The Woman Condition

Too Cute: Little Pandas Drinking Milk.

2012-03-06T14:25:00.001+01:00

Huffington Post shared this video and I thought it was so cute, I couldn't keep it from you.

And now ... back to work. See you later!

Book Review: Blood Orchids, by Toby Neal.

2012-03-01T22:13:00.006+01:00

In case you have been wondering: I am still alive. For the past month and a half, I have been working like a maniac. Neglecting my blog - and my friends' blogs (sorry guys!) - was the only way I could save the remaining shreds of sanity.

By now The Project has been submitted and I have taken a week off to recover, read, write and spend some time in my beloved Cotswolds.

I've finally finished Kim Harrison's The Hollows series, and got to read Toby Neal's Blood Orchids, which had been on my must-read list ever since it came out.

I hardly ever read crime novels, but I'm a big fan of Toby's blog, her topics, writing style and her warm, zesty personality. As a result, I really wanted to read Blood Orchids, and I'm glad I have.

It took me a while to get a feel for the story and connect with the characters, possibly because there's a lot of Hawaiian "couleur locale" in the story, which is quite alien to my European self. However, the more I got to know Lei Texeira, the protagonist, the more I cared and the faster I began to read - a good sign.

The novel's world is drawn in rich detail and step by step the setting enfolded and I got grabbed by the lighter and darker sides of Hawaiian culture.

However, to me, the strongest elements of this novel are its characters. They're human and real, they have a history and hopes and dreams for the future, they're damaged but eager to live fulfilling and meaningful lives. Toby's characters stay with you long after you've finished reading.

Lei's a great heroine, but my personal favourite was Dr. Wilson. I'd unload my issues on her couch any day! I'm (not-so-secretly) hoping Toby will one day write another series with her as the main character.

I also found Lei's developing relationship with Stevens very interesting and well-written. They have a number of great scenes together, which could only have been written by an intelligent and wise person with a keen insight in human nature, who's not afraid to dig deep into her own mind and experiences in order to touch on fundamental thoughts and authentic emotions.

I can't wait to see what Toby will come up with in the future. Definitely a writer I'll continue to follow!

You can find Toby's blog at http://www.tobyneal.net/.

Guest Kittens - the Breakthrough.

2012-01-21T16:32:00.003+01:00

It's been two weeks since Guest Kittens 2 and 3 moved into our improvised Sunflower Kitten Hotel.

During that time they have grown like ... well, sunflowers, and after a painstakingly slow process of acclimatisation and a small amount of blood spilt - mine - they have finally stopped seeing us as a threat.

Two days ago, we experienced a major breakthrough. Turn up the volume and check out the result here:

It's been quite an adventure, getting this far. Confrontational, too. I'm not the most patient person on the planet, so this is a life lesson, a story of apprivoiser, like Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's little prince who had to go through the necessary steps and rituals to approach and befriend his fox.

What a fragile and hard-won construct trust can be - and rightfully so.

But now we've come this far, we've got a good chance of finding this precious duo a warm and loving home.

They're still a bit shy, but I'm sure that with continued TLC they will blossom into the most affectionate cats you can imagine - just like their mum and their big sister. And they make great entertainers - the perfect distraction while you're trying to write ...

Lucky 13: Women Writers about Imagination.

2012-01-13T13:13:00.016+01:00

“There are two ways to reach me: by way of kisses or by way of the imagination. But there is a hierarchy: the kisses alone don't work.”
- Anaïs Nin (Henry and June)

“When I read a book, I put in all the imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing the book as well as reading it - or rather, it is like living it.”
- Dodie Smith (I Capture the Castle)

"I have crossed over to a place where I never thought I'd be. I am someone I would have never imagined. A secret. A dream. I am this, body and soul. Burn me. Drown me. Tell me lies. I will still be who I am.”
- Alice Hoffman (Incantation)

“You will recognize your own path when you come upon it because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need.”
- Sara Teasdale

“A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”
- Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”
- Sylvia Plath

“I doubt that the imagination can be suppressed. If you truly eradicated it in a child, he would grow up to be an eggplant.”
- Ursula K. Le Guin (The Language of the Night)

“You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander."
- Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird)

“The imagination needs moodling,--long, inefficient happy idling, dawdling and puttering. ”
- Brenda Ueland

“Writing is a job, a talent, but it's also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon.”
- Ann Patchett (Truth and Beauty: A Friendship)

“Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master.”
- Agatha Christie (The Mysterious Affair at Styles)

“Are we all living like this? Two lives, the ideal outer life and the inner imaginative life where we keep our secrets?”
- Jeanette Winterson (Sexing the Cherry)

“Those who fear the imagination condemn it: something childish, they say, something monsterish, misbegotten. Not all of us dream awake. But those of us who do have no choice.”
- Patricia A. McKillip

------------------
Photo 'Reach' by Keith Garner, available under a creative commons license. © 2011, Keith Garner.

