ceci n'est pas une cuisine...

Finding your way... via Artist's Way

2012-01-27T10:08:00.003+01:00

Michael N over at Sustainably Creative will be working through the Artist's Way (for a 5th time!) starting in February. Members of SC -- new are welcome -- are invited to join.

I'm not a member of SC (yet) but I think it is a great blog, it's one of the few I look at regularly. Well worth checking out. And this is an excellent opportunity to work through the Artist's Way in good company. I have to confess I have never done the entire process "properly"... Although I have used the book on and off for the past ten years, I skip and jump around and, with full awareness, heartily ignore the parts I'd prefer to avoid!

Now open

2012-01-26T18:17:00.000+01:00

- the Mslexia short story competition. Details here.

Tessa Hadley judging; closing date 19 March 2012.

When the sky is grey for three whole days

2012-01-26T09:50:00.000+01:00

it feels like everything else too is losing its colour. #smallstone

Little red flags

2012-01-25T07:50:00.000+01:00

As promised:

You don't really notice at first. The weather has been so bleak and you get used to seeing the bare, pruned-down stems. But actually, there's a lot going on... The sprouting bits, I don't know what they're called - don't they look like little red flags?

All the pruned rose stems

2012-01-23T14:45:00.003+01:00

have little red shoots coming out of them. #smallstone (photo tomorrow, weather permitting)

Spider

2012-01-20T09:53:00.000+01:00

in the corner of the hallway. My little secret. #smallstone

Pancake Day Sneak Preview

2012-01-18T13:39:00.001+01:00

Is this a pancake or what?

And the flip side...

Are you ready for this, EFC?

Winter white

2012-01-16T09:48:00.000+01:00

Don't know what these are called but they are all over the place at the moment.

Wish the photo quality was better! The camera on the HTC is nowhere near as good as my lovely little Sony Ericsson (the one that I put in the wash)....

No one else up

2012-01-15T09:12:00.002+01:00

Just me and the airplanes crossing the smooth blue sky. #smallstone

Saturday run

2012-01-14T13:43:00.000+01:00

Right foot shadow, left foot sun.#smallstone

The Slog

2012-01-13T13:03:00.000+01:00

Work in Progress Update: Just made a submission to my writers workshop of two more (or less) chapters in the work in progress. Still don't know what I'm doing most of the time. In case you're wondering. No one really talks much about this part of creating a novel. Maybe it's different for everyone. For me it is much much harder than I ever imagined. Every so often I cobble a few thousand words together, and it starts to feel like "something". That part feels pretty good, but in between those moments it is a real slog, and I wonder if the good part will ever return. So far it does, but it's a huge act of self-confidence, and faith in the creative process. I'm not even sure I care about how "good" it is anymore. I just want to be able to say I wrote this thing from start to finish - especially the finish. I want to get to those two magic word, THE END, with a minor amount of self-respect and satisfaction. Then, don't worry, I'll shut up about it already!

WW2 First-hand info resource

2012-01-12T12:51:00.000+01:00

Just found a fantastic on-line Second World War resource: an archive of first-hand recollections, gathered by the BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/categories/ The archive contains 47,000 stories... Thank you BBC from someone who can't easily get to a decent English-language library!

Small stones

2012-01-02T18:19:00.002+01:00

Did I mention I was doing this again? What are you going to do in 2012?

Spotted

2012-01-02T18:07:00.000+01:00

The robin again, in the bare tree branches of the garden, trilling away. #smallstone

Fox

2012-01-01T17:50:00.000+01:00

Deep in our beds, and a fox begins to bark. And bark.
What kind of omen is that for the coming year?

It's a beautiful day

2011-12-19T07:59:00.001+01:00

Don't let it get away.

As thinking people and as humans

2011-12-18T12:43:00.001+01:00

The tributes have been flowing and as someone who has only cracked the surface of one of his books, I wasn't sure what to say until I found this quote.

[W]e have the same job we always had, to say, as thinking people and as humans, that there are no final solutions, there is no absolute truth, there is no supreme leader, there is no totalitarian solution that says that if you will just give up your freedom of inquiry, if you would just give up, if you will simply abandon your critical faculties, a world of idiotic bliss can be yours.

I am nowhere near his level but the older I get the more I am convinced that we have to think, we have to use our noggins, we have to resist the allure (and the lie) of safety in materialism, the bliss of ignorance, and anything resembling dogma.

Norm at normblog has links to a variety of tributes.

RIP Christopher Hitchens.

Source: Hitchens' acceptance speech of the Atheist Alliance of America's Richard Dawkins Award, reprinted in the Observer.

For What It's Worth

2011-12-07T08:39:00.001+01:00

I have now told several colleagues that I am writing a novel. I never really did this before, talk about my "alternative world" to the professional one. But I don't see the point anymore of the separation. The two spheres don't compete. In point of fact they rather balance each other out.

In an interview with the Guardian, Siddhartha Mukherjee said he wrote The Emperor of All Maladies

in 15-minute bursts, snatched from scrag ends of his working day. "But the book was also a conversation going on in my head," he quickly adds, "so I'd write after thinking for five hours."

I appreciate that. A little every day is my motto. (See Sustainably Creative for more about that.) I am trying to stick to a minimum daily of word count production of 270, 5 days a week. Any more is a bonus; any less is not something to beat myself up about because if I can't do the 270 there is usually a very good reason. I have reached my goal for the first month of this project -- the draft is now at 10,000 words.

Talking about writing when you don't have an agent, a publisher, a contract or really know anything about it feels kind of pathetic, close to cringe-making. I feel all too aware that there are a lot of people around who like the sound of, who like being able to say, they are writing a novel. I don't want to become one of those or create that impression. I'm blogging about this for no good reason at all. I've decided to see if I can do this thing and it's in my nature to document the process. It may well end in tears or go up in smoke, who the hell knows.

Hidden Brussels

2011-11-25T17:29:00.001+01:00

Built by the friends of Odilon-Jean Périer:

(The price of a thought.)

(Whoever hears me sing keeps me alive.)

Can you name this spot?

On the horizon....

2011-11-19T12:10:00.000+01:00

I've done this twice - January and July last year. It's not only a great eye-opening experience, it's also fun.

Curious? Interested? Find out how to join in the River of Stones here.

A jam pot, consommé secrets and bravo to Robert McCrum's "Ikea fiction" column

2011-11-14T12:14:00.001+01:00

Another year to heaven as of yesterday. Two friends gave me a beautiful copper pot the size of Kentucky.

They said it is for making jam. Have never made jam. Don't know the first thing about jam except it's sticky.

If making jam is like making consommé however, I'll be happy to start. Here's today's batch getting going:

It's really like giving a chicken a really good bath. Here by the way is a recipe for a good version by Jamie O. He says his mother's secret ingredient is a rasher of bacon. Hm. I've got meat in mine, down at the bottom where you can't see it - about a kilo of stewing beef. But I would say my secret ingredient is that I stuff the chicken with onion or leek - really stuff the hell out of it. I'd shove a carrot in there too if I could.

Finally, bravo to Robert McCrum in yesterday's Observer deploring "Ikea culture" fiction. I get so sick of hearing/feeling/breathing the idea that everything has to make money, that there is no other validity. Ironic, however, isn't it, that the thing Ikea is arguably best at is... bookshelves.

The Creative Collection

2011-11-11T10:32:00.001+01:00

From time to time I realize again how necessary balance is. Sometimes I have to give more time and energy into what I do for a livelihood than usual, and what happens is that the part of me that really makes me feel me/good/true gets the short end of the stick. A couple of days out of balance, and -- like being out of the office a few days and returning to a mountain of email -- it takes awhile to right the balance again. I like my day job but it isn't my raison d'etre. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to have convergence there. Would I start to detest/resent my creative projects, since they would now be the source of my livelihood? Or would I be just so excited, that I was doing something I loved and it sustained me? Well, that's a question I hope to be able to address later. In the meantime, when I get out of sorts, when I haven't been able to devote even 5 minutes in the morning to my notebook (grrr), sometimes I go to the following places to help get me back on track, and remind me where true north lies....

Sustainably Creative with Michael Nobbs
The Creative Intelligence Blog with Orna Ross
Path of Possibility with Sage Cohen
Zen Habits with Leo Babauta
The Art of Non-Conformity Blog with Chris Guillebeau

I don't always comment on their blogs but I am always grateful to their wisdom, succintness, and capacity to share their experience.

Poets in Pyjamas

2011-11-09T17:45:00.000+01:00

I said I would write about my on-line poetry class and today's your lucky day. First of all, it's a great concept for someone like me, writing in English, living in a place where English is not the native language, and resources for anglophone writers, let alone poets, are rare. I can't reasonably get to London, the closest/easiest place, on a regular basis (not yet anyway), so face-to-face options are out. The on-line format bridges all of these gaps and I think it can only get better (1) as technology improves and (2) the school gets more and more experience in doing this. We do an on-line chat through a secured space set up by The Poetry School, not a lot of bells and whistles with the interface, but it works. Assignments are posted and forums run on the PS site, and I have to admit I haven't done much on the forums - but neither has anyone else. I think this is a question of time because who frankly who has it? Not me...It would be nice in theory but in practice, I'm squeezing every hour for all of its potential writing time, especially on the weeks when we have an assignment to do. That's a poem in a week - the assignment is put up and we have a week to complete it and upload. Writing weeks alternate with chat weeks and I really like/need that break. The chats are fortnightly on a weeknight evening and this is where it gets really ticks all the boxes: I attend the class from the comfort of my own home, and no one can see me so I can wear my pyjamas if I want (and believe me, I want), and no one can hear me either so I can call out to the kids that it's time to brush their teeth or get in bed etc, or will somebody please come and make me a cup of tea. For all I know the entire class is in pyjamas to which I can only say: bring it on! Sure, we the participants probably don't know each other as well as we might if it were face to face, but on the other hand I'm there every two weeks from Belgium with people from all over England and one from Ireland, and have not once been late. Anyone who knows me in the real world will appreciate that.

