the summer idyll in the country...

Dear S1,
Here we are again in Sweet Normandy. The parents, S2, S3 and our male companions too. Not forgetting the cats whose fur is fluffy and fresh, they smell of cut grass...

Rouen yesterday had a highlight or two: the requisite perusal of antique books and a Kriek Tindermans beer in "Le Diplomate" next to the Palais de Justice, but the Macaron Glacé at "Les larmes de Jeanne" topped them all. We all tripped off our feet and into the air for a split second with the sugar rush. All of it coated in generous sunshine. Not so this morning, unfortunately we did not make a photo of us in our rain apparel which I am sure you would have enjoyed. Despite the precautions we got absolutely drenched and cut the walk short in an uncommon bout of sensibility that suddenly came over me. It was no doubt the cold drops of water running down my neck. Luckily there is the splendour of an "after rain walk" in which everything shines and sparkles as if it were gold.

We miss you all x and wish you were here to enjoy it with us. Unfortunately no Macarons Glacés are left but we do recommend you make a detour for one when you swing round.
Love and kisses,
S2

BOXES

I think the handwritten receipt for my two night-stay in the hotel in Antananarivo, Madagascar, year 1998 - can go. Neither do we need a box of skiing socks. They have since been replaced. And I don’t think I will use the logo of my Daniel Poole party shirt anymore. I cut it out and kept it (why?).

To tell you the truth, it is rather depressing going through boxes you have been storing for five years. It seems there is very little you are happy to be reunited with. Boxes full of dusty, pen-stained bags, bits of fabric I thought might come in handy one day -you know that day I learn to sew - and lots and lots of fuzzy pictures of me and my friends, looking particularly puffy and pasty faced, stuffed into yes, more boxes. The beauty of youth? It is a myth. That in itself is a depressing realization, especially as my memory served me better.

There is to be exact one unpacked box left, waiting near the door downstairs, filled with tangled cords and papers. I will leave it for a few months, I think.

But this is not to say there are not many unpacked items still to be found a proper place; like the collection of silver date-inscribed mugs, -serviette rings and letter openers. You have to keep those, but where? We are moving them from desktop to chair. I suppose the back of a drawer will do.

I have been living in a twilight zone of dust and stuff, all of us sneezing every morning and rubbing our itchy eyes. So I also fight the dust bunnies. Feeding my children sandwiches at all meals and myself glasses of deep red wine with dark chocolate. Now and then I leave the house during the day and am surprised to find people sitting on the terraces drinking a glass in the sunshine.

God, I hate moving.

The house is nearly a home, so the wine and chocolate will have to stop on a daily basis I suppose.

Love S1

Happy house or postcard from Prague

Dear S2,

I am in Prague with S3 and am staying in the Happy House.

We eat cake and coffee for lunch most days.

As our feet were prodded on the occasion of S3's birthday, we listened to the cheers of the ice-hockey fans who collected on the big square in red, white and blue and watched the Czechs win silver.

Then we ate again.

Love S1

A gush of positivity: SADE in Antwerp

Room 6.2.2. Somerset Place, halls of residence of Bath Academy of Art.

Dear Sisters,

Spring's here. I am feeling LOVED and LUCKY. Yesterday my love took me to see SADE in concert in Antwerp. And what a treat it was. The venue itself, a bit like a Roman forum or Yankee stadium in its scale and refreshment sales (the whiff of sweet smelling waffles everywhere instead of hotdogs) filled us with trepidation at first, for the sheer scale of it, and its carpark-like walking ramps designed to get 17000 people inside in a more or less orderly fashion...but everything went well, and people were generally in a great mood. There were a few fabulous creatures in the audience.

You can tell positivity attracts positivity.

When it happens on a scale such as this, you can only be impressed. Would the essence of the music melt away in the scale of the occasion? No way! The woman sang her heart out and we were all there to witness it. Straight to the heart. I can't tell you how wonderful that was and how important live music is. Also how music can capture and even frame a mood so skillfully, and encapsulate in it, and later unleash, whole passages of our existence, stirring old and new feelings and insights, dreams, hesitations, and healing memories.

Certain songs opened up a window for me onto times when I listened to her CD in 1993 having just arrived in an empty college halls of residence. This music, along with that of L'âme des Poètes, clothed my room and spoke of a new peace and beauty. Sade has an uncommon ability to let a woman feel good about herself. I'd sit on the windowledge looking out at the blue evening and need nothing more than the words and the music.

