Gate-Climbing ...

It began harmlessly enough ... gate-climbing as soon as I worked out the 'how' of it. 

Another memory from long ago, quiet excitement ... a gap in the hedge that surrounded my childhood home.  They closed that up pretty quickly once they realised how I was slipping away.

Me and my trike, then my bike, traveled far and wide ... or as far as my lazy legs would carry me.  Then came the car and that seemed like the best freedom so far, until I flew over to Istanbul.  And zipped off to Rome.  Then ended up in Belgium, discovered France, Holland and every place else in Europe was easily reachable.

'Gate-climbing' on steroids.

Then Genova, Italy.  That place I keep on returning to ... since 2008.  That exquisitely ancient city surrounded by beautiful hills and the sea. 

These days I can wander where ever I want but I keep returning.

I'm flying this week. 

14 days in that city I love ...

Listening to The Sweet Remains these days, specially Ghost in the Orange Blossom Air.

About the long silence ...

I've been writing blog posts here ... then deleting blog posts, since finding out I have this iron deficiency.

I am consumed, these days, by the anemia.  So frustrated.  To the point where something about it slips into every post I try to write and I get so far through, see I've been whining, and delete.

Perhaps I just need to write, getting over the block and accepting it all as a timely life lesson.  Perhaps I shouldn't try to do everything all of the time.  Perhaps I should have taken vitamins, rested more, eaten more sensibly. 

I wish I had. 

I was raised in a particular way.  We like to ignore these impediments.  I broke my navicular bone, they missed the break on the x-ray, told me to walk on it ... and I did, till they found it.

A hospital once sent me home with a burning hot, bright red swollen knee.  No accident to report in New Zealand, no treatment.  See your GP. 

He was enraged on my behalf.  I had cellulitis.  There was me, so embarassed by being sent home from the hospital, that I walked on it till he could see me.  Six courses of antibiotics later ...

But anemia.  You actually can't push through it.  Or I can't.  Every time I over-do it, I pay.  It's like I can't cheat here.  It's 4 months until the doctor retests my iron levels.   Gert suggested this was because my level of iron deficiency was such that it would take that long.  He thinks I should be patient.

I think I have to be.

To add to the misery of this, coffee and red wine interfere with iron uptake.  I laughed as I wrote that.  Can you believe it???

And I know it's minor but minor usually means I can find a way round it.  I can't.  I'm slowinggggggg right down, trying to accommodate this difficult guest.

However today a lovely client-to-be filled me with inspiration.  I've been working here at the computer, plotting and planning, all day.  Taking facebook breaks when breaks were required.  Cleaning a little ... knowing fish and chips are booked in as that unhealthy but simple dinner tonight.

A good day after a series of epic days lately.  The Belgian Bloke crashed into bed with 3 intense days of fever, he spent something like 53 out of 64 hours sleeping, and was only just on his feet when he returned to work after a week. 

In fact so much goes on behind-the-scenes here that sometimes I'm tempted to share it all but it's always too whiny.  And so ... let's see if I've turned a corner.  The stairs to my office are noticeably easier ... small steps, Diane.  Small steps.

I've been searching out photographs from years past, for a 5-day challenge on Facebook, and found this one.  A  favourite of mine.

 

Scenes from My Photography Exhibition

It's taken me a week to even make an attempt to write about the weekend that was because it was overwhelming ... sublime, full of friends and laughter.  It was full.

The photography exhibition went right to the wire, in terms of preparedness.  I may have overcommitted myself a little but that's my style.  I should know this thing about me by now.  We had 6 house-guests over the 3 days but that was pure magic as well.  I know so many good people.

Teresa arrived first, over from London and we had much to talk about.  There I was cooking bacon and egg savouries for the exhibition opening, writing up descriptions for the photographs that Gert and Sander had helped me hang in the morning, drinking a little red wine from New Zealand, while Teresa and Miss 10 tied ribbons around little packets of postcards by Di.

Ren and Egil flew in from Norway.  Shannon and Erik drove over from Holland.  Kim also came in from England and before I knew it, it was all on.  Cars, directions, trams, even bicycles.  People arrived at the reception.

Hilde, from the Choice New Zealand shop here in Antwerp, was hosting the exhibition, and she made sure that the New Zealand wine flowed, as did tasty little NZ inspired snacks.   Friends and family just kept on arriving and my heart sang.

But perhaps you get a sense of the atmosphere, the good people, the beautiful evening via this selection of photographs taken by Kim and Teresa.  I'm so grateful.  I'd love to have documented it but I was too far into it all, as warned when I mentioned I might take my camera. 

So very into it.  Thank you to everyone who came out and supported me.

A Communicative Moment ...

In the modern world, parched of ritual and starved of mystery, we don't register these communicative moments as often as we might. The idea of a conversation with a landscape is foreign to minds schooled in the separation of humans and nature. Well-seen photographs, wrought in the attuned moment, can help us renew the connection. They invite us to the necessary work of addressing the land.

An edited extract reproduced with permission from Spirit of the South by Andris Apse.

The article is so very worth reading.  I miss the wilderness here in Belgium.  It is one of those lands that have been peopled forever - New Zealand's precise opposite perhaps.

I'm off to Genova soon.  It can't come too soon.  I miss the Ligurian sea, the hills that almost surround the city, the caruggi and the people too. 

And the espresso.  How could I forget the espresso.

But a photograph I found when I was back home in New Zealand.  I was photographing the hot pools in Rotorua and captured a Taniwha.

What else could it be ... Taniwha are supernatural creatures whose forms and characteristics vary according to different tribal traditions. Though supernatural, in the Māori world view they were seen as part of the natural environment. Taniwha have been described as fabulous monsters that live in deep water. Others refer to them as dragons – many taniwha looked like reptiles, had wings and ate people. They could also take the shape of animals such as sharks, whales, octopuses, or even logs. Some taniwha could change their shape, moving between different forms.