The Problem With Teaching Photography ...

Gabrielle Fotos from Genova.jpg

The problem ... sometimes your lovely clients decide they might enjoy working through your  photo-phobia and take more than a few photographs of you.

But we had so much fun and I think Gabrielle captured that in her series. 

And one of our lovely waiters at Douce, suffering from the same kind of phobia as I, was also captured, there in the centre.

Thank you to Gabrielle.  I had to share.  She's good.

A Glimpse ...

I am taking time to settle back into my Belgian world, to recover from the intensity that was London.  And so much has changed here, and is continuing to change. 

We're moving.  The big house seems empty now that Jess, Sander and Miss 11 have moved out.  The entire top floor of this 3-storey home is empty.  The house is mostly quiet.  I'm reading, listening to good music, napping (just today), cleaning, working out future plans.

A glimpse of England's wild flowers ... taken when Kim, Andy and Patches took me to a divine English pub located on the edge of a village green and next to a river.



Miss 10 Captured Me ... in a dress

It may be that for the last 8 years, or more, I have refused to wear the dress Miss 10 knew that I had.

I'm not sure how it happened ... this fact that I had become more comfortable in trousers but it did.  I picked her up from school yesterday, wearing this dress in 30 celsius heat. I foolishly Facebooked the moment, just mentioning that I knew it would surprise her.

My friends ... they picked up on it in a way I didn't expect.  A photograph was demanded.  So here you have it, Miss 10 approving and me ... painfully posing.

Even I see that it's too amusing not to share.

The story of that dress ... when my first husband ended our marriage, I had to go onto welfare.  The solo mother's benefit.  I hated it but I was halfway through that university degree I'd begun aged 34. 

I found part-time work, went in to tell them that I didn't need welfare money anymore and the woman ... she was an angel, said that they had to give me an allowance to buy clothes for an interview.

I said, no, it's okay, I have a job.  She insisted, as my previous welfare person had messed up my payments so badly.

I found the dress, laughingly called it my princess of the pacific islands dress, and moved to Istanbul where I wore it for parent/teacher interviews.

Then, in 2006, I pulled it out when I got married to the Belgian bloke and was, once again, without money.

Fast-forward to 2015 and here I am wearing that magical dress again.  Things are changing drastically, here in my Belgian life ... updates to follow.