I can inform you that the concert is full of magic. If you get a chance to go, do. I know they are passing in Prague soon. Sisters, you won't be sorry. These days the possibilities of light and projected images are so much more evolved than the last large-scale concert I attended at Forêt National (The Cure, with you S1!). Here there are bells and whistles for sure but none take away from the music's honesty. I feel truly blessed.

I don't want to give away too much, in case you do go to see her, and her fabulous musicians, who are all featured generously. They also touch on the past visually, which is amazing, and endearing, and she literally takes the music to new heights.
Just take it from me.
S2
Watch a video here to have a taste once more.

video games.

"Mam, there are some things you can do better and there are some things I can do better", Jip said.

"Like, I can do all video games better and you can do everything else better."

This is true, of course.

On the rare occasion I am handed Jip's nintendo, Mario always ends up walking, walking, walking, against a wall.

"Ugh", Jip will sigh, and with a flick of the thumb, Mario will jump and run again.

Now, this was a long introduction to where I am in the resettling process.

This week I felt like Mario walking walking walking against that wall.

I have heard this is not abnormal after three months.

The logistics do not run smoothly, I have been overbooking my children, constantly on the bike to a friend, from an activity - street-dancing to fencing to dutch lessons and in between the kids are killing each other at high volume in an open playing field. Somewhere in there I lost my helicopter view and I dare not go in and get it.

There is a faint smell of sewer that keeps popping up in the bathroom of our high design flat, with built in coffee machine and wine fridge, it lingers, and all the machines have been tuned to beep when they are finished with their cycle, which is never at the same time, and continuous, it seems, making me a nervous person.

My main characters are whining on paper.



But other than that, all is well, spring is in the air, which makes all that cycling very pleasant if I should take a moment to enjoy it.



Beside Justin Bieber has penetrated these walls, and has given my children hope for a better future.

I have rushed out of bed in the morning, thinking I heard one of my children moan with pain, but it was only Jip singing along to the i-pod with the headphones on.

Taking street dancing lessons is obviously part of a bigger plan.



Rosie drapes herself over the table in adoration whenever they play this video.



Do I look like him, Rosie?, Jip asks. No way, Rosie says.

And this is how we come to sing Baby, baby ,baby, all day long.

Love S1,

Wednesday afternoon and looking for nature

Dear sisters,

I am recuperating. It is Thursday, the day after Wednesday.

As we are back in Holland, the kids only have a half day at school on Wednesday. A whole afternoon of fun potential yawning in front of us, each week.

It took a little adjustment. At first, it was still very cold outside, I tried to get them to entertain themselves inside, but it is too long from midday to bed and the walls cultivate tension. They have to be let out.

So I find myself cycling around town looking for bits of nature to let the children touch the earth and gulp in some fresh(ish) air.

It is a question of resignation; the price of city living. I just wish they could go on their own sometimes.

I cycled and found some nature here.



Here was a bit.



Here.




This was good spotting.



Here.



And here.




Alright, once out there, everyone feels better.

Still.

Eagerly awaiting a house with a playground at walking distance.

S1

city of strangeness and light

My dear sisters and anyone else who is reading this ,
I must greet you from the valley of central Europe with a ray of hope and sunshine in my writing that spring is very near.
The earth is waking up and the air smells sweet and earthy with sun shining everywhere.
A great advantage to living in the centre of the european continent is that it does not rain so often as it does at more coastal areas.
I really do love the light here.
But the wind is cold and windy , the warm spring air is still snoozing under a winter blanket , but atleast we have passed the continental minus seventeen and are now between three and eight degrees which feels almost tropical. ( actually today it was 12 degrees and sunny )

By the way , this is a dog i met when getting the best kafe latte in town form the best cakes shop in town. It happens to be near my school which is very convenient.
I liked how the colours of the dog matched the colours of the cake shop window cake.
This cakes place is a dream in itself , its about eighty years old and the interior is kept original to the 1930's classy style. The cakes are pricey but they are miracles to look at and the taste is heavenly. I always go there when i need a boost.
Please take a look at their website Erhartova
and fall inlove instantly with these painterly masterpieces of cakes.