Kitten Said No ...

2012-01-12T21:42:00.000+01:00

(No comment.)

Sunflower Kitten Hotel.

2012-01-04T12:51:00.007+01:00

2012 started well for Guest Kitten 1. On the second day of the New Year, she moved to a big house in the historic centre of Bruges (how lucky can you get ...) to live with a loving couple, their wonderful little girl and two big-hearted Golden Retrievers.

Since her departure we've managed to capture her two remaining siblings and now they too enjoy the perks of our temporary three-star Sunflower Kitten Hotel (formerly known as: The Conservatory).

They're still very shy, but each day they become more curious, playful and at ease. Earlier this morning one started purring when I was near, which makes me hopeful they'll want to check us out soon.

It means that in a matter of days, these two cuties will also be ready to go to a new home.

Therefore, if you're anywhere in or near Flanders, Belgium and you have a big heart, house or garden, drop me a line.

Below I've enclosed two more videos - for your entertainment and okay, maybe a bit to play on your emotions ....

Feel free to pass them on to your family and friends! ;-)

Looking for a Home - the Sequel.

2011-12-30T14:30:00.017+01:00

Two weeks ago I shared a few videos of our newest Guest Kittens and wrote about the subsequent 'Looking for a Home' campaign. Well, a lot has happened since then.

First of all, we've officially adopted their mum. She's been to the vet, has been sterilised and she's recovering well. We've named her Maharet, after the character from the Anne Rice novels.

We've also been working hard to gain our Guest Kittens' trust, with mixed success. It's going to be a long process, but worth the effort if we want to find them a good home.

Guest Kitten 1 is now lodged in our conservatory and we're getting close to being able to pick it up and pet it, without it crawling into a corner and hissing its tiny vocal cords in a twist.

Here's a video of Guest Kitten 1 'playing it cool'. Not an easy job when you're snuggled up on a giant sunflower ...

Anyway, this little cutie is still looking for a warm and loving home, so if you've got a whole lot of love and a little bit of time and space, drop me a line!

Guest Kitten wishes you a wonderful year's end

and an even better start of 2012!

A Little Warm in My Heart.

2011-12-17T21:01:00.002+01:00

I've just set up and decorated our tree; I feel ready for winter now.

Isn't it amazing how a little ritual can make such a big difference?

Here are a few more snapshots ...

Have a great Christmas, Hanukkah, Midwinter, Yule or whichever holiday(s) you celebrate!

Lucky 13: Women Writers about Inspiration.

2011-12-13T13:13:00.002+01:00

“Inspiration usually comes during work rather than before it.”
- Madeleine L'Engle

“I learned...that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.”
- Brenda Ueland

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”

- Maya Angelou

“Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of everyday life into a golden haze. ”
- Elinor Glyn

“stand often in the company of dreamers: they tickle your common sense & believe you can achieve things which are impossible.”
- Mary Anne Radmacher

“The inner fire is the most important thing mankind possesses.”

- Edith Södergran

“Five tender apricots in a blue bowl, a brief and exact promise of things to come.”

- Frances Mayes (In Tuscany)

“Do stuff. be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. stay eager.”
- Susan Sontag

“A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it's better than no inspiration at all.”
- Rita Mae Brown

“Why must people kneel down to pray? If I really wanted to pray I’ll tell you what I'd do. I'd go out into a great big field all alone or in the deep, deep woods and I'd look up into the sky - up, up, up - into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I'd just feel a prayer.”
- L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)

“There is no place for grief in a house which serves the Muse.”

