The Price of Water in Finistère by Bodil Malmsten.

I'm in my garden in Finistère filling out change-of-address cards.  It's an afternoon at the beginning of September 2000, a  soft haze over the countryside.  The Atlantic is breathing tides and seaweed, the reassuring sound of the warning buoy like an owl.

I live in Finistère because I've moved here.  It wasn't by chance; for a woman of experience there's no such thing as chance.

Sleep with open eyes and you shall find.

... In the same way that there's a partner for every person, there's a place.  All you have to do is find your own among the billions that belong to other people, you have to be awake, you have to choose.

Extract from The Price of Water in Finistère by Bodil Malmsten.

Who could resist a book with an opening like that ...

I'm a reader who loves to fall in love with the opening paragraph.  I found this book today, by chance, in my favourite secondhand bookshop here in Belgium.  And fell in love.

I began reading it while waiting for the metro, read it as we slid through the underground on Tram 5, and will read it whenever I have a moment spare. 

It's beautiful so far.

Books Read Recently

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.
Jorge Luis Borges

All Kinds of Magic - A Quest for Meaning in a Material World, by Piers Ede Moore.  I also loved his first book, Honey and Dust, found after I had finished the first but entirely enjoyable in this wrong order too.

The Places In Between, by Rory Stewart.  Loved it, and it reminded me of a favourite book that I’ve carried with me since forever, William Dalrymple’s, In Xanadu - a Quest.

I love books where people set out walking, across countries.  The first 4 probably make this quite clear so I’ll move away from mentioning Cees Nooteboom and Ryszard Kapuscinski

Mornings in Jenin, by Susan Abulhawa, blew me away and left me exhausted at the end.  Beautifully written.  Actually, it reminded me of another old favourite, I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti.  Mourid is a poet who wrote his story in the most beautiful prose.  His second book has just come out.  I must find it. 

One of his poems appear on page 100 of my copy of the book.  I have never been able to forget this poem he wrote about his mother:
She wants to go to a planet away from the earth
Where the paths are crowded with people running to their rooms
And where the beds in the morning are chaos
And the pillows wake up crumpled,
Their cotton stuffing dipping in the middle.
She wants washing lines full and much, much rice to cook for lunch
And a large, large kettle boiling on a fire in the afternoon
And the table for everyone in the evening, its tablecloth dripping with sesame of chatter.
She wants the smell of garlic at noon to gather the absent ones
And is surprised that the mother’s stew is weaker than the power of governments and that her pastry in the evening
Dries on a sheet untouched by any hand.
Can the earth contain
The cruelty of a mother making her coffee alone
On a Diaspora morning?
She wants to go to a planet away from the earth
Where all directions lead to the harbour of the bosom,
The gulf of two arms
That receive and know no farewells.
She wants airplanes to come back only.
Airports to be for those returning,
The planes to land and never leave again.

I discovered Yasmina Reza’s book, A Year with Nicolas Sarkozy, and enjoyed it immensely.

But enough of books and me.  As I have worked here tonight, Gert has been discovering just how easy Squarespace is to work in ... this as he creates my new website.  It’s all rather exciting, almost as exciting as moving countries.

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.

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.

Trains, Friends and the tiniest mention of my Nespresso Machine.

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.

Colin Monteath, Photographer, Writer, Explorer

Chance encounters change lives. Close friends, passing aquaintances and even characters who emerge from old books often leave footprints across my heart. By opening mysterious doors, the influence of others has inadvertently altered the direction of my life.
Colin Monteath,  from Under A Sheltering Sky