That's all I have time for now but next up I'll talk about the substantive experience. Anyone out there doing something similar? Would love to hear from you.

A year ago, a year ahead

2011-11-01T13:23:00.002+01:00

A public holiday here in Belgium, Toussaint in French (All Saints in English). It's a full-fledged autumn day with blue sky, white clouds, full-spectrum foliage. And, I just realized, one year ago I embarked on NaNoWriMo. It was a funny year to do NaNoWriMo because it seemed like that was the year it broke into the mainstream, so that even people who aren't writers heard about it, and debated its pros and cons as though they knew anything about writing fiction. I won't be doing NaNoWriMo this year because, astoundingly enough, I am working on the second draft of the 50,000 words I churned out this time last year. This is painstaking work, the work of choosing the right words, the work of balancing a structure so that it stands, the work of finding time in which to do the work, and being mean about it, even snarling and hissing perhaps, when that time is threatened or encroached on. This is not the work of a month but more like a year, if I can manage. In fact 2011 was supposed to be my Personal Novel Refining Year. It didn't work out that way but there's no stopping that year from commencing now, today, instead of January 1, is there? In a way that makes perfect sense. Start where you are, calendars be damned. Yes. I like that.

Consommé 2

2011-10-20T15:16:00.000+02:00

The pot went into the "outside fridge" last night and, as I feared, this morning I had consommé jelly. Despite having jellified, all the fat seemed to have risen to the top, unlike the last time I made stock and the fat never separated from the rest of the liquid. It was very strange, and the reason why I haven't done this since. It was disgusting. But with this batch the fat was obvious (and copious), and I scooped it off with a spoon and threw it away.

I'd left some of the stock inside in another bowl and that, too, had separated nicely. There were nice swirly paisleys of fat on the surface of the liquid (not having been put outside, this one hadn't jelled). Skimmed that right off.

I may put it all through a muslin one more time once the jelled batch comes up to room temperature. I used some of the inside batch in a risotto just now - it needed salt, as I hadn't added any at all, but not much. A little salt brought the flavour out very nicely.

One thing that surprised me was that even after simmering for hours, the meat and chicken from the pot were not inedible. I used a simple boiling chicken and pieces of beef that looked like shin (there was meat and bone, I kept the meat on the bone) that were labelled "à bouillir". All came plastic-wrapped from the local GB, no special butcher, no fancy breeding, nothing! (The GB is the local supermarket. I have no idea what the letters stand for.) Again, all that was needed was a bit of salt. Maybe because I kept the simmering very very low, so did not boil the absolute hell out of everything? Who knows. But it was a nice surprise after a long day when, although I'd been cooking up a storm, I really hadn't properly eaten anything.

To be continued...

Consommé

2011-10-19T22:24:00.000+02:00

Time is getting away from me. I'm still getting my 5-minutes-at-least with my notebook on a bench, but haven't reported anything here - for example, how the online course is going. I will try to do that soon. For some reason consommé caught my imagination this morning, so I have had a pot of beef and chicken simmering all afternoon. Why? I really don't know. For something that just sits and boils it's making quite a mess. The skimming and straining are not to be underestimated.

However, it does smell terrific.

Meanwhile, I am preparing some pumpkin sauce in advance for a lasagne. I've just spent the better part of one hour seeding, peeling, and chopping pumpkin into 3 cm cubes. The recipe claimed to be easy. Someone needs to clarify "easy". Simple? - yes. Rudimentary? - yes. Tedious? - beyond belief. I don't think I'll be doing pumpkin again in a while.

Check back later for the results - one more straining through the muslin for the broth, and then it sits through the night so I can skim off the fat in the morning. Fingers crossed. The pumpkin sauce is simmering away very nicely. At last. And now it's time for a glass of wine to get me through the dirty dishes.

What is wrong with my country??

2011-10-01T17:01:00.000+02:00

Today, I've been reading posts on We Are the 99 Percent. Read some. Read some more. I could SO EASILY be among those posts... I am simply bloody lucky and feeling grateful every day for where I live and the opportunities I have.

What's the matter with the US? Not only do I have a job, but what's more, with a Belgian contract I have protection for that job (which I needed desperately earlier this year when my American-based employer would have preferred to get rid of my position ASAP and pay as little as they possibly could in compensation, too bad for me ... My children and I were figures on a spreadsheet as far as they were concerned). Oh, and health care. So I don't have to worry if I need an ambulance or break my leg. Or my kids do. I can't understand for the life of me what some Americans have against health care... America, who already spends so much money on health care, the whole country could be covered. It is sad. I pay what some consider "a lot" in taxes but you know what? Not worrying about getting sick or changing jobs and staying insured is totally worth it.

If I have to hear one more time from someone about how the unemployed "deserve" to be unemployed, that they simply aren't doing enough, that there must be something wrong with them, or that universal health care is some kind of oooo-hooo scary socialism that will "ruin" America, I will throw up. The country is being ruined but certainly not by legislation ensuring that employers don't run riot over their employees, or by making sure that the citizens of this very rich country have access to health care.

Go Occupy Wall Street !

We are the 99%. (Photo credit)

UPDATE: Occupy Wall Street protests grow.

Boldy going where I have not gone before...

2011-09-29T12:32:00.000+02:00

Wheee... I just uploaded my first assignment for my Poetry School course, a completely on-line course taught by Katharine Towers. Not only have I never taken an on-line course before (we meet every two weeks in a chat forum thingy, drop into the forums to see what's going on in between times, get assignments through a special website), but I have never taken a poetry course before. I've done workshops but nothing like this, with theory and everything... with other people who are also interested in things like the music of words and the science of the sense of sound (see here for example) and willing to put time and money into the experience.

I'm kind of worried how I'm going to hole up on Tuesday evenings for two hours right around dinner time, but will deal with that later.

I'm going to take a moment instead to plug The Poetry School because I think it's worth it. Originating in London, the PS was founded in 1997 by Mimi Khalvati, Jane Duran and Pascale Petit with the aim of providing structured, high quality teaching programmes for adults to develop their poetry. Check it out, poets!

And because I now work with foundations, I'm also going to praise the Poetry School's funders: Arts Council England, the Garfield Weston Foundation, the Garrick Trust and the Granada Foundation, as well as its programming partners: the Bluecoat arts centre, Cadaverine Magazine, the Poetry Book Society, Waterloo Quarter, the Wordsworth Trust and Writers' Centre Norwich. These courses don't cost an arm and a leg and I am very very very grateful for it!

Service With A Smile

2011-09-27T12:48:00.000+02:00

Last night trying to do some online banking, a friend of mine got a message that his digipass didn't work and that he should use the new card reader he was sent. Now, my friend had received several emails about this new toy but never received one. So he went into the bank, asked what was up and was informed that they had sent one in July to his address in the UK. My friend had made clear to them on at least two previous occasions, however, that everything should be sent to the Brussels address, not the UK address. So the card reader made the third time they sent stuff there.

So my friend says, "OK, fine, just give me a reader."

"That'll take ten days sir."

"Ten days? I tell you what, don't order one, I'm closing my account."

At this point the bank clerk burst into tears and begged him not to.

No, she didn't. She simply replied, "Would you like to close it right now?"

ING Bank: reaching all-new lows in customer service. Score: A big fat F, especially because the only time the bank clerk was actually helpful was when my friend said he was closing his account.

Dear Facebook, It's Over, and It's Not Me. It's You

2011-09-25T12:30:00.000+02:00

I logged into Facebook today after not being on for a couple of weeks. FB saw fit, while I was gone, to change its interface again, but why? What was wrong with the old one? Why does FB mess about with its users so much? Whatever happened to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" ? I've been glad to be able to be in touch so easily with family and friends but over the years of Facebook use I have come to detest the experience - not the content, but the constant tampering with privacy settings, status updates, and the whole way one uses the website - and and I don't know whether I will continue. I'll continue to feed my blog posts there for whatever that's worth, as I do for Twitter; I used Twitter for about a month back in 2009, then never again and never looked back. I wonder if FB realizes, it has a lot of users but MySpace once did, too, and where's MySpace now? Like MySpace, FB was a phenomenon, an intersection of time and interest and dumb luck, as far as I can tell, on behalf of the people who created it. The next new thing will come, technology will move on, as with this new thing with Google, or something else, and the crowd will follow.... Does FB not understand that no one loves it, but simply puts up with its crap? And that as soon as something better comes along, FB will be dumped, willfully and joyfully, like the boyfriend/girlfriend you finally realized wasn't that into you? FB isn't that into us - FB is into the money it earns from our mouse-clicks and our page-views and the fact it can say it has so many bazillion users. It doesn't respect us however (example: the privacy setting manipulations, or try to de-activate your account and see how far you get!). I've been able to get something out of the deal up until now, and maybe you have, too, but for me the balance has tipped. Sorry, FB, but you don't bring me flowers anymore and the ones you used to bring me, frankly, weren't all that great to begin with.