I am glad to announce that i survived the dancing ball this year.
As you may or may not know , it is dancing ball season from december to march in Czech republic.
This is serious business.
There are many different sorts of balls, but all of them consist of a local band playing music, a dancing platform and a tombola.( Oh and a lot of alcohol seems to be present aswell) The Hunter's ball is quite a favourite because the first prize in tombola is a living pig. Many years ago i was hanging out with a hunting group of friends and we went to this ball and won a live white rabbit with red eyes. It was huge! about the size of a medium dog and quite angry so the friends just put him in a wooden hut in the garden as a pet. Yes , those were my wild hunting days. I remember them well.
This year it was the sports ball , and the first prize of the tombola was a bicycle.
We won two bottles of white wine from that region, which is quite good wine, there are lots of vinyards in the south of moravia.
Have you never heard of czech wine ? No ?
Well, now you have.
Anyway , moving on, let me give you the setting.
The ball was held in the cultural centre of the village where my boyfriend comes from.
The cultural centre is the local gym where basketball is played now and again because they dont have enough money to make a seperate building.
I thought that was quite fitting though for a sport's ball.

Dont worry , I was quite confused too in the beginning, not quite knowing what a sport's ball was and imagining I had to turn up in jogging gear and football boots.
But no, everyone dresses to kill , suits and silk dresses , mafia shoes, complicated hairstyles, high heels.
The lighting is not the best I have ever experienced, not really what you call ambient lighting, more just very loud neon lights blazing down onto your face making you squint and want to play basketball.
Too much light can slighty damage a social event, but as I already mentioned I survived.
The band consisted of one man with moustache on the keyboard , one man on the bass guitar and two women singing. It was terrible music. They played extremely slow.
Now im not known as a party pooper and I did get up and dance a few times, trying to make the best of the situation.
In the end it was actually quite fun and my boyfriend's friends were very nice and jolly once they got a bit of magic ethanol in their blood stream. The high light of the evening was when one of his friends won a huge dustbin with the tombola.
He got into his dustbin , closed the lid; got wheeled onto the dancing platform and made a little performance of appearing out of the bin. It was quite amusing.
No really, im being serious.



Since this cultural experience I have started to look at Prague the city with even more loving eyes. But dont get me wrong, I love the special charm of villages as well, just as long as I dont have to be there longer than a few days. I love the country air and all its freshness and glowing of cheeks. As in all countries in the world there is a big difference between rural and city life. Both are full of stories and interesting people.



The other day we went with a little group of 14 friends ( normal nice friends, not hunter gang or sports gang involved) for a day trip to the countryside. We walked ten km through lush forests to a pub where the food was scrumpcious ,and the service was friendly which is a real miracle over here. There was a castle in this village but we didn't manage to visit it as we had to catch the early train back to Prague. And anyway all castles are closed in winter months in Czech republic.



So we digested the other 8km in lovely late afternoon sunshine.
Whilst walking through the gorgeous forests we sometimes passed through a little village, which consisted of one cake shop completely full ( i think all inhabitants were inside this cake shop) and special architecture for an old people's home that actually resembles a specific czech cake that is pink and yellow.




Oh and this is the tv repair shop of the vilage, I thought that was quite funny how very high tech it looked.
We managed to lose one person , which is not too bad considering the big group. Ofcourse this person didnt have his mobile phone with him, and as we were a big group we only noticed he was missing at the train station. He made a wrong turning in the forest somehow , and when he finally got to the village he reported himself to the police as a missing person and kindly asked the police to ring his girlfriend, but she was already looking for him and phoning us to ask if he was already at the train station.
Anyway, all's well that ends well.
Half of the group went back to Prague on the early train which took only two hours and the other half went back on the later train which took three hours.





Luckily we were in the early train, fully confident they would find the missing person and secretly wanting to get back to Prague as soon as possible. 18 kilometres walk is quite tiring and so is a lot of fresh air.
We were all glad to get back to the wonderful city of Prague, full of culture , civilisation and old skiing men wearing shorts !



Apparently this man is famous in Prague ( Prague is a small city ) as the always shorts wearing man , whatever the weather.
Its like this other famous man i met in Kolin ( a big town about 50 km from Prague) who is known for parading his handmade wig which resembles a squirrel on his head.
I made a painting of him in his honour. I admire his pride.





And here is a lovely picture to end my brabbles.
Take care, lots of inspiration and love,
S3