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.

Found ... Spring in Rivierenhof

Inspired by friends posting Spring days in Cortona and Prague.  And by another friend who Facebooked a Heron ... I took my bike and my camera off to the park.

We wandered a while and discovered Spring.

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.

When You Need To Go Home, Or Start Something Big ...

You know when you need to go home ... or perhaps you need a huge project.

It's like that in these days.

So I'm thinking, a lot.

View From My Train As It Left Antwerp

There is nothing like a train journey for reflection.
― Tahir Shah, In Arabian Nights: A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams.

Thankful ...

To travel is to see the world, and to meet its inhabitants, to find acceptance there in their hospitality, and to find in complete strangers, a family we didn’t know we had.

David duChemin, Photographer & wise man too.

I was compelled to lift these words from the story David told over at Maptia.  I'm listening to Zaz sing  Historia De Un Amor en vivo as I write this. 

I'm loving the internet for allowing me to know of David's writing and photograpy, for allowing me to listen to Zaz and her magical music ... but most especially for allowing me to watch Christmas unfold back home in New Zealand, 12 hours ahead of us here in Belgium, via friends and family I won't be seeing this year.

On Facebook I wrote, 7am on 25 December in New Zealand, 7pm on 24 December here in Belgium. Summer back home, winter here ... sometimes the split in my reality is clear.

The foto, taken by Jurjana Pavlinovic-Timmermans, after our Christmas Eve catch-up in the city.  Thanks for the conversations, and for the laughter, Jurjana  :-)