And we're up!

2011-09-20T12:25:00.001+02:00

My friend Vincent made this video of my glove poem.

Enjoy!

Don't forget, if you can identify the Brussels-based location of my own glove's cameo appearance, I'll treat you there.

Nearly There...Glove

2011-09-19T18:23:00.000+02:00

At last! After sufficient incubation and reflection, Vincent will release our Losing A Glove, poem by me, images by him, tomorrow.

He's the same guy who did my Button (or here, if you want to hear him reading).

If you like what you see you might well like to check out his other stuff - it isn't all poems! V also blogs - you can find his latest post in a link on the right side-bar, or here's the link.

None of the auditioned gloves made the cut, but if anyone can recognize the venue of my own glove's cameo appearance, I'll treat you there. Write in with your guesses from tomorrow.

Mmm... could this (or something like it) be yours?

Poems on the Metro!

2011-09-17T18:59:00.005+02:00

Just heard about this –

Beginning 26 September, the European Day of Languages, a variety of European poetry will be displayed in the Brussels metro.

The project will run for a month, and features 21 poems from 21 European countries in 18 languages. Poems will appear alongside a translation in French and Flemish.

This is being brought to us by Transpoesie, a project whose partners include STIB (the local transport authority), the House of Literature Passa Porta, the Polish Presidency of the European Union.

Names I recognized from the list of poems on Transpoesie's website were Sinéad Morrissey and Ryszard Krynicki, but the project's press release says that includes both aspiring and established poets.

Pretty cool and about time - London's Poems on the Underground has been running for years. Now, if we can get them on the trams and buses too?

Best news I've had all week + photos

2011-09-15T12:24:00.001+02:00

There's an opening in the online course (from the Poetry School) I've was on the waiting list for. ‘Poetry & Music: A goblin walking quietly over the universe'. Ah, maybe a force/the universe/something does respond after all to our calls for help. Now to see if schedule still permits!

My very own goblin...

... in her very own universe.

Grr

2011-09-14T07:53:00.000+02:00

I need these today.

O.M.G. Forget the plums -

2011-09-13T22:13:00.002+02:00

must make this cake.

What I found while being writerly today

2011-09-12T14:23:00.002+02:00

Excerpts from an Interview with N. Scott Momaday.*

1. When asked, "Why poetry?"...
"Poetry is the crown of literature. I think it's the highest of the literary arts. To write a great poem is to do as much as you can do in literature. Everything has to be very precise. The poem has to be informed with motive and emotion. You're bringing to bear everything that literature is based upon when you write a poem. A poem, if it succeeds, brings together the best of your intelligence, the best of your articulation, the best of your emotion. And that is the highest goal of literature, I suppose. I think of myself as a poet, I'd rather be a poet than a novelist, or some other sort of writer. I think I'm more recognized as a novelist, simply because I won a prize. But I write poetry consistently, though slowly. And it seems to be the thing that I want to do best. I would rather be a poet than a novelist, because I think it's on a slightly higher plane. You know, poets are the people who really are the most insightful among us. They stand in the best position to enlighten us, and encourage, and inspire us. What better thing could you be than a poet? That's how I think of it."

2. On the work of writing...

"I wanted to succeed. I wanted to write well, and I tried to. I applied myself. I think that writers haven't much choice. You know, if someone really has the impulse to write, then that's what he must do. I don't think there's much of a choice. After the impulse is realized, he writes. And that's how I feel about my development. I think that I was compelled to write, and so I never had the choice of doing anything else, really. I was talking to some kids today and they were talking about happiness. One of them said "I'm going to Harvard and I'm going into science, I'm not sure that's really what I want to do. I want to be happy., and I might be happy doing any number of other things." I thought, that's true in a way. But if you are really compelled to write, that's where happiness is. It's in doing what you can do, and being the best you can be at it. That's what really makes for --.I don't know if I'd use the word happiness, but contentment. There's a lot of frustration in writing. I heard an interview with a writer not long ago in which the interviewer said, tell me, is writing difficult? And the writer said, oh, no...no, of course not. He said, "All you do is sit down at a typewriter, you put a page into it, and then you look at it until beads of blood appear on your forehead. That's all there is to it." There are days like that. But when you come away after two or three hours with a sentence, or two, or three and you understand in your heart that those are the best sentences you could have written in that time, there is a satisfaction to that that is like nothing else. That justifies everything. I think that there are people who have a kind of intrinsic love of language. They're born with it. It's a gift of God, if you want. For those people, nothing is as gratifying as writing. In my experience, most people who have had that gift know it, and they celebrate it. I think Emily Dickinson knew absolutely that she had a great, great endowment, and that was her life. It is incidental that she only published five or seven poems in her lifetime."

3. On what other people think...

"When I first started publishing, I was deeply concerned with what other people thought of my writing, but then came to realize, just as you've said, that a lot of people are not going to like what you do, no matter what it is. If some do, you're all right. I was extremely lucky, because early in my career I was given a lot of recognition. ... [Asked if criticism affects his work, his ideas:] No longer. At one time it made a difference, I paid close attention to it. Now I don't so much.... it's dangerous to go around reading opinions of your work, of your worth. You can get in trouble doing that. It's best to shut that off and get on with your work."

*Don't know who that is? I didn't either. Google is your friend.

A cake for when the plums come in

2011-09-08T12:36:00.001+02:00

The plums are here... late, it seems, but maybe all the good sweet things seem late when your summer has been so wet. (Or as Clover would say, a big bummer.)

I love those little green Reine Claude gems of the plum world.

I often make "summer cake" (from Nigel Slater's 'Appetite') this time of year, but I had such success with my Nigel Slater recipe hybrid (details here), and a lovely colleague asked specially for the recipe, that I thought I had better try it again and this time, write down what I was doing. So I did. Let me know if you make it and how it turned out!

A cake with plums
(thanks for the motivation Azi!)
Ingredients:
butter, room temperature, 175 g
caster sugar 175 g
3 eggs, room temperature
the zest, finely grated, and juice of 1 lemon
plain flour 175 g (I used farine de patisserie, which sounds fancy only because it is French; it is the local bog-standard flour for baking. It is the equivalent of what the Brits would call plain or cake flour - there is no added leavening. For the Americans good old all-purpose will do the trick; but if so, do not use the baking powder or baking soda I include here)
ground almonds 100 g
1/4 teaspoon (cuillère à café) baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons (cuillère à soupe) plain yogurt
300 g plums - quartered, stoned, roughly chopped

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180C/35F.
2. Grease and line your favourite cake tin - I used a spring form I think of about 23 cm diameter.
3. Beat together the butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, combining well after each addition.
4. Separately, combine the dry ingredients with a whisk or a fork (or I suppose you could sift them).
5. Add the dry ingredients to the butter-sugar-eggs mixture - be thorough but gentle, you don't want a tough cake.
6. Stir in the yogurt, then the plums (and their juices) and the lemon juice and zest.
7. If the batter doesn't seem wet enough, add some more yogurt.
8. Pour the batter into your prepared pan and bake for about 30-45 minutes. (I don't think it will be done in 30, but check just in case.) You may have to cover the top with greased paper if it starts to get too brown (it will depend on your oven).
9. Check the cake with a toothpick, feel for firmness and nothing soggy sticking to the toothpick when you pierce the cake. Let it rest in the pan for 5-10 minutes, then turn out onto a pretty plate.
10. Douse the top with powdered sugar - which I did but forgot to take a photo of.
11. Note, it is pretty good warm as the fruit will be all warm and that is lovely.

Back to the roundabout

2011-09-05T14:00:00.002+02:00

A bright September morning, and I'm at the roundabout Albert Leemans again for the first time in ages. All of the dilapidated benches have been replaced and there is no sign of the burly man who made on bench his home for most of April, May and June. The woman with the little white dog was there, though. It would take much more than a burly homeless man to budge those two. In the turf wars of last spring, coward that I am, I abdicated almost right away. I became the benchless one, with no where to go for my morning coffee and 15 minutes of mind-peace, and left one (elderly) woman and her pet to defy the interloper. I pretty much don't even have a right to be here, do I? Next time I will ask her how she managed it.

It takes me 9 minutes from the bench at Albert Leemans to the tram stop to get to the office. Sometimes all I have time for is 5 minutes.

Sometimes I feel more alive during those 5 minutes than I do for the rest of the day.

Leaning towards autumn

2011-08-24T12:01:00.000+02:00

This morning in the park the paths were gouged in many places where water from the rains of the past few days had accumulated and run downhill. There was a spot of sun but the weather leans distinctly to the autumn, and away from summer. In several spots I ran over beech mast and along avenue Winston Churchill, some chestnuts have already fallen. And leaves: I passed a neighbor sweeping small brown leaves from his steps and the sidewalk. We both shook our heads at them - leaves, already! Leaves, I tell you, we are not ready. Give us a minute, OK?