- Sappho

“I ask not for any crown

But that which all may win;
Nor try to conquer any world
Except the one within.”
- Louisa May Alcott

“Out of the red and silver and the long cry of alarm to the poet who survives in all human beings, as the child survives in him; to this poet she threw an unexpected ladder in the middle of the city and ordained, 'Climb!”
- Anaïs Nin

--------
Image: 'Aprikosen / Apricots' by Thomas. Available under a creative commons license. © 2009, Thomas.

More Guest Kittens - Looking for a Home.

2011-12-11T22:59:00.016+01:00

Last September, I recounted the adventures of Guest Kitten. I'm happy to let you know that in the meantime we have adopted her, she has undergone the inevitable veterinary procedures and she now goes by the name of 'Spook'.

A few weeks ago, we discovered she has 3 younger brothers and sisters. In other words, new Guest Kittens have arrived.

Their mum, who was left behind by her owners when they moved earlier this year, is now lying on a cushion in the conservatory, awaiting a visit of her own to the vet. She knows what we have in store for her; she's been glaring at me through the window all evening.

Still, we can't continue adopting every stray cat in the neighbourhood (I admit I have considered it), so we are looking for a new home for the Amazing Kitten Threesome. If you happen to live anywhere near Belgium and have a big heart, house or garden, drop me a line!

I don't need to tell you they are the cutest kittens ever. You know you want to be cuddled up in front of a fire this winter with a few of these crawling all over you:

And if you're still not convinced ...

(warning: do not watch the following video if you're cuteness intolerant or easily swayed by emotion!)

Pretty please?

Du Pain, Du Vin ...

2011-11-27T15:41:00.000+01:00

Jugendstil villa in Bonn - Bad Godesberg. November 2011.

In spite of alarming daily news reports about the euro crisis and the fact we still don't have a government after 500+ days of negotiating, the majority of us seem to lead our daily lives with little noticeable change.

For me personally, these are hectic but stimulating times. The past fortnight I've spent 4 days in England (London and the Cotswolds), 4 in France (Lille, mainly) and 2 in Germany (Bonn - Bad Godesberg). Most of the travelling was done for work, but I've managed to squeeze in a couple of days for myself.

Spare wine racks, anyone?

In my scarce free time I've been studying for next week's exam (I'm taking 'Communicative French' evening classes twice a week) and of course I had to attend two of the annual wine festivals that are common in France and Belgium in late autumn.

Some big, others small, these wine fairs are the perfect occasion to discover wines from independent winemakers and many of the smaller vineyards all over France.

As a result, we're now in dire need of extra wine racks, but I understand that's a luxury problem.

And now for some trivia:

My top 5 observations of the past 2 weeks.

Lille is truly a beautiful city, with striking architecture, a vibrant atmosphere and wonderful restaurants.
The French Alsace region, famous for its white wines, makes surprisingly good pinot noirs that offer great value for money.
Anybody who thinks English people are cold and reserved, hasn't met my friends. I had the chance to meet up with several of them when I was in the Cotswolds and even though we don't see each other often, the time we spent together was once again heartwarming.
Once you've learnt a language, even if you don't use it for ages, it's ingrained in your brain. I had French in school between the ages of 8 and 17, then didn't use it for almost 20 years. Now that I'm taking classes again, I'm surprised how quickly it all comes back.
Bad Godesberg's residential villa quarter is stunning. When Bonn was still the capital of West Germany and later the official seat of united Germany's government (until 1999), many of the foreign embassies were located in stately Jugendstil villas.

Residential villas in Bonn - Bad Godesberg. November 2011.

So, my dear friends, what have you been up to?

Lucky 13: Women Writers about Character.

2011-11-13T13:13:00.000+01:00

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”
- Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)

“The sisters and brothers that you meet give you the materials which your character uses to build itself. It is said that some people are born great, others achieve it, some have it thrust upon them. In truth, the ways in which your character is built have to do with all three of those. Those around you, those you choose, and those who choose you.”
- Maya Angelou

“Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.”
- Anne Frank

“What we call our destiny is truly our character and that character can be altered. The knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny.”
- Anaïs Nin

“I can't decide whether I'm a good girl wrapped up in a bad girl, or if I'm a bad girl wrapped up in a good girl. And that's how I know I'm a woman!”
- C. JoyBell C.

