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.
This sign has been in the window of a restaurant I pass by ... since forever.
Since forever loosely translates as ‘as long as I’ve been living in Antwerpen.
I love it. And don’t even mind that the window’s a bit dirty. Must eat there one day, then I can write all about it.
Sometimes I miss the mighty Clutha River but anyway, this is my city river these days ... the River Schelde, Antwerpen.
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.
I’ve been busy and I have had no idea how to write of it all.
Perhaps I should blog a story of each day because I know I have missed telling some beautiful stories along the way. I saw it begin to happen back in the Genova. I dropped the ball when it came to some of the every day beauty of people and place. There was the time I wanted to save the story of eating at Chichibio with Stefano until I could tell it beautifully ... but it slipped away in the cascade of the life I lived there.
It’s not too late though, and if you are ever in Genova and want someplace where you can enjoy exquisite food in elegant surroundings, I would suggest you hunt down Chichibio at via David Chiossone 20R. You can phone for a reservation on 010 247 6191. Not to be missed. And, as always, I followed Stefano’s advice when ordering and had not one single regret.
Grazie, Stefano ...a long overdue grazie.
Then, on Thursday, I was up and out the door with Gert. Well, that was the intention however, he did ask me if I had my 10-ride train ticket for the big trip to Leopoldsburg and perhaps I didn’t ...
So I set out again, scarf and train-ticket packed, arriving in plenty of time to board my departing-hourly train and blogged my fabulous Wednesday from the train. Destination reached, my lovely lovely friend, Judy, met me there with her car and over coffee we agreed, Maastricht was the destination. I had heard rumours of book stores ... rumours whispered to me by Judy, who just happens to love books as much as me, if not more.
We started out in Selexyz Dominicanen, which has to be seen to be believed. It is housed in a most unexpected space, a cathedral full of books, with a coffee-selling cafe up the back ... seemed like heaven to me. I was disappointed with their selection of English books but then again, I’m not the easiest reader to please and have been spoilt by De Slegte, my favourite secondhand bookshop in Antwerpen. It seems the English-reading Antwerpenaars and I are compatible.
After exploring Selexyz Dominicanen, Judy and I wandered off into the streets of Maastricht, making our way to the secondhand bookshop, De Slegte, Maastricht ... hooray. And it was there that the wheels fell off Di’s Intention to be a Good and Frugal Wife. No really huge crimes were committed. There was a beautiful book titled Venice is a Fish, a sensual guide by Tiziano Scarpa - a Venetian poet, novelist, playwright, and essayist. And a couple of others. Under 20 euro altogether ...
If books are my heroin, then I think we could view this visit to my ‘supplier’ as hopeful in terms of managing my addiction.
It would have been more positive were I not currently intent on roaming the ‘Roads to Santiago with Cees Nooteboom. A beautiful book ... exquisite. I think you might really enjoy this one Shashikiran.
But back to Thursday ... so Judy took me over to the river Maas, after book-shopping, to a beautiful little cafe on the edge of the water. She wanted to show me that Maastricht really wasn’t in Luxemburg, Germany or Austria (silly kiwi girl), and it takes its name from the River Maas. This river Okay?
Okay ... I get it now. Mostly.
Happy, we drove back across the border and into Belgium for dinner, where we devoured the most excellent pizza I’ve had in a while. Dank u wel to Judy ... it was a lovely day in a lovely place with a lovely person. And the pizza, a thank you to Willy too.
Back in Antwerpen, and waiting for a very tardy tram 10, on the very day that Belgium was having its coldest 14 July since records began back in the 1860s. It was an unexpected 12-14 celsius, with rain. No one else there at the city tramstop was prepared for the summer plunge. We were all very sad and grouchy.
Friday came along and was a slow day, where I caught up on housework and photo-processing. There was a wee Nana-nap in the afternoon, some lovely Chianti in my evening ...
4.30am Saturday morning.
I should have been sleeping. I wasn’t.
I tried but no, that was me, still awake when the alarm went off at 6.30am.
A mad dash, my bag packed (more or less), running from the house at 7.15am. I was on my way to Brussels to visit with a lovely family ... or two.
I’ve been enjoying my recent adventures to parts of Brussels I’ve never been in. Yes, it’s less compact than Antwerpen, difficult to navigate in some ways but those little villages within the city, like Ixelles and Stockel are so very worth visiting.
I was at Paola’s by midday and off on whole other adventure. An international group of sculptors, a presentation of their work to the city ... champagne, red wine, lovely nibbles, excellent company and enough space in the big open-sided tent when the heavens opened and the rain poured down.
Evening came and it was a girls night in ... a multi-national private event with excellent conversations. Oh, and the most delicious selection of food, accompanied by yet more champagne and red wine.
Bliss ... just the 4 of us.
I arrived home today, using that first class train ticket that only costs 4euro more return on the weekend. I love first class.
Now I’m just waiting for tomorrow morning ... for breakfast and a Nespresso.
I love my Nespreso machine.
Tomorrow ... the story of the machine. You might want to find someone else to read, just in case I lose myself in Gollum-like mutterings ... my precious, my precious, drool, and etc.
Oh ... and I had the pleasure of spending quite some hours hanging out with this sweet little man this weekend.
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…