Last week's "bio box" was overrun with plums, and I made a hybrid Nigel Slater cake. Summer cake (from his Appetite cookbook) bred with the midsummer's cake from the fruit volume of his Tender books (that's volume two I believe). I used the sugar/butter/flour/ground almond quantities from the midsummer cake, threw in an extra egg, plums instead of apricots, and the lemon zest and juice as used in the summer cake. It was thick so I thinned it with yogurt as the creme fraiche had gone off - good plain yogurt but don't be afraid to use cherry yogurt (I wasn't!). Came out fabulous. Topped it with powdered sugar and it looked like a million dollars. Colleagues at office consumed it in less than one hour.*

I am not quite out of my muddle, but countered in slightly by spending a blissful afternoon browsing at the second-hand book shop Pele-Mele, and as a result, discovering Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes, and the Penguin Classics editions with annotations. Now, Holmes can be an irritating know-it-all, although Watson is a sweetheart and makes up for it, but the annotations are simply fabulous! They outline every inconsistency (where Arthur Conan Doyle took liberties with flora and fauna, for example), and in the Hound of the Baskervilles, variations between the text and all the film versions are thoroughly explored. I enjoyed the annotations as much as the story - so now am on a quest for more. If nothing else, I may even learn something about the telling of detective stories. So things are looking up.

*Note, if you make this and use plain flour, you might want to add a bit of leavening - I used a 1/2 tsp each of baking soda and baking powder.

Annual Muddle

2011-08-16T23:38:00.000+02:00

The annual muddle has descended. This is the time of year when, fresh off a holiday, I realize anew that my usual routine is in tatters and will stay that way until September. I have not done matters any good by reading the class member updates in the most recent alumni magazine. Am tempted to write in myself: "Jeannette Cook (CLA, '89) still has her health, thank you. And she can bake a mean cookie. Otherwise she has not only spectacularly failed to excel in her chosen field, she is unable to commit to a particular field for longer than it takes to grow disillusioned with it. She looks forward to stalking the streets of Ixelles in her later years, frightening babies and small dogs." Yep, that should just about do it.

As I write this there is a just-past-full moon outside and it is very very quiet. It is possible Clover has fallen asleep with the light on in her bedroom. We watched the first episode of Gormenghast this evening - what a strange creation that is! It held C's attention though; maybe I can get her to read some of it later. Maybe I will read some of it later. I'm on a David Mitchell kick right now - finished The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, and am now re-reading Cloud Atlas. Was thinking how I might be able to use its folding sort of structure in my own work. Hmm. Can I actually get my muddled self to this desk and do some work? Mwahhahahahaaa. Watch this space.

Just outside Clermont, Florida

2011-07-24T00:09:00.000+02:00

The turkey buzzard
circles over the empty
baseball diamond.

6:30 a.m.

2011-07-21T14:56:00.000+02:00

Three mornings in a row

The sun climbs, slow and orange

Over the lazy ridge.

19 July

2011-07-19T14:42:00.000+02:00

Early morning yoga with the moon
over the left shoulder
waning gibbous

Layers

2011-07-17T15:15:00.000+02:00

Earth
Sand
Topsoil
Brick
Mat
Blanket
Me
Air
Strut
Screen
More Air
Sky
Cloud
More sky.

11 July

2011-07-11T14:05:00.000+02:00

Today I bathed in the green of the woods
Thank you woods
Long may we keep each other clean

10 July

2011-07-10T23:06:00.001+02:00

There is something terrible
about that suitcase
half closed, half open
on the bare wood floor

9 July

2011-07-09T19:14:00.000+02:00

In the woods a crow
snaps hold of a Styrofoam bowl
and does not let go

Surprised by grief today

2011-07-08T21:46:00.000+02:00

Surprised by grief today,

by the loss that comes from change.

Even quiet fails to offer comfort.

Texting from Kansas

2011-07-07T12:39:00.000+02:00

If you stand on the porch

and lean on the rail

and get lucky,

there's one bar's worth of signal

Going to work

2011-07-05T12:49:00.000+02:00

Light grey glen plaid
Walking fast
Brown briefcase at your side
Like man's best friend
You walk right past
The lavender

Small Stone 4 July

2011-07-04T21:57:00.000+02:00

Walked home with the sun on my back

That is all for today

Drawing class*

2011-07-03T19:19:00.000+02:00

These are only marks, made underhand
Erase & adjust & erase again
Until the black dog barks

* I just wanted to note that I found this small stone in an article I was reading this morning in the 27 June 2011 New Yorker, "Life Studies," by Adam Gopnik

Mr Pigeon

2011-07-02T10:21:00.001+02:00

He is there before

the crumbs can hit

the ground.

New Feature! Recent shopping experiences - the shops and the scores

2011-05-25T15:39:00.000+02:00

During the past week I had such diverse shopping experiences, I can no longer keep quiet. I have been wanting to do this for a long time and today's the day I'm starting.

In this feature, I will describe for you my recent shop experiences, and rate the shops on quality of goods and customer service. Brussels and/or Belgium is not cutting an edge in customer service. (And that's putting it mildly.) However, there are sometimes pleasant surprises...

This week's highlights:

1. Esprit on Avenue Toison d'Or/Esprit in the Galerie Louise arcade: You'd think these two shops would work in sync but they don't. I needed a suit. Basic, bland, jacket and trousers or jacket and skirt, so long as they matched and looked good I didn't care. Esprit do a collection line which can be good and not so expensive. Easy, right? Well... Number one, there was not a lot of selection. Then I managed to find some separates, but... One shop had a jacket in my size but no skirt, while the other had the skirt in my size but not the jacket. Could they be put together somehow? We'll never know, because I mentioned my predicament to the sales person at the Esprit in the Galerie Louise, and her response was: the shop was closing, so could I please go away now?

Grade: C-. Crap minus.

2. Mer du Nord Avenue Louise.

From there I walked into M du N expecting to be told that they were closing, but no one said a word about it, and there were three people standing around the front desk doing nothing. Downstairs, a gaggle of shop assistants were also doing bugger-all, while I scoped out the wares. I found two very good possibilities (damn the expense) and was about to try on when the Muzak was shut off. The gaggle of assistants informed me the shop was about to close. I asked, can I just try these on? I said, I will be quick. They shrugged; I went to the changing room. Two minutes later when I'm half in and out of a skirt, someone comes to tell me I've got to leave.

"You can come back at 10 tomorrow morning," the young woman says, unsweetly.

She does not ask whether I want to buy anything, or offer to give me a minute, or anything. She is clearly not on commission.

Grade: D. Dire. Shame, because the clothes are nice (albeit pricey).

3. (Unrelated to the suit shopping) Delhaize Shop N Go Vleurgat.

A small but busy branch of the supermarket chain, I was there quite late in the afternoon, looking for prunes. They were not in the dried fruit section. As I was paying for my other purchases, I asked the young man at the check out whether they'd be getting more prunes soon. He said, "But we do have prunes." I said, "Oh, I didn't see them." He said, "They're not with the other dried fruit, they're next to the flour. Do you want me to go get some for you?"

I repeat: the cashier said, Do you want me to get some for you?

And then he went and got some.

And I bought them.

Grade: A++ ASH. TON. ISH. ING.

Creators and the created

2011-05-11T14:54:00.008+02:00

Got thinking about golems while walking to work today. You know... just your average Wednesday morning thoughts. I was reminded of the “classic golem story”, the golem of Prague, by a short story submitted to the WW recently by Martin. Martin’s character “Gol” didn’t turn out to be a golem but he did want ultimately to destroy – in this case himself, which is an interesting twist, because usually what happens is that golems get out of control and have to be stopped by their creators. However, they often bring their creators down with them as well – I am thinking, for example, of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. A variation on this is the robot/AI gone rebel – e.g. Hal in 2001:A Space Odyssey.

So I'm wondering.... Is there some tendency in human nature that, if twisted, causes us to turn upon that which is the source of ourselves (our parents/our countries/our gods), our origins? And is it truly human nature, or is it culture-based? Is there a little of the golem in all of us? I'm not sure.

And more specifically on the question of religion, apropos of the whole atheist wave that's happening, having created gods for ourselves (the opposite of the golem situation?), is it inevitable that we eventually bring them down? What would we get out of doing that? And even if we do, do we ever truly free ourselves?

Nice one

2011-05-04T14:36:00.024+02:00

This morning as I was crossing a sidestreet, one of those overinflated, big shiny Audis made a left and parked right smack over the pedestrian crossing, right in my path as I was walking. So I came up to the driver's door as she got out. I said, in French, "You've parked right on this crossing!" She said, in English, "I know, I know, sometimes you just have to." And started to scurry away across the street.

I called after her, "Yeah, you have to, like when it suits you!"

Because sometimes it's just so awful to have to park where it doesn't endanger pedestrians.

Because sometimes you just have to go to the juice bar across the street.

The car had Euro plates, similar to this one:

These Euro-plate people aren't the only ~~jerks~~ culprits in this town but this kind of thing sure doesn't endear them, or the institutions they work for, to the rest of us.

photo source

Not back. Not quite yet

2011-05-02T13:06:00.000+02:00

Well, this blog has certainly taken a hit, and recovery is going to be slow in coming.

What happens to a writing project when you have to leave it for a while? Does it hang around? Can it be patient? What about your characters? Will they wait for you?