“Whatever you are physically...male or female, strong or weak, ill or healthy--all those things matter less than what your heart contains. If you have the soul of a warrior, you are a warrior. All those other things, they are the glass that contains the lamp, but you are the light inside.”
- Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Angel)

“But what man does out of despair, is not necessarily a key to his character. I have always thought that the real key is in that which he seeks for his enjoyment.”
- Ayn Rand

“When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious.”
- Edna O'Brien

“There is a curious thing that happens with the passage of time: a calcification of character.”
- Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

“Her beauty satisfied [his] artistic eye, her peculiarities piqued his curiosity, her vivacity lightened his ennui, and her character interested him by the unconscious hints it gave of power, pride and passion. So entirely natural and unconventional was she that he soon found himself on a familiar footing, asking all manner of unusual questions, and receiving rather piquant replies.”
- Louisa May Alcott (A Long Fatal Love Chase)

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”
- Helen Keller

“Don't separate the mind from the body. Don't separate even character - you can't. Our unit of existence is a body, a physical, tangible, sensate entity with perceptions and reactions that express it and form it simultaneously."
- Susanna Kaysen

"character--the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life--is the source from which self-respect springs.”
- Joan Didion

--------
Image: 'where did rachel "gun show" get her guns?' by sean dreilinger. Available under a creative commons license. © 2011, sean dreilinger.

Fear of Writing.

2011-11-08T21:18:00.000+01:00

Just a thought today:

'Fear of writing is like when you're fresh in love, and every time you see that person, you freeze. Not because you don't have anything to say, but because you want your words to be deep and meaningful.

So instead you stand there and choke, or - if you see them coming - duck behind a postbox.'

How do you deal with fear?

--------
Image: 'Postbox: London, Great Britain' by Chris Wronski. Available under a creative commons license. © 2011, Chris Wronski.

Choc-o-licious: Chocolate Festival, Bruges.

2011-11-04T00:01:00.196+01:00

Today I got to experience one of the perks of living in Belgium ànd being a blogger: I'd been invited to the press event of Choco-Laté, the chocolate festival in Bruges.

Choco-Laté is a festival aimed at professionals, devoted chocolate fans ànd more casual ones. As a self-proclaimed healthy hedonist and passionate chocolate lover, I have been there in the past and I can testify it's a treat, a true feast for the senses.

This year's edition will focus on chocolate in its purest form: the origins of the cacao bean, organic fair-trade chocolate and authentic recipes prepared on the spot by representatives of the Kuna people of Panama.

Choco-Laté organiser Eddy Van Belle,
chocolatier Dominique Persoone &
representatives of the Kuna people.

The Kuna people have featured in several medical reports because of the absence of high blood pressure among them and remarkably low death rates from stroke, cancer or cardiovascular disease. This might be linked to their cocoa-rich diet, which is an interesting path for further research.
But I digress.

At this festival you can discover visually stunning chocolate art, learn about the origins, production, health and wellness benefits of chocolate, sample chunks and nuggets at a wide variety of exhibitor booths, or get your hands dirty (and lick them clean again) in truffle-making workshops. All this takes place in a unique historic location, permeated with the rich, velvety scent of more kinds of chocolate than you and I knew existed.

Trust me, it's not an event you want to miss.

'Choco en Lala'
book cover chocolates

The parents among you don't need to find a babysitter. Take your kids along and drop them off at the Choco Kids Village, where they can play and learn about chocolate while you indulge in more adult activities. Allow me to make a few suggestions: find the perfect wine to go with chocolate, design the perfect cocoa drink or watch the bodypainting artists at work - with chocolate!

When you're at the festival, be sure to drop by author Marc de Bel's booth. At Choco-Laté 2011 he will present his new chocolate-themed children's book: 'Spikkel en Spekkie: Choco en Lala'.

(Come to think of it, chocolate should play a much bigger part in my novel!)

'Bruges swan'
chocolate dress.

At first sight, fashion and (calorie-dense) chocolate might not be a good match, but this year even fashionistas will be able to indulge.

Star designer Nicky Vankets, known to yours truly because of his gorgeous wedding dresses (I got married last year - did I mention I ♥ his 'White Couture' collection?), has teamed up with my favourite 'shock-o-latier' Dominique Persoone to design a fabulous 'Bruges swan' chocolate dress.

I so want one. Or two: one to wear and one to eat.
But I digress again.

