove in from faraway places, the New Zealander and her American/Belgian husband, bringing with them Barry, a kiwi from home.  It turns out that he was an Otago Boys boy while I was a Taieri High girl ... growing up 20kms apart.  New Zealanders do this thing that we did last night, where we exchange information about people we know and places we lived back home, in that land downunder, and it turns out that while I was living in Antimony Crescent in Cromwell, he was there on Waenga Drive ... the road I drove to get home.  I wish we could have talked more but the house was full of so many truly excellent people.

Jurjana came in, resplendent I decided, in new boots and a look I hadn’t seen her wearing before.  She was bearing gifts of chocolate and book vouchers. Oh ohoh, the pleasure of BOOKS.  I shall be in FNAC on Monday, choosing some new ones.  I don’t really care so much for diamonds or jewels but books ... books are something else entirely.

Jessie and Oliver were there, as was Miss 6, who was more than happy to spend time with little Miss 2.  Quite some time, as it turns out the party finished about 2am ...

Then today, Ruth rolled in from Brussels and we’ve spent the day, all of us left here - Shannon, Michelle, Gert and I, Julia and Peter, just talking and eating, cooking and talking some more ... lunch at 5pm, eaten with the promise of risotto later tonight.

These days where Peter and Julia’s week-long-but-really-too-short visit coincided with my birthday have been truly delicious.  You can imagine it, can’t you?

November is all about me flying over to America and going on one of those wild crazy rides that I seem to do.  It’s all about Veronica and her family, with a Thanksgiving with a truly special man I shall be delighted to finally meet, it might be about an old friend in Ohio and then there’s Tonya flying in from Canada.  Let’s see how it all goes.

However, for now, last night and these days have been so much more than I could have known to wish for, and so thank you to everyone who make my birthday close to pure delight.

Limoncello Tiramisu (For 4 people) By Paola.
250g mascarpone
3eggs
100g sugar
2 lemons
1 small glass limoncello
10 to 15 savoiardi biscuits

Beat yolks and sugar. Add mascarpone and mix. Add lemon juice. Beat the whites until fluffy and add.
In a small pan reduce 100ml water and 40gr sugar on hob for 5 min. Off heat add limoncello: dunk biscuits in this liquid and line a container with them. Add half the cream. Make another layer. You could finish off with lemon peel. Enjoy.

Reminiscing the Future ...

I love the way we can bring the past alive in our present ... recalling the people we loved and lived with, the way that they made us feel.  I find everyone is still there, solid memories, whenever I manage to call them up.

7am here in Italy, a cup of coffee from my travel coffee-pot and a packet of Italian shortbread-like biscuits ...voila, I find memories of Nana and pre-breakfast coffees back home at her place, in Invercargill, New Zealand.  Us chatting as she sped through her daily Southland Times, reading the news.

If we could have imagined the future ... ‘Hey Nana, in 2010 I’m going to be sitting at Paola’s kitchen table, in a small and ancient city in Italy, window open so I can hear the sounds of the city waking, drinking coffee, just like you and I are now.’

Nana, who never left New Zealand in all of her life.  I wonder if she dreamed of it.  We never talked of those things.

Or a conversation with Mum ... ‘So I moved to Istanbul in 2003.  You would have loved it!  The people are so friendly, the summers are warmer than here in Mosgiel, the life ... Come with me?

Then Belgium in 2005 and mum would have flown in.  Creating a garden on that first balcony in Antwerp.  And then she would have spent evenings out there, ignoring the mosquitoes, drinking white wine and watching as the sun slipped below the horizon. 

Genova.  I’m sure she would have refused to leave Genova.  We would have laughed about me being my mother’s daughter perhaps, with a need for the sea and serious hills, and maybe we could have planned opening some kind of B&B here, satisfying our oddly hospitable souls and the pleasure we find in knowing people.

And my lovely little sister ... the one who has always been older and wiser, even if she was born after me.  We used to talk across the space between our single beds, back in those days when we shared a room.  If we had imagined my future  life we would have been guilty of inventing wild and untrue tales ... ones where Istanbul, Antwerp and Genova were flights of fanciful imaginations.  Impossible dreams.

She needs to come here now.  I need her in my life.

But Genova ...!

Did you know that swallows fly up and down Via Lorenzo, screeching like hysterically happy young girls playing chase at an out-of-control birthday party.  They amuse me, those swallows, even as I realise I can't begin to caputre their antics with my camera.

And do you know how it sounds to wake to the sounds of a cafe directly below your bedroom window?  The clatter of cups and saucers and everyday Italian conversations that fly in through my window.  The one that is open behind still-closed green shutters, just across the room.

Did you know that this woman, a few thousand miles from home, from past lives, from the people she first loved, finds this Ligiurian city an exquisitely beautiful place to remember and miss them?

Church bells ring in through the open window ... 8am.
Time to begin the new day but Sandra ... come over one day soon.

Ciao from Genova, both feet in the present, as I think what to do with this day.

The night before flying ... madness

There’s this check-list that automatically unfurls like a kite in the wind on the day before flying ... my to-do list arrives at DEFCON1 and I find myself achieving at an extraordinarily high level, writes this wanderer at 23.49 on ‘the night before leaving’.

Today I unexpectedly babysat Little Miss 5, chose paint for two rooms in the new house, had 100 business cards printed for the new site, had a print made for the guy who hosted my exhibition in his brasserie, dropped it off, bought a couple of light shirts because Genova will be warm, and then returned home to some work for the NGO and yes, packing.