Bugger bugger bugger bugger bugger.

Move Post Mortem

2011-03-25T16:02:00.000+01:00

I thought we'd lost Clover's swimming kit, but it turns out it stayed at school thoughout the move. Lucky it. I cannot find my grey sweat pants, nor can I find the two wireless gizmos that we didn't need before but probably need now. I don't know why people keep looking at me to find things. I keep moving from box to box, picking up objects then putting them down somwhere else a few meters away, not necessarily where it belongs just hopefully closer. It's a little like being a goldfish, as I sometimes can't remember what I started out to do, so I turn around and go back the way I came. And then I remember, or at least I think I do, so I turn around again the other way.

This afternoon is the first time I've sat in my "office". Nothing is set up, only my desk and laptop and a lamp and the printer off to one side. I suppose I have saved it for last like a form of dessert. I would like to start writing again on Monday. Is that too much to ask?

Man Plans, God Laughs

2011-03-15T15:50:00.000+01:00

Or woman. God laughs at us women too.

Back in January (was it really only three short months ago?), my plan was to finish the novel I'd started in November, because for the first time in my life I am writing something I think I have a fair chance at selling. I'll repeat that, just in case you missed it. Selling. As in, for money.

Then the news came I'd have to move. All right – unsettling, but feasible. Not the end of the world. I still have my health and my job. The girls are fine. Okay.

I could see that I'd be uprooted but I that I could cling to some semblance of a word count and then get right back on track when it was over, and still have a shot at completing as much as possible by the end of year instead of end of September.... I could live with that.

Then yesterday hit. Redundancy notice.

It's never a good time for that but ooooooooh, I had other plans!

I am trying very hard to not panic. But I feel so demoralized. I like my job. I like my work-life balance. What will happen to my book if the balance changes? Obviously I won't write well if I don't earn enough to eat, but the writing is a form of sustenance too. And obviously my life has not just been swept away in a tsunami, but I hate that kind of argument, like you're supposed to feel guilty and be satisfied with your lot and shut up, just because your life isn't utterly ruined. I never said I wasn't grateful. It's just that I had....plans.

A Few Kind Words

2011-02-25T15:33:00.000+01:00

I've been having a bit of a struggle lately, as one does. The old refrain of "what's the point" rubs up against a seemingly pervasive ideology that subjects everything to "market forces", defining success in terms of money-making, so that anything that doesn't make money (RIGHT NOW! THIS MINUTE! VIA THE KINDLE!) is not worth doing... Sometimes (this being one of those times) it feels like I have to constantly resist that mentality. You'd think I'd have a bout of it once, like the chicken pox, or a really bad flu, and then be immune to re-infection. But it doesn't seem to work that way.

At the same time I'm clinging to every minute of writing time, as I count down the days to moving house. It's kind of like being in a cartoon, like being the Coyote, and this crack in the desert floor is heading right toward me. And I have to let it hit me because ...well... I have to move house and there's nothing I can do about it. Despair has set in. If the Stages of Grief are denial, anger, depression, acceptance, then the Stages of Moving are something like denial, denial, list-making, despair, boxes. Movers are more expensive than I remembered. People have started wishing me "bon courage".... Never a good sign.

The highlight of my week was the other day, out of the blue, when I received an email from an acquaintance who said she'd seen my two poems in the latest Mslexia and enjoyed them. How wonderful is that? How kind was that, that she took the time.... to send me just a few words of encouragement. Frankly those words, that email, could not have come at a better time. Thank you C!

An Ecstasy/Laundry moment*

2011-02-10T17:09:00.000+01:00

So I finished the first revision of the first chapter of my NaNoWriMo draft yesterday evening. I know it isn't "perfect", but getting to where I wanted to go felt fabulous. I went downstairs and informed the girls, "Chapter one is done! Only 29 more to go."

"That's great, Mom," the two of them said. I basked in their encouragement. They even looked up from the television. Then they asked me, "So ... what's for dinner?"

*For more information see "After the Ecstasy, the Laundry" by Jack Kornfeld

Still life with curve balls

2011-02-09T14:21:00.000+01:00

I've finally found my way back to my desk. Post-Christmas, Post-New Year's, Post-2 Week Visit from Parents, Post-A Couple of Slam-dunk Curve Balls, thank you Life! The desk is still here. Hallelujah, desk. The desk and the window and the world outside staying outside, right where I like it. The writing plan I made for this year is officially out the window too, but the best laid plans and all that jazz, I'll get over it. I feel over it. My god, but I do not thrive on stress and change. If there was any doubt about it, all doubts are resolved as of this morning. I thrive on dull. I thrive on routine. Did I somehow appear ungrateful to the Powers that Be, for dull and routine? Powers that Be, I assure you I am grateful!

Be the Gypsy of Yourself

2011-01-11T18:41:00.000+01:00

I passed this poster today on my way to the office. What do you think it means?

Departures

2011-01-08T16:44:00.000+01:00

My poems are out! I haven't received my print edition copy yet, but two of my poems are running in this quarter's Mslexia magazine and the on line version is live now and one of the poems, Aunt Lacey, can be read on line. Hooray! It's a lovely feeling to see work on line and be able to share it widely... The theme of this issue's New Writing feature was Departures and the poems were selected by the novelist Amanda Craig. Please do hop over and check out the poem and if you're a writer, you might want to have a look around the rest of the magazine. I have found Mslexia to be a consistently valuable resource and source of inspiration... and that is a completely unsolicited endorsement!

The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see

2010-12-25T00:03:00.001+01:00

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! ... The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. ... Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

(These are excerpts from Frank Church's response to eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon's letter to the New York Sun in 1897, asking him, "Is there a Santa Claus?" For the full text see here.)

Our white Christmas

2010-12-24T12:21:00.000+01:00

Earlier this week, Clover complained to me that "if people keep using all this salt, we won't have a white Christmas!" Well, she needn't have worried.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to You All !

My little stones

2010-12-21T16:58:00.000+01:00

I've decided I'm going to leave my small stones on my tumblr blog. I love tumblr, it's so smooth, I think it is perfect for these little stones. Here's the address the long way just in case you prefer it that way: http://cecinestpasunecuisine.tumblr.com/

A River of Stones

2010-12-20T15:59:00.000+01:00

I'm so pleased to have discovered A River of Stones. During the month of January, I'll be writing a small stone every day and posting it here. What's a small stone you ask? Well, a small stone is a polished moment of attention. The idea is that you pay attention to one thing every day and write about it. If you check out my blog roll you'll find Fiona Robyn's a small stone blog. Pop over and you'll see. Or check out this actual stone. Fiona and her partner Kaspa created River of Stones as a project to encourage people to engage with the world through writing. I love the small stone's haiku-like nature and the contrast of a small polished moment strikes me as a perfect counter-pose to my recent November experience. I am afraid that too many of my stones will be about coffee but I will endeavour to extend my limits. For now, I leave you with this image from my home state: the Petoskey stone... legacy of the pre-historic coral reef that once existed over the state of Michigan.

petoskey stone image credit

Dark days, Dickens phase

2010-12-16T15:56:00.000+01:00

I'm in hibernation mode. It's dark when I get up, it's dark by mid-afternoon. I don't mind that it's cold, but I do mind the lack of light in the sky. I was sick for a week a couple weeks ago, the week when we had snow. I lay in bed looking out the window onto a white ground and a white sky and it was lovely, like being all wrapped up in white. That's gone now unfortunately.

Post-NaNo news: I have done nothing with my very rough draft of 50,270 words. No, I take that back. I sat down the other day for a while and wrote one beautiful paragraph of the next draft. Mostly I've been reading again because there was no time to read in November. I read Great Expectations and now I'm on the lookout for a second hand copy of Oliver Twist. Yes, it's a Dickens phase. Maybe I'll read Bleak House again, over the holiday break. Someone asked me the other day, "But what do you do when you stay in Brussels over the holidays?" – in that mystified tone people use when you tell them you're staying home – or is it the staying in Brussels part that mystifies? Anyway, I am equally mystified, because who wouldn't stay home and lounge around in a state of blissful reading over the holidays? Punctuated by a few trips out to ice skate? Why on earth people subject themselves to air travel and constant social activity is beyond me.

image credit

Day 30: I choose paper, thank you very much (and: the Winners Circle)

2010-11-30T12:51:00.000+01:00

I have a terrible cold and want to just lie prone in bed sniffing Olbas Oil, but I want to take a moment to thank all the Winners who supported my NaNoWriMo with their wallets: Jon, Robert, Andrea, JoAnne, Rebekah, Martin, Mom & Dad and my lovely Lichfield. Together we raised $330 for creative writing programs and resources for kids and teachers everywhere. Whether writing a novel is your dream or not, you've helped make somebody's day in a tangible way. Thank you, Winners Circle!*

Some people are hugely negative about those who do NaNoWriMo. There was even a piece in this weekend's Sunday Times, which is pretty lame of the Times considering it ran the piece two days before NaNo ended. Personally, I don't understand it. I'm not a novel writer by nature. I love books, but when I first started writing I had no idea what I wanted to write. I thought I should write a novel, but that was not where inclination or disposition led me. Nonetheless in the past ten years I've tried many different forms of this art, and eventually approached the novel. Not because I dream of my name on a paperback, but because of ideas for long works of prose that just won't go away. It's either keep hearing voices in my head, or get them onto paper. And I choose paper, thank you very much...