Choco-Laté 2011 will take place at the Bruges belfry from 11th till 13th November.
For more information and tickets, go to: http://www.choco-late.be/en.

If you can't make those dates, do not despair. Bruges has 52 (hyper)active chocolatiers, who sell their scrumptious creations all year round.

On top of that, until 8 December 2011, the city of Bruges celebrates "Choc'in Brugge" - chocolate month, if you will, with gastronomic events, chocolate-themed city walks, chocolate wellness and much more. You can find the programme here.

Last but not least, if you live too far and can't make it to Belgium this year, have some great chocolate wherever you are and consider stopping by in the future.
When you do, drop me a line and I'd be happy to point out a number of places that are worth a visit.

Have a choc-o-licious November!

Bonus picture. From left to right:
shock-o-latier Dominique Persoone, fashion designer Nicky Vankets
and yours truly, plotting an escape with The Dress.

The Better Story Wins.

2011-10-28T19:04:00.001+02:00

In writing, for us mere mortals, the quality of our stories and characters is key.

The following TED video made me wonder for how many other aspects of life this might be true.

In his 2009 talk, novelist and politician Shashi Tharoor (himself a fascinating character) looks at India's success and emerging popularity from a cultural point of view. He discusses the 'soft power' with which Indian culture, food, technology and music influences people's hearts and minds.

There's a lot of food for thought in this video. It made me wonder about the notion of world leadership, about the effect technological revolutions can have on people in different kinds and layers of society, and once again about the power of stories in our lives.

A few of my favourite passages:

'But, with this increasing awareness of India, with you and with I, and so on, with tales like Afghanistan, comes something vital in the information era, the sense that in today's world it's not the side of the bigger army that wins, it's the country that tells a better story that prevails.'

'Governments aren't very good at telling stories. But, people see a society for what it is, and that, it seems to me, is what ultimately will make a difference in today's information era'

'But, the whole point is that India is the nationalism of an idea. It's the idea of an ever-ever-land, emerging from an ancient civilization, united by a shared history, but sustained, above all, by pluralist democracy. That is a 21st-century story as well as an ancient one. And it's the nationalism of an idea that essentially says you can endure differences of caste, creed, color, culture, cuisine, custom and costume, consonant, for that matter,and still rally around a consensus. And the consensus is of a very simple principle, that in a diverse plural democracy like India you don't really have to agree on everything all the time, so long as you agree on the ground rules of how you will disagree.'

- Shashi Tharoor, TEDIndia, Nov 2009

Simplify.

2011-10-23T16:58:00.008+02:00

I've been a bad blogger this month, but I have an excuse: I have been (trying to be) good somethingelses, mainly at work and at home.

A few weeks ago, I started my new job. It's stimulating and demanding and I love it.

It's causing big changes in my life, though. So far none I hadn't anticipated - an advantage of taking the whole summer to weigh pros and cons - but it's still interesting to observe and experience the effects.

Changing your surroundings, circumstances or lifestyle has a way of confronting you with where you're at in life. As you develop new routines and grow into them, it's easier to see how far you've come and what you need to focus on for the future.

The most mundane but possibly most significant change for me is that I have a lot less 'free' time. That doesn't sound like a good thing, yet I feel more relaxed, in control and mentally free than I have in years. It was clearly time to stop fretting, hoping and assuming, go out on the fields and bring in the harvest.

What has changed?

I always thought I was unable to simplify my life. I'm the kind of person who's potentially interested in anything and everything. That is still the case - and I'm happy because it's a good skill for a writer - but I seem to have learnt to prioritise along the way. Who'd have thought?

Most importantly: giving up a number of things (or making them less prominent) doesn't make me feel like I'm missing out. To the contrary. I am less worried and more productive. I know that what's important will still stand out, possibly more so than before.

As a result, I have set myself a deadline for my novel. I have a (small) list with the final changes I want to make, and then I'm going to unleash my baby.

Whatever happens next, I'll live and learn - and change again.

--------
Image: 'Harvest time' by Steve Schnabel. Available under a creative commons license. © 2009, Steve Schnabel.

Lucky 13: Women Writers about Wine.

