for want of better words

I am developing Recipes Using The Oven (read: experimenting): how simple is this:
+++++++slice a courgette (that's zucchini to you transatlantics)
chop a red pepper, finely slice a to-ma-to (pronunication as you wish),
chop some garlic, disperse the lot in layers in a low oven baking dish
sprinkle with olive oil; herbes de provence in the different layers
cook for 25 mins; yum a licious.topped with scampi baked in olive oil with garlic curry sauce. Okay it is not haute cuisine, but a start.++++++++
Greetings from the Belgian front.

Blossomdoodie

hello there ladies. Yes, it has been a little quiet from my side, but then again, in the meantime, winter has burst into spring! The blossoms are popping into bloom and the buds are unfolding into leaves at a disturbingly high speed; in fact it all seems to be happening at once, enough to make the calmest among us dizzy. I can even sunbathe on my bed when I open the window wide enough.

I must go out and photograph some of that floral abundance, before it all flutters down.I discovered a secret garden near my house, in the middle of the city! I am delighted!!!and a great moroccan fish restaurant where they bake the superfresh fish you select and serve it with mouthwatering salads, olives and lemon. Yum!! Who said living in Borgerocco was a pain? It is in fact good for your health!!!

I have been having fairly quiet and rewarding days lately, respiring, inspiring the rays of spring. I think I can safely say I have a great view. In the morning I see the shadows of the houses move until there are none, the great space outside my window fills up with light from the sun. This morning the birds were making a joyous riot. You know I have a furry alarmclock who gets me up each morning around seven; he has various well-honed techniques. When the bedroom door is closed he is adept at wailing loudly and quite pathetically; enough to make your heart bleed. If perchance I left the door open and he is inside he plays catch the toes in the morning, which involves kitty claws, not an awakening I would recommend. Another favourite one is 'play with the pencil on the wooden floor' which I try to avoid because it might annoy my neighbour sleeping below. In fact I do get some graphic noises myself from canine creature living with neighbour above. Canine friend thrashes about with paws on the floor, maybe he has bad dreams?, making a polar bear in my dreams. Such are the amplificational qualities of wood.

What else can I say? Have you heard about my bathroom, it's down a little cubby hole spiral staircase behind a door in my bedroom which looks like a closet; it does everything to make my home be like a castle - and inside, when I lie in that bath tub, it feels like I am in a protective womb of the building. And then I hear distant horns beeping coming through the air duct.. and occasionally I hear someone cough. It reminds me when I revisit Henry Purcell or some Italian arias that quite possibly someone is listening. Great accoustics though!!

Slowly I am getting accustomed to my new home, and I am happy to say domestic flair is encouraged by beautiful surroundings.

I must close now; I am ambitious concerning an early start tomorrow. There is much to do, and much to say. I realise I have written quite a bit, about absolutely nothing. So it can't be that hard now can it?
Lots of love coming your way,
from the one in the middle
and now to find some chocolate, he he.

sint niklaas

Hello Girls,
Yesterday I strayed out into the outskirts of Antwerp, into another town in fact. That of Sint Niklaas. As you can imagine, in the middle of the town there is a square with a church which has a golden statue of St. Nicholas on its towering spire, as a beacon for the town and its identity. I have yet to go inside the church and see - our common Dutch history of celebrating sinterklaas, dear sisters, obliges me to - but as I am bound to return there quite frequently in coming weeks for a project I've just started, and a cellist who lives there whom I am yet to meet, this will be no difficult resolution to fulfill.


The person with whom I had met (prime St Nick contact!) has a brother who was being hounded by the media, because he is to perform a mass wedding ceremony, after some other people said they didn't want him to perform their marriage ceremony because he is black. This kind of thing happens frequently these days because people seem to be getting more and more racist in red-neck flanders. As a response loads of people came forward saying they want my friend's brother to renew their vows. Just to show that it is not all red neck, thank goodness. When I left the camera crew came in because they wanted to meet his brother - my friend - too. I like both of them -although brother just from first sight - because they are being so terribly down to earth and unimpressed about it all.

There is, I noticed, a very beautiful statue of a golden angel with outspread wings, near my prime St Niklaas contact's house. The wings, brilliantly reflecting the setting sun as I left, are topped with spikes to prevent pigeons from making them less brilliant.

I was quite hungry so I decided, before driving home, to stop for a bite to eat. By the time I had found my way back to the motorway I was so hungry I stopped at the shopping centre. I have heard of it by name but nothing could have prepared me for the sprawling consumption city state that lay before me. People wandering by as if in a street, looking serious, as if engaged in a fascinating activity of some urgency. As if, indeed, being there was an essential source of their wellbeing and happiness. A fulfillment of a certain destiny.

There are shops, broad avenues, restaurants (expensive ones!) dotted here and there. Whether it was my spaced-outness induced by hunger, or the novelty of the muzak-drenched experience of walking around this accomplishment of shopper's bliss, I do not know. One thing I do know is, that, when I wondered if art could exist here, I assumed it couldn't. Because everything in this enclosed place is programmed in function of this: the comfortable shopping experience geared towards profit. Most artists I know would wish to subvert this set-up, but in a closed system such as this it is hard to think how anything could be other than a lure for more and new consumers, perhaps even from the cultural class!

I, too, was tempted, and settled for a meal and a coffee. It was okay, the service was excellent, the food was so-so, the floors were shiny, the muzak sang in my head, as I tried to reach the door...I was drawn back in by curiosity, I kept saying to myself, chance brought me here, what am I doing? Until eventually I found myself back on the motorway to the sanctity of home and the grungy streets of Borgerhout.

Peace,

The Middle, equally pasty-faced, One