But I would probably not have pushed myself to finish a rough draft of this story if NaNoWriMo hadn't reared its little head. I could have gone on quite happily scribbling bits and pieces, and thinking I'd get to it later. So I am very very pleased that I have done this. Is it a finished novel? No. Is it ready to the point of querying agents? No. But could it be, with a lot more work? Yes. So there. That's what I wanted to get out of this month, and to the nay-sayers of the universe, I say, "See you at my book-signing, baby!"

*PS If you still want to donate, it is not too late: go to my fundraising page, and work your magic.

Day 26. Onwards and upwards

2010-11-25T09:51:00.000+01:00

I just went over 40,000 words so that means 10,000 left to go, in the next five days (I am counting today, it's still early). I am SO TIRED. But some very wonderful people have hopped over to my fundraising page and kindly and generously donated, and I am so heartened by this support that I am pushing onward and upward. Want to help give me a push over the top? In case you missed it before, donations help the people who run NaNoWriMo bring free creative writing programs for kids and adults in over 500 cities and towns, 3,000 classrooms, and 200 libraries every year. In 2009, more than 35,000 kids and teens in 1,200 classrooms worldwide took part in National Novel Writing Month's Young Writers Program. Can you spare $10 on your credit card? Has a book ever changed your life?

And if you can't, well, I've been there and god bless you. And for those of you in the USA, Happy Thanksgiving! I already had my turkey and some kick-ass sweet potato pie curtesy of Jamie O. Come to think of it, there's still a bit of it leftover in the fridge. Did somebody say "second breakfast"?

Day 23: Sometimes, thick is good

2010-11-23T16:58:00.000+01:00

I was minding my own business, hacking my way through the last 14,000 words of NaNoWriMo, when what should show up in my letterbox but a mysterious plain white envelope. Reading the return address I remembered: I'd made a poetry submission back in the haze before November. I studied the girth of the envelope: definitely more thick than thin.

Bummer, I thought. They're returning my manuscripts. It's a rejection.

But I opened the envelope anyway and a covering letter slid out. "Dear Writer," the photocopied form letter read. "Congratulations!" It was not a rejection after all. It was an acceptance! And an acceptance of not only one but two poems – something I did not realize for a couple of hours.

The envelope was thick because it was stuffed with promotional leaflets. So let that be a lesson to us all: sometimes, the thick envelope brings good news.

Sponsor me and support creative writing programs worldwide! (and make me smile)

2010-11-19T13:57:00.000+01:00

I was all set to publish a post about how bleak things are looking. I am down on my word count, me and the girls still need to eat, and Helsinki's wallet was stolen (at school, by bastards) so there are trips to the police and the town hall and transit authorities to replace her ID and bus pass. It's busy at the office and I for some reason thought it would be fun to have Thanksgiving dinner this weekend, and even though it's a pot luck I'm doing the turkey and a pie and gravy.

But who needs to read a post like that? I'm in the 30,000s of my NaNoWriMo word count in spite of everything, which is more than halfway through, and learning a lot and loving my own personal blend of Illy espresso and Jacqmotte Moka Absolut. Aaaaah. But wait, there's more.

I've discovered that there's a sponsorship option and have decided to sign myself up. If runners can do it for charity, so can writers. The organization that runs NaNoWriMo is called the Office of Letters and Light, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity. Donations to the Office of Letters and Light help bring free creative writing programs for kids and adults in over 500 cities and towns, 3,000 classrooms, and 200 libraries every year.This is worldwide, not just in America. To learn more about where donations go, look here. So if you'd like the cheer me up and cheer me on to the 50,000 word finish line, please go to my NaNoWriMo fundraising page and make even a teensy donation. For those of you here on the Euro side of the pond, the exchange rate against the dollar is in your favour! So no excuses!

The idea of raising just a couple hundred dollars for a good cause has brighten my day considerably. If you decide to contribute it's tax deductible and you and I and everyone who goes to my fundraisising page will know what a good person you are. And I will thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!

image credits 1 and 2.

Ed never said it would be this fun!

2010-11-10T15:18:00.005+01:00

I was walking to the office this morning and thinking about my story and it came into my head that this one character has to be a certain way and want certain things and wouldn't it work so well to have him be a brave French guy instead of (as they are often portrayed) a collaborator or wimp, and then this would happen and that would happen and wow, where did all that come from? It happened with another character too. Things I had no idea about when I started, just started rolling in. It was like a row of dominoes falling, click-click-click-click-click. And it felt great! I thought, "I have no idea how this happening but it is so cool. Ed Dockx never said writing a novel would be this fun!"

Of course I have no idea if it will hang together in the end, or if it's ultimately all so obvious, or whether I can create tension and all that blah. Can't think about that now. Will deal with that later.

Day 8: Rinse and repeat

2010-11-08T16:17:00.000+01:00

Am up to 14 003 words. Tactics over the past few days:

Get up early.
Set the timer for 30 minutes.
Aim for 500 words.
Start timer. Start writing.
Stop writing when timer goes off.

Rinse and repeat.

Today it got hard so I played the third movement of Phillip Glass's third symphony as performed by the cello octet Conjunto Iberico (directed by Elias Arizcuren).

I wrote with the music. It's beautiful music. At one point I rocked back and forth with my head in hands. Then I took a deep breath, looked out the window, put my fingers back down on the keyboard and started again.

This thing is endurance, sheer endurance. Up until now the hardest things I've ever done were birthing two babies (one at a time, mind), and the bar exam. I'll let you know later how NaNoWriMo compares!

PS: an excellent riposte to an article criticizing NaNoWriMo, via Jane.

Day 5, 8000 words

2010-11-05T17:22:00.002+01:00

Still writing. More than 8000 words. The brick wall comes next week, or maybe the week after. I don't know. I just hear rumours. I wanted to go for 2000 words today instead of the 1666.66666 but I maybe didn't pick the best day. Got hijacked this morning by a completely unexpected email....But let's not go there. Let's think happy thoughts, encouraging thoughts, motivating thoughts. Such as, wouldn't it be nice if I wrote this thing and edited it and then sold it? Maybe I should put that on a sticky note and hang it over my head like the proverbial carrot...

Am I allowed to use this? Hell if I know. It came from here.

Meanwhile, there are 185,587 people participating in NaNoWriMo, and 3215 signed up for the local region which is The Low Counties -- The Netherlands and Belgium. Very Dutch on the forum, with one lone Francophone looking for someone to write in French with. Lots of write-ins all over The Netherlands. Not so much action in Belgium - mostly in Antwerp and Gent, nothing in Brussels. I am tempted to try to organize one. Maybe for the last week. I'll think about it.

Day 3 - Not quite flying, but pedaling

2010-11-03T15:51:00.001+01:00

source

Words, words, words. Today and yesterday I did about 1000 words in the morning, before leaving for the office (I work part time and don't have to be there until late morning, which definitely helps). Does it get easier? Doing the 600 words at night was not so bad. Not as bad as I thought. I never had to write into the unknown quite like this before. What's funny, that I didn't realize, is that behind the words I have in mind to write are other words, waiting for action. It's like an escalator, or conveyor belt. Words arrive, get written, and – oh, hello! – there's more. That's pretty neat, actually.

NaNoWriMo and the Death of Harold

2010-11-02T17:56:00.002+01:00

I signed up for NaNoWriMo this weekend after performing some astoundingly inaccurate long division. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month and the idea is to write a 50,000 word story during the month of November. That's on the short side for a novel, but according to the NaNo organizers it is challenging but achievable. The math mistake I made was to divide 50,000 by 30 and come up with 1066. I even took it as a good sign -- 1066, Battle of Hastings, what the hell! I realized Sunday evening that 50,000 words divided by 30 days is not 1066 but 1666 or even 1666.666666666 forever. 1666 is, interestingly, a significantly different proposition from 1066. You wouldn't think 600 would make that much difference. Oh but they do.

(source - section from Bayeux Tapestry, showing the death of Harold - the last English king. I saw the tapestry this summer by the way -- highly recommended)

By the time I realized my error, I'd mentally committed to the project. I know it will be challenging but it is only for 30 days, and if I manage to get to 50,000 well, that will really be something. It won't be beautiful by any means, but what I hope to achieve is what Anne Lamott would call a shitty first draft. Shitty but a draft. A done one.

So, yesterday I did all my words and this morning I did about 1000. The challenge for me will be tonight and any other night, if I have to write then. I have already warned the girls that they might be cooking supper this month... They think I'm joking.

City of Piss

2010-10-22T15:19:00.001+02:00

As you may or not know I like to post, whenever I can, usually after lots of badgering, bits and pieces written by my fellow Brussels-based writers. Here, Lee Gillette writes about his longtime love affair with his adopted hometown... P.S. It is entirely true, as anyone who lives here can attest to. Don't believe it? Yesterday I walked past a man not 500m from the European Parliament, leaning against a parked car, peeing on its tire.