2011-10-13T13:13:00.005+02:00

"Wine is the refined jewel that only a grown woman will prefer to the sparkling trinkets adored by little girls."
- Muriel Barbery (Gourmet Rhapsody)

"Only a fool tries to reconstruct a bunch of grapes from a bottle of wine."
- Jeanette Winterson (Art & Lies)

"Wine talks; ask anyone. The oracle at the street corner; the uninvited guest at the wedding feast; the holy fool. It ventriloquizes. It has a million voices. It unleashes the tongue, teasing out secrets you never meant to tell, secrets you never even knew. It shouts, rants, whispers. It speaks of great plans, tragic loves, and terrible betrayals. It screams with laughter. It chuckles softly to itself. It weeps in front of its own reflection. It revives summers long past and memories best forgotten. Every bottle a whiff of other times, other places, everyone...a humble miracle"
- Joanne Harris

“There are days when solitude is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall.”
- Colette

"What I do, and what I dream include thee, as the wine must taste of its own grapes."
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Sonnets from the Portuguese and Other Poems)

"...and I get refill number three or four and the wine is making my bones loose and it's giving my hair a red sheen and my breasts are blooming and my eyes feel sultry and wise and the dress is water."
- Aimee Bender (Willful Creatures: Stories)

"All Creatures know that some must die
That all the rest may take and eat;
Sooner or later, all transform
Their blood to wine, their flesh to meat."
- Margaret Atwood

"I am a connoisseur of fine irony. 'Tis a bit like fine wine, but it has a better bite."
- Lynn Kurland (Princess of the Sword (Nine Kingdoms, #3))

"Language is wine upon the lips."
- Virginia Woolf

My writing is an overflow of the wine glass of my life, not a basin in which I wash out my ideals and expectations."
- C. JoyBell C

"Your divine should not have used water. It just doesn't hold the attention properly. Wine. Or blood, in a pinch. Some liquid that matters."
- Lois McMaster Bujold

"You are trying to lure us into revealing information you're not entitled to? With chocolate and wine? Are you amateurs?"
- Moira J. Moore (Heroes at Odds)

"I have dreamt in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind."
- Emily Brontë (Wuthering Heights)

--------
Image: 'A Glass in The Hand...' by clappstar. Available under a creative commons license. © 2010, clappstar.

Le Nouvel Automne Est Arrivé.

2011-10-03T00:29:00.006+02:00

Autumn is here. Or is it? We've had clear blue skies and temperatures around 25°C for over a week, which is more summer than we've enjoyed all through August.

Yet the mornings have a chilly bite to them and our trees have transformed into multi-coloured marvels with crispy leaves that rustle and crackle on their way to the ground. Clusters of mushrooms have sprung up to confuse the cats on their daily trot to the food trays - yes, autumn is here all right.

While nature is shedding its fruits and preparing to go underground for the winter, I spent some time in my hammock today, basking in the afternoon sun and thinking about my own harvest: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.

It struck me how much my life has changed these past few years. If I had to label the difference, I think 'ownership' would be a good word. I feel like I've finally taken the reins of my life, not in a strained and no-room-for-improvisation kind of way, but definitely more focused than I've ever been.

The interesting thing is that I still don't know where I'm going. My focus doesn't seem to be a goal or a point in the future. Instead it's coming from within, born from a better insight in what I can do, what I like to do and what I want to contribute to the world.

Writing has been an important factor and a catalyst in this process. By looking for the right words, I'm discovering what it is I want to say. By looking for ways to get my message across, I'm finding out why it's so important to me.

This is going to be an interesting season; I wonder what else it's got in store ....

What are you harvesting this year?

Celebrate good times ...

2011-09-23T18:06:00.011+02:00

I've been quiet on the blog this week, but I had a good reason. About a month ago, I applied for a new job, which I hadn't done in a long time.

After a strenuous bilingual interview yesterday, I got the call earlier today: I've got the job and I'm starting next week.

The new job is at the university where I've been working for the past fourteen years, but it's still a big change. I'll have a lot more responsibility, it involves more travelling and international networking (yay!) and - the biggest change of all: I will no longer be teaching.

Over the summer I had considered all the pros and cons. In the end I decided to just follow my instincts. This is something I am cut out to do, and something I really want - a job that will push me out of my comfort zone and provide the challenges I need to grow as a person, a job where I'll need to take more (calculated) risks and deal with the consequences of my decisions, a job where real-world results will determine whether or not I've been successful.