My packing technique has changed over time and these days everything I don’t want to lose goes into my photography backpack and is carried as hand luggage which means I usually arrive at my destination slightly broken by the weight of it all.

Camera, lenses, flash, battery charger, card reader, voice recorder, phone, charger, at least one usb cable, laptop, laptop power cable, book, wallet, glasses, comb, business cards, pen ... will the journal with the important notes and interviews fit in too?

Suitcases have been a huge learning curve during this year of intensive wandering.  I arrived in Belgium with a backpackand a big black hand luggage bag for my laptop and camera gear. Time passed without much travel however eventually I was wandering again, having updated to a wheeled suitcase, making the mistake of not having any kind of external pocket for my book, passport and wallet with the first one.  I bought a small pilot’s wheeled suitcase with outer pocket but then bought the big camera ... although last time I was in Genova, I lived out of that bag and half the available space was taken up by my equipment.  I think my Genovese neighbours might not recognise me if I’m not wearing the red or the green striped shirts with my jeans this time.

Finally a good job came along, one where they wanted to pay a photographer, I had money and found a real suitcase, one that allows me to fit in my favourite feather pillow if I want.
Oh yes, a feather pillow princess ... you didn’t guess?

So anyway, it’s ciao from this Belgian-based me who has just agreed that a 4.40am alarm would be the best idea ...

 

On the way home ... in Belgium

Nina’s Ornamental blog is the place I wander to when I’m in need of that feeling I found in New Zealand.

I used to live in this funny little cottage with huge windows on the edge of a harbour, and I had a beach for each mood back in Dunedin.  And there was a creek my Labrador and I ran away to when we lived in the mountains beside Fiordland National Park.  Lake Te Anau did just as well. 

There was a tiny road that twisted and turned, taking us to a small bay in Marlborough Sounds while we lived on the Airforce Base in Blenheim, and there once was a place where the mighty Clutha River flowed into a smaller quieter side-stream and that became ‘our place’ while we were living in Cromwell ... although some days we’d throw off our responsibilities and race through the Kawara Gorge to visit the Arrow River in Arrowtown. 

My dog was a wanderer too and travelled all over New Zealand with us.  She died at 16.

I always had a special place and a dog in New Zealand.  Here, in Belgium, I miss the wild peace of home.  Just ‘being’ in Nature is far more difficult, perhaps because Nature is much less powerful by virtue of so many centuries of ‘civilisation’. 

I’m looking for a golden labrador crossbred with some kind of sheepdog because I’ve had labradors since I was 9 and the best was a crossbreed.

Meanwhile I couldn’t resist parking my bike and taking this photograph because the scenery on the way from the new house to the old apartment is nothing to sneeze at ...
Tot straks from Belgium.

Genova, Bach and I

These last few days, I’ve been trying to capture the Genova I fell in love with while staying in Italy last year ...

There was a paragraph where I tried to describe the quietly sublime beauty of a Sunday morning spent alone in that city I love.

I wrote: Sunday, my first day alone and the city is emptied for football.  Slipping and tripping through the air comes the sound of the most exquisite violin ... drifting from some open window.  Delicate notes that create this perfect sound for an afternoon spent lying on a bed reading. I am lazy on this first day spent as a solitary creature, alone in a strange city where I know no one.

I wanted that music but stopped short of shouting from my open window to whichever neighbour was playing the music. 

I came home and forgot it about mostly, just pulling the memory out in moments peace.

Yesterday I was in FNAC, thinking I might like one book to celebrate this month’s pay cheque when I had this idea about making a fool of myself and asking about a delicate solo violin ...

The shop assistant listened and then said ‘Bach!’.

She took me over to a listening post and she was right.  If this isn’t the music I heard then it’s close enough to delight and carry me back into that place in time.

Below you can hear something of the music on the cd titled Bach 6 Solo Sonatas & Partitas, Viktoria Mullova.

Past Lives and Memories

I struggled with how to title this post but I knew it had something to do with the nostalgia inspired by scent and a yearning for familiar things…

I woke early here in this Istanbul world and decided to get up. I’ve been alternatively working on photographs, with an occasional detour out into a new book I’m devouring but don’t have much time to read - The Attack by Yasmina Khadra, is worth checking out if you’re looking for an interesting fiction about suicide bombers.

It’s too early for anyone else and there is the promise of hot fresh borek if I’m patient, so I quietly found a banana to eat while my Turkish tea stewed in the top pot.

The banana was ripe and breaking it open delivered me back, just for a moment, to my childhood of bananas bruised by their trip to the river’s edge in our picnic box.

Savouring that scent here in Istanbul, so very far from the world I grew up in made me stop to think about the way that scent has been taking me ‘home’ lately ... the way that smell has become something akin to an album of memories I carry inside of me.

You see, there is a particular soap I use occasionally, it’s one that transports me directly back to a childhood of happy visits to Nana and Grandad’s Invercargill house. And a colleague of mine delights me by smoking the same cigarette brand that Nana once smoked, a long time ago. Gidon is less than excited by this fact that he reminds me of Nana ... as he is younger than me.

Shampoos and conditioners pick me up and transport me but they come from so many periods of this strange life of mine ... there were those childhood toiletries, then there is that one I used in America, another was discovered in Istanbul and they too offer a surprisingly powerful journey into memory.

It’s like that these days but the house is waking now - remembering took longer than I expected and my tea-glass needs refilled. Soon there will be piping hot borek in my tummy and here I am, creating a whole new set of memories in this different someplace else.