The city’s relationship with urine and excrement goes way back. The river that once ran through Brussels got so clogged with the city’s filth that it became an open sewer and the city’s leading killer. The river brought fish and tourists almost right up to the very same wall of Saint Catherine’s against which, today, any male—or female, I imagine, though I’ve never seen one dare—can relieve himself in less than semi-privacy and watch his humor run down not so sacred stone barnacled with the deposits of the last century and a half. Mayor Anspach made it his life’s work to wipe the city’s backside by wiping the river off the map, paving it over with grand boulevards and grand architecture such as the stock exchange and Place de Brouckere, which, after the pedestrian tunnel between the metro and Central Station, are now two of the most piss-soaked city sites.

"This city actually seems to want a relationship with urination."

Viz. Mannekin Piss (source)

How a city can care so little about itself that it walks around wetting its pants is a mystery to me, on par with the frustration of watching a child grow up through a stormy adolescence only to never escape it, unable to hold a job let alone his bladder. But this city actually seems to want a relationship with urination, having raised at least three monuments to the urinating art: “the little pisser,” as my mother calls him, the nearby feminine equivalent, and, on Rue des Chartreux, the dog with uplifted leg laughed at by tourists who take photos of themselves sitting on the bronze back that I have seen more than once late at night receiving a steaming stream from one of the members of the fifty centilitre set.

Nice... Jeanneke Pis (source).

And speaking of dogs – a tired subject, of course, but in Brussels the cobblestone is clogged with canine kaka like an overstuffed waffle iron; some stretches are slathered with it, as if the animal had eaten a whole vat of stoemp and its owner subsequently squeezed it like a pastry bag. Then there are the human footprints recording someone’s minor disaster and the stomp-scrape-stomp down the street to the nearest puddle—where the question must be asked: puddle of water, or puddle of piss? Brussels has the best fed dogs in the world, the evidence is everywhere, beefy feces curled up like sleeping dogs, and maybe it’s because of the city’s reputation for rain that all of it, whether of canine or biped origin, is not only so widespread but abandoned to the myth that it all gets washed away. But Brussels is not monsoon country; Belgian rain hangs in the air like a gauzy curtain that never parts. The shit never washes away, it just melts, slowly.

I wouldn't sit on this if I were you... (source)

Then there’s the politics. Three months with no government. Regular pissing contest.

If you could save time in a bottle, what kind of bottle would you use?

2010-09-30T16:52:00.000+02:00

Just thinking...Among other things, I've spent some time recently looking into grants and funds.... including a lot of time drooling over residencies in beautiful seclusion. But as inspiring as the residency possibilities are, it is as equally depressing to see on so many websites the words "Applications Suspended Until Further Notice". This is includes perhaps the most inspiring grant I know of, the Gift of Freedom from the Room of Her Own Foundation. In case you ever doubted it, here is proof that freedom costs money. But I am determined. I am even looking to the Belgians. I will translate myself into French and Flemish if I have to.

Are you going to take part, and if so, how?

2010-09-20T12:37:00.000+02:00

When you think intensely and beautifully, something happens. That something is called poetry. If you think that way and speak at the same time, poetry gets in your mouth. If people hear you, it gets in their ears. If you think that way and write at the same time, then poetry gets written. But poetry exists in any case. The question is only: are you going to take part, and if so, how?

— Robert Bringhurst (The Tree of Meaning: Thirteen Talks)

The great and the small

2010-09-15T11:27:00.000+02:00

Lichfield did a wonderful, generous, small thing for me this morning, but it made such a difference. Isn't it amazing how such a small thing, in and of itself, be such a big thing, at the same time? What he did was wake Clover up and make sure she got out of bed and prepared for school...while I went for a run. It is too dark now in the mornings to run at 6.30 am. There is too much traffic to run at 8 am (I run on the street, because the sidewalks are ankle-twisting, uneven, knee-ruining cobblestoned horrors). Between 7 and 7:30 is perfect, but that's also the time Clover needs to get up and let's face it, she still needs a prod. It does not involve a lot of work -- mainly, waking up a 10 year old child who is fairly amenable, though sleepy; she does the getting dressed, etc, herself -- but the timing is crucial. Since I started running in the mornings, it has made such a difference to my sanity. But with the daylight dwindling I've been struggling. And it is so very hard to be in two places at once.

photo source - This is not me so don't get all excited.

Laurie, we hardly knew ye

2010-09-06T13:48:00.000+02:00

I forgot to download my soup photos so some recent lunches will have to wait. In the meantime allow me to rave about a book I've been wanting to read for years and finally decided to order. Do you recognize the cover?

For years I saw or read or hear references to Laurie Colwin and her books (this one, Home Cooking, and its sequel, More Home Cooking). I don't know why I waited so long to read her myself. Each chapter in the book is about a particular food or meal -- "English Cooking" for example, waxes lyrical about Britain's double cream. Others include the classic "Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant", "How to Avoid Grilling" and "Flank Steak: the Neglected Cut". The chapters end with a recipe or two. Colwin's voice is cozy, practical, sharp, funny. When you read her, you wish you knew her so that you too could be invited to her tiny NYC apartment to eat a delicious meal cooked on a two-burner hotplate and help wash it up in the bathtub. The only problem I have with the book is that I know Colwin died of a heart attack in 1992 when she was only 48, and every time she mentions cutting back on salt, I start to tear up. But what is a love doesn't twist a bit of the knife in the heart? I think I will cook a Colwin im memoriam meal on 25 October.

Sun in a cup

2010-08-30T20:27:00.005+02:00

I promised Jane I would start posting my lunch again so here you are:

I am calling this Sun in a Cup because there was no sun anywhere else in our fair city today. But it is really carrot soup spiked with fresh summer tomatoes. I used red tomatoes but if you use yellow ones the colour will be even more golden and sunshiney.

For a small batch I use: 250g/1/2lb each carrots and tomatoes, half an onion or two thin leeks (white parts only), 1 liter of stock (maybe 4 cups? you'll have to see if that's too much), a couple of stalks of celery and a couple of twigs of parsley (whole). Chop the onions/leeks and celery and sauté in butter on lowish heat for 10-15 minutes (you don't want to burn them, just soften them up). Add chopped carrots and peeled, cored, chopped tomatoes, sauté for a few more minutes. Then cover with the stock, tossing in a parsley. Bring to a boil then simmer for about 30 minutes, or enough to soften the carrots. Blend when it's cool enough to work with, using all or not-all of the stock to achieve your desired thickness. Salt and pepper should be enough to bring out the flavour of summer-fresh ingredients!

Can someone help me with the math?

2010-08-28T09:50:00.006+02:00

Dear Writer,

Thank you for sending work to XXXX. We had a fantastic response with over 300 writers sending in around 700 submissions. The quality of the writing was very high and we had to make some very hard decisions in order to select the 18 submissions eventually chosen for the book.
I'm afraid we haven't kept any of your work on this occasion, but hope that you will be interested in future XXXX submission calls. Please do keep an eye on the website for other writing opportunities.

This is a slightly edited of the rejection email I found in my inbox this morning. It isn't the first and it won't be the last, but would someone help me do the math here? It's early on Saturday morning. What is the percentage acceptance rate, if 18 pieces are chosen from a pool of 700 submissions?

Lichfield sends me poetry

2010-08-24T13:05:00.001+02:00

It's Billy Collins' Litany. Enjoy.

"It lodges itself in our throats."

2010-08-19T12:19:00.001+02:00

Tidbits from a recent Tim O'Brien article, Telling Tails (thank you, Arts and Letters Daily):

The problem with unsuccessful stories is usually simple: they are boring, a consequence of the failure of imagination.

...

In fiction workshops, we tend to focus on matters of verisimilitude largely because such issues are so much easier to talk about than the failure of imagination.
...

Even if one’s goal is to depict ordinary human beings in ordinary human settings, a story must find striking, dramatic, and unexpected ways to accomplish this. Something, somehow, must strike the reader as compelling enough to warrant continued reading.

...

Inventing a nifty, extraordinary set of behaviors for our characters is not enough. A fiction writer is also challenged to find import in those behaviors. ... Cleverness, in the end, is a sorry (though common) substitute for thematic weight.

...

[Discussing Jorge Luis Borges's story "The Aleph":] But for me what gives the story its ultimate power—its exquisitely imagined beauty—is the moment at which Borges beholds the unbelievable, obscene, detailed letters that the love of his life had written to Carlos Argentino, that pompous ass upstairs. At this point the story moves from the clever to the emotional and takes on its great thematic heft. It soars beyond a “nifty idea.” It lodges itself in our throats. All of us, I suspect, can imagine beholding things we ought not to have beheld. All of us can understand such pain. In the end, this miraculous little story, with its obviously extraordinary events, illuminates an ordinary but fearsome corner of the human soul.

...

Dare I Say It

2010-08-17T17:08:00.000+02:00

I am back.

It is now mid-August and rainy, a spell of weeks we must wade through before we get Indian summer, if it deigns to come.

Outside my office window, the chestnut tree is full of bright green chestnut clusters. These weren't visible two weeks ago, when I was last here.

My office is very quiet, as is the building. But there were more people out and about this morning, and more traffic, when I went for my run, and my mailbox was full of advertisements for school supplies.

The season turns....

Helsinki took a bazillion photos this summer, and has taken them all with her on her camera to music camp, so I can't show you anything until she comes back.