The decision will affect my writing. This autumn I will not be able to take a sabbatical to write full-time, like I've done the past two years. I'll have fewer holidays and will be away more often.

Yet I'm more excited than worried. I tend to be more productive when I have a lot going on, and this will give me the opportunity to see more of the world and meet more people, which inspires my writing. My novel is also at a stage where I can afford to do this, and the future lies wide open.

On another note, this is also the first anniversary of my blog - yet another reason to celebrate. So get yourself a glass of your favourite celebratory drink and join me in the happy dance!

--------

Cat Tales.

2011-09-16T21:09:00.022+02:00

We have cats, or - more correctly - cats have us.

Our Feline Overlords are called Cleo and Pixie and we've chosen to keep them outdoors. They have our garden to play in and plenty of (other) unkempt urban wilderness nearby. I often envy them.

Cleo is the Queen. She rules the garden with well-timed and unexpected attacks on anything with the audacity to move or breathe in her queendom. This includes her brother Pixie. (See picture above. If you look closely you can also see our Naughty Tree.)

In the absence of toes to chew on,
Pixie will settle for fingers.

Pixie is a beautiful cat but an unbelievable coward. I suppose it's partly my fault because I had him turned into an ex-tomcat several years ago. (Sorry, guys).

The removal of his Dignity and Pride has no doubt made him the laughing stock of his champagne-cork-soccer buddies and he's developed a toe fetish since. I suspect it's a coping mechanism.

About two years ago, our neighbours got a new cat. A domesticated one. You know the type: sociable, people-loving and utterly naive. Cleo hated her from day one. Pixie pretends he does too, but you can tell he's actually scared of her.

More than a year of hissing, growling and pitiful meowing later, the neighbours' cat got pregnant. When her Humans moved, she got left behind, so she's been eating Cleo's and Pixie's food since, which hasn't improved their opinion of her.

In turn, Mum abandoned her remaining kitten and I had to adopt it. I tried not to, but have you ever said no to a kitten?

The first weeks, this was the side
of Guest Kitten we saw most.

Guest Kitten is one of the cutest specimen I've ever seen and she believes our cats are her family. When she started to follow them around, it worried me at first. I expected to find pieces of Guest Kitten impaled on herb stalks to mark the borders of Cleo's territory.

It hasn't happened. Cleo is apprehensive but seems to tolerate Guest Kitten, while Pixie is - you've guessed it - afraid of her.

Guest Kitten at play.

In the beginning, Guest Kitten wasn't too crazy about Humans, but after weeks of 'apprivoiser', as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry called it, she's warming up to me.

So far I've been able to pet her, pick her up and determine she's a 'she'. She's also beginning to rub against my legs. I guess I'm hers now. I don't mind. Did I mention how adorable she is?

Now, Guest Kitten needs a name, and this is where you come in. I'd love to name her after a female character of a novel, be it from a published one or a WIP. Yours or someone else's, I don't mind, as long as it fits. Please post your suggestions in the comments and I promise I'll consider each and every one.

To help you choose, here's Guest Kitten in action, exploring a box:

However, in the end, the box was claimed by the Queen herself ...

... while Pixie watched from a safe distance, ready to escape at the first hint of danger:

Afterwards they met up for family dinner. There was much rejoicing.

The End.

Lucky 13: Women Writers about Courage.

2011-09-13T13:13:00.004+02:00

"It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else."
- Erma Bombeck

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what."
- Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)

"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow."
- Mary Anne Radmacher

"One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We cannot be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest."
- Maya Angelou

"Everyone has talent. What's rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads."
- Erica Jong

"One is not in bondage to the past, which has shaped our feelings, to race, inheritance, background. All this can be altered if we have the courage to examine how it formed us. We can alter the chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements."
- Anaïs Nin

"Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want."
- Ayn Rand

"There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me."
- Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)

"[Responsibility to yourself] means, therefore, the courage to be "different"...The difference between a life lived actively, and a life of passive drifting and dispersal of energies, is an immense difference. Once we begin to feel committed to our lives, responsible to ourselves, we can never again be satisfied with the old, passive way."
- Adrienne Rich

"With enough courage, you can do without a reputation."
- Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind)

"There must be courage; there must be no awe. There must be criticism, for humor, to my mind, is encapsulated in criticism. There must be a disciplined eye and a wild mind...There must be a magnificent disregard of your reader, for if he cannot follow you, there is nothing you can do about it."
- Dorothy Parker

"HELPED are those who find the courage to do at least one small thing each day to help the existence of another--plant, animal, river, or human being. They shall be joined by a multitude of the timid."
- Alice Walker

"I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn."
- Anne Frank

--------
Photo 'Jumping in the waves' by TheGiantVermin, available under a creative commons license. © 2004, TheGiantVermin.

