Kim, from Dragonlane, popped over from the UK and attended both my photography exhibition opening and my big fat celebratory birthday party.
She had her phone camera and captured some of the deliciousness that was Friday night's exhibition opening.
Her post, with photographs, delighted me.
My photography exhibition opened Friday night and it was astoundingly excellent.
There were so many good people, all in one place. I loved it.
We have 5 houseguests so life is busy however photographs to follow.
x
The new plan is the one where I seek out joy and beauty. I seem to have misplaced them. And I'm hoping the blog will reflect my success at a life well-lived and more considered in the weeks ahead. Let's see it.
Meanwhile, a beginning ... a late flowering of the Cosmos out in the garden here.
2 // take a break from your carefully packaged & organised life; suspend all the doing, sit amongst the shambles of half-read books and empty cups, let blessed rest find you.
Leonie Wise, lifted from her beautiful blog.
Murray left yesterday and I collapsed into a small pile of crumple today. I can do stuff ... I can but oh how I pay. Just till the iron medication kicks in.
I'm so impatient for it to work though. And so I was always going to love Leonie's wise words, suspend all the doing.
Although, rather than suspend all, I'm doing slowly and carefully, then resting. Multiple loads of laundry have been done today because ... it's 17 celsius here in Belgium. Unusual perhaps, or simply an Indian summer. It's good, as so many of my very best people are arriving on Friday.
Shannon and Erik are zooming over from Holland, Teresa and Kim from the UK, Jayne is coming and her Steve is flying back from Dubai, Ren and her lovely Norwegian are coming too.
Steven and Isabel, Martin and Gaby, Ellen and Anna, Marcia and her man ... I'm happy.
My photography exhibition has its official reception/opening on Friday night. Saturday night is the night of the birthday party. But honestly, it's mostly about my pleasure in catching up with these people I love.
I'm scared I've forgotten to invite some people and they need to contact me because I am haphazard at the moment. The anemia has surely caused problems with energy levels but also with concentration. And I thought it was enough to take the medicine and move slowly but it's the 'not doing' that is making me most crazy. It feels like someone has removed my larger station wagon motor and replaced it with the engine of a very small scooter.
Or that's the way I'm explaining this loss of forward motion.
Slowly, slowly ... let's see how it goes.
Leonie, thank you for the music too.
Murray arrived Tuesday and we've been incredibly busy in the days since then. Then yesterday, the Belgian bloke joined us and we headed for Flanders Fields.
First stop was in Mesen (Messines, in French) where we caught up with the remarkable Steven Reynaert, a treasured friend and highly respected historian, he was able to give Murray a sense of the history of WW1 in and around the area.
We were photographed with the NZ Soldier before leaving Mesen, as per the first image. Steven and Murray are there in the third image.
The middle photograph captures another favourite friend of mine out there in the Westhoek. Freddy Declerck is a truly special man and we were so fortunate in catching up with him in The Memorial Museum Passchendaele.
We had an early dinner in our favourite restaurant in Ieper - het Klein Stadhuis, as photographed below before rolling out the door and into the light drizzle, heading for the Menin Gate and the Last Post Ceremony. More to follow on that ...
It was a huge day. It was a good day.
An old friend from far-away flew in on Tuesday. I knew Murray back in those days when I was an airforce officer's wife living on that base surrounded by wineries located at the top of New Zealand's South Island.
So, since Tuesday, we've had years of stories to catch up on ... his teenage children, my move out of New Zealand too but despite so many years passing, 'all that time ago' still feels like only a few months have passed since our last meeting.
And so we have been talking as I've introduced him to Antwerp and life here. He's enjoyed Antwerp's incredible printing museum, the MAS ... the Red Star Line Museum too. The photo above was all about me taking photographs using Murray's phone camera ... some laughter was involved, as I messed up more than a few images, adjusting to this new way of 'seeing'.
He arrived just in time for my birthday ... which was yesterday, and it turned out to be one of those lovely days where I just kind of birthday-ed the day away. Quietly. Jess made me my mostabsolutelyfavourite cake in the world ... an orange cake, and I whipped up a big old dinner of Persian Chicken.
I'm around but busy, just for a few days before he wanders on into Europe. Stories shall surely follow.