I left Clover at home with a friend today, granting them full access to my shoe closet. There are some pairs I swear they have worn more than I have. Soon I shall go home and make something for supper involving minced lamb, and have a poke around for something thick to read. I have just finished 'The Historian' by Elizabeth Kostovo (good summer reading, in case you're looking), and am hovering now between Bitter Lemons by Lawrence Durrell, Summer Lightning by PG Wodehouse, and the dozen other unread books on my nightstand. Any suggestions?

Summertime....

2010-07-05T14:24:00.006+02:00

Fish are jumpin'
and the cotton is high....

Your one wild and precious life

2010-06-08T13:55:00.005+02:00

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean –
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down –
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell, me what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

– THE SUMMER DAY, by Mary Oliver

And thank you to Fiona Robyn for her post where she quotes Ezra Bayda and refers to his "white bird in the snow," which led me – as the Internet does – to this poem.

Outrageous Delhaize magazine mark-up!

2010-06-03T13:27:00.004+02:00

Another Brussels-based post, sorry, bear with me here. But even if you don't live in beautiful BXLS, this will maybe give you a taster of part of life here (for the foreign-born resident).

I was shopping in my local Delhaize recently and happened to spot this Jamie Oliver magazine:
Now, I like Jamie, and Lichfield gave me a copy of one of his cookbooks and it's pretty good, and the magazine seemed full of interesting recipes. So I picked it up and scooted off to check-out. As I waited in line, I happened to notice the price. €7.50 ! I couldn't believe it ! I looked down at the bottom of the cover for the small print and saw it was priced at £3.99 - 3.99 British pounds at today's exchange rate is 4.77 Euros. So what's with the extra €2.50? OUTRAGEOUS.

But it's not only at the Delhaize, as we all know... it's at Waterstones, it's at Librarie de Rome, it's everywhere. The thing I can't figure out is, who actually buys these overpriced magazines???

At last! Accessible Ashtanga yoga in Brussels

2010-06-01T13:46:00.009+02:00

This is the kind of thing I almost don't want to tell anyone because I don't want this place to get crowded. But I don't want to keep the news all to myself, either, and Barbara, who created the space and teaches and does goodness knows what else, deserves to see her efforts flower.

Brussels is a funny place. While Ashtanga yoga has flourished across the US and in other European countries, it doesn't seem to be big in Belgium and certainly not in this city. The one place I found on the chaussée d'Alsemberg in Uccle was mysteriously closed whenever I used to walk past, and/or never answered the phone. (In all fairness it seems to be a bona fide Ashtanga studio. Maybe the management's changed.) Fortunately, when I first came to Brussels I was lucky enough to practice with Susannah, who lived in the Parvis St Gilles, at the top of a four-storey maison de maître: no one who ever practiced there will forget those stairs! Then I began going to classes with Susannah's colleague Elisabeth, who taught in French, and was, like Susannah, affiliated with Sampoorna yoga and its founder, Yogi Hari. Elisabeth taught a rigorous, very Ashtanga-like class (which I had started doing when I was pregnant with Helsinki - but that's another story), and I carried on practicing with her through my pregnancy with Clover, right up until Clover was born. I think I may have taken Clover to a couple classes afterward, too, when she was still small enough to sleep through it all in her maxi-cosi. But then I lost touch with that particular branch of the yoga world.

Fast-forward to lunch a few weeks ago. A new colleague of mine remarks that she is doing yoga, Ashtanga yoga; that a woman is giving Ashtanga classes up in the loft at the top of her house in Woluwe-St. Pierre. So I get her to send me the link. Incredible - but true! The website is welcoming and my god, there seem to be drop-in classes (another innovation Brussels can't seem to get its head around). I decide I have to got to take a closer look.

An introductory class is just starting up, with a 3-hour workshop to get things going on the weekend. Even though I'm not a debutante, I figure this is a good way to re-familiarize myself with the flow of postures, not to mention the fact that I might learn something new. Strike when the iron is hot, as they say...

Not me... from the Yoga Loft website

Well, I highly recommend it. I've done a lot of yoga, in a lot of different places, and what Barbara has created here is really special. Her story: originally from southern California, Barbara recently spent some time in San Francisco, where, she said, "there's a yoga studio on every corner." When she came back to Brussels she missed being part of a yoga community. So she decided to start one. She transformed the loft of her home into a beautiful space where people can come and breathe and stretch and feel good together.

The Yoga Loft opened in December 2009 and appears to be thriving. There is a full schedule of classes, options for private practice, and upcoming workshops and training, stages for kids (check out the website, www.theyogaloft.be). And, only three flights up this time!

"All children are born artisits. The problem is to remain artists as we grow up."

2010-05-26T09:58:00.003+02:00

– Pablo Picasso, quoted by Ken Robinson, in his talk below. Required viewing for anyone who cares about creativity, education, children, life.

Psychedelic Tulips (Square de Meeûs)

2010-05-17T16:04:00.013+02:00

Forward they come, with flaunting colours spread,
With torches burning, stepping out in time
To some quick, unheard march.

– from 'A Tulip Garden', by Amy Lowell

The A B C's of unwanted touching

2010-05-11T13:30:00.014+02:00

A friend of mine (Friend A) recently told me about a friend of his (B) who had been unexpectedly fondled by a man in a group social situation. A had been present when the groping occurred but hadn't witnessed it directly. A said that B hadn't acted upset at the time, but told him about it later in the evening, when they were alone. A told me about it because he was thinking about confronting the man. But A was hesitant because, it seemed to him, B had not been upset when it happened. When I related this story to yet another friend, C, C expressed similar confusion, and queried B's response/reaction to the unwanted touching. C did not understand why B had not dealt with it when it happened. Why did she only bring it up later? Why had she not acted angry at the time? Why had she not confronted the man? She's an adult, isn't she?

C's questions reminded me of things I have not thought about in a long time. But plus ça change. How is it that even with an incident as brief as this instance of unwanted touching, the woman's behaviour is questioned? It did not appear to be intuitive to A or C (and neither are insensitive people) that B's reaction was actually perfectly understandable...and matched my own experience.

Of course I cannot speak for all women or all cases. But I can recall being in a "hands-on" situation where I, frankly, felt shocked, embarrassed and did not know what to do, my mind drawing an absolute blank, and later when people asked me "So, what did you do?", I felt a similar blank. What did it matter what I did in response? What I did was get out of the situation with as much grace as I could – and that grace, by the way, was somehow very important. It was only later that I felt disgusted – as much with myself as anyone else. And along with disgust came anger and regret that I did not have presence of self and/or mind to be more – what? – assertive? confident? fearless?

But why should those qualities be the standard? Why isn't it understood that the instinct of women may be to not fight back or draw attention to ourselves? Is it any wonder that sexual assault is still one of the most unreported of crimes?

A few words about submitting

2010-05-06T18:42:00.005+02:00

I like writing more than submitting. I like writing even more than getting published, hence my abyssmal track record in sending out submissions. Getting published is a little like getting divorced: one minute you aren't, the next you are, and you've got something on paper to prove it. There's a moment of recognition/exhilaration, followed rapidly by disappointment: oh, I'm still the same me... But with the writing, with every new piece, there's still that I-don't-know-what-this-is feeling, and the chance that whatever it is, it will come out perfectly. However, it has to be said that only submitting compels the ultimate editing, that walking the razor's edge between keeping things in and taking things out, between wanting to be clear yet not giving everything away. So at least there is that. That's no small thing, really.

It bears repeating

2010-04-29T12:55:00.002+02:00

This is one of the very first poems I discovered, when I discovered poetry; at that time I knew nothing of villanelles, or indeed, of Theodore Roethke, although he was born in Saginaw, Michigan – and don't you think, at the very least, that schools could teach kids the significant poets of their own state? Good god, when I think of the times these words have consoled me, and given me courage. Why do we rob our children of these voices? Why do we rob ourselves?

THE WAKING
by Theodore Roethke

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

Writers Myth No.217: Writing is Interesting!

2010-04-23T13:14:00.014+02:00

I know, I haven't been posting. If you're blogging, you're not writing, and vice versa.

Writing is not an inherently interesting activity. Want to know what writing looks like? It looks something like this: a pen and a notebook. A hand, moving that pen across the page. The ink from the pen, filling up the page with words and phrases. Some of them make sense. Then the hand turning the page, and filling that page too with ink and words. And then again. And again and again.

Alternatively, it occasionally looks like typing.*

Regrettably, I suspect that it does not much resemble fishing but it feels the way I imagine fishing must feel – long periods of biding time, then a bite and a pull and a reeling in, until all of a sudden there's a slippery, silvery creature gasping for breath on the bottom of your boat and you have to decide: do I keep it, or throw it back in?

*cf. Truman Capote on Jack Kerouac: "That's not writing, that's typing."

The museum that time forgot

2010-04-17T13:10:00.008+02:00

We visited the African Musuem yesterday (official title: The Royal Museum for Central Africa). I love that place. It's old-fashioned, full of diaramas with type-written cards and no electronic interaction, and heavy wood cases of specimens. I spent a lot of time in the fish room,

fascinated.

But there are far too many closed corridors...

.... where surely so much else could be displayed. (Although yes, these empty wings add to the ambiance.)

Stuffed baby lion, anyone?

I keep hearing rumours of renovation (or innovation) but I hope they are not true. I love this place in all of its early-1900s era splendor.