to taste

if i were not too tired to be silly - i last awoke 38 hours ago - i might be tempted to say something about needing to "catch up".

ahem.

and hello.

semicolon.space.

"This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back in again."
-Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet, Novelist, Dramatist and Critic, 1854-1900)

There will be an English and a Dutch version of the Secret Amsterdam book come September or October, and I offered, in a mad moment, to proof-read both versions - the first because I am, after all, Canadian, and I did, after all and once upon a time, study journalism; the second because...well, just because.

64,979 words later (and not done yet), I am not exactly cursing that mad moment, but I am looking longingly at the sun between my noughts and my crosses.

eggs have no business dancing with stones

these pebbles - even as i approached them step by step, closer and closer, and watched them slide effortlessly into focus - justified my lugging this extraordinarily heavy piece of equipment across the channel. there is not a single mf camera in my cupboard that could capture these little stones so sharply, and effortlessly, from a few inches away, with just an 80mm lens and no attachments.

i like this mamiya very much indeed.

cream of asparagus

we three had finished our starters. tante, though, who is three years shy of her 100th birthday, savoured her soup at her own sweet pace, and when she perceived the waiter approaching, intent on preparing our table for the next course, she chuckled into her spoon.

"take your time!", she muttered. "we old ladies are abominably slow". as the waiter turned on his heel, she sipped - unruffled - further.

we do love her.

and maybe not.

i could hardly concentrate on the pictures wanting to be taken, there on the harbourfront at aberdeen, because an energetic, elderly-but-ageless little chinese entrepeneuse followed us everywhere we went.
"sampan? sampan?" she wheedled. "very cheap! very nice! see jumbo restaurant!". my husband, who has traveled extensively in china, answered - time after time - "maybe later!". and - time after time - she muttered "maybe later! ahh!" and paused in her pursuit, only to pop up moments later to try again: a relentless wrinkled shadow in a bamboo hat.

will you stay for tea?

i have been an inattentive hostess, but i am determined to lay my table with sweetness and delicacies again.
you are very patient, and oh-so-very welcome.

and the seasons

months, months have passed.
i am appalled at my own inexplicable neglectfulness.

the 13:15 at 13:25

if you're on your way to an appointment in, say, arnhem, and your train coupé bears a striking resemblance to this one: get off at the next stop.
this - the granny-smith-green-one - is the train to maastricht.

you want the mauve one.
trust me.

for the sake of posterity

my husband's parental home - a little self-made wooden house on the edge of a farmer's field - has hardly changed since i first made its acquaintance  as "the foreign girlfriend", 30 years ago.
it is still an oasis of old-fashioned "gezelligheid", small but with its space used well, full of light, a little less tidy since my father-in-law sadly found himself alone in his golden years.
and because it is on leased land, it cannot be inherited, so i wanted, needed to try coaxing the essence of it onto film.

ere the bonnie boat was won

a lot of time has passed - time at home, time in italy, time in norfolk, time happy, time distracted, time bright and time dreary - and i realised today that june will seem an empty month if i don't post now.

i sometimes wonder why i continue. but somehow i can't imagine not.