The Magic of Truth, Lies and Technology.

2011-09-08T17:22:00.004+02:00

I sometimes hear people express the fear that technology will make us less creative, or that technological evolutions might destroy art.

I don't agree. I believe technology is just a tool, whereas creativity is an attitude, a talent and a honed skill.

The following five-minute video is a great example of how technology can give rise to new forms of art.

At TEDGlobal 2011, the Swiss magician and illusionist Marco Tempest created an aesthetic, touching and thought-provoking reflection on truth, lies and the power of art:

"Art is a deception that creates real emotion
A lie that creates a truth
And when you give yourself over to that deception
It becomes magic."

Marco Tempest, TEDGlobal 2011

A Trip Down Memory Lane.

2011-09-04T13:50:00.005+02:00

It's been almost a year since I started 'The Woman Condition'. In that time I've written nearly 200 posts and the blog has hit 20,000 pageviews. This seemed like a good occasion to take a trip down blog-memory lane and write a post in which I would dust off a few of my favourite and most popular oldies.

As if the universe knew I could do with a push, one of my favourite fellow bloggers, L.G. Smith of Bards & Prophets, passed on the 7x7 Link Award to me, which asks to do exactly that: highlight older posts in the following categories:

Most Beautiful
Most Helpful
Most Popular
Most Controversial
Most Surprisingly Successful
Most Underrated
Most Prideworthy

Most Beautiful
This was easy. In May I wrote a post about beauty and being beautiful, with lots of pictures of beautiful women:

They Are Beautiful and So Are You.

Most Helpful
I think the posts with most potential to be helpful are the ones in my 'So Your Partner's a Rational Creature' series. I wrote them in my first 2 weeks of blogging, so I doubt they've been read by anybody besides my family and Facebook friends, but they got a great response there and seemed to provoke both reflection and discussion.

It was interesting to read these posts again, because I can tell my style of writing has changed. Anybody who sometimes fears blogging might be a waste of time: it isn't. We practise and hone our skills, even if we're not aware of it.

So Your Partner's a Rational Creature.

Most Popular
By far the most visited posts are the 'Manage Your Body Weight - the Green Way' lot. It helped a lot that Mistress Krista of the hugely popular website Stumptuous.com gave me a shout-out, which I was very happy about, even more so because she's an absolute goddess when it comes to women's fitness and health.

Manage Your Body Weight - the Green Way.

Most Controversial
This one's more difficult. I tend to steer away from controversial posts. It's the good girl / bad girl thing, I suspect. I did plead a case for using the word 'vagina' more frequently. Where I live, that's by no means controversial, but it seems to be in other parts of the world.

Warning: Contains the Word 'Vagina'.

Most Surprisingly Successful
When I wrote my post on the art of landscape artist Andy Goldsworthy, I had never expected it to become my most visited post. It's had over 800 hits so far (most of them via Google images, I suspect). I love his work, and I suspect you might too!

Natural Beauty: the Art of Andy Goldsworthy.

Most Underrated
For reasons that are hard to define, one of my favourite posts still is 'What's Your Story?' I wrote it in January of 2011, which feels much longer ago than it is. The story (and by association the post) still moves me.

What's Your Story?

Most Prideworthy
This would have to be my very first post, because it represents a decision that took me a lot of courage: to put myself, my thoughts and my writing out there and risk the confrontation with reality - and other people.

In the beginning there was ... Eve.

Now, to pass the 7x7 Link Award on to 7 deserving friends. Like L.G., I've chosen people whose blogs have been going on for a while, but whom I've come across later. I thought this would be a great way to get to know them better as well as discover their older, legendary posts:

Crafty Green Poet (whose blog has been alive and kicking since 2005!)
Hart Johnson, Confessions of a Watery Tart (2009)
Lisa Gail Green, Paranormal Point of View (2010)
Angela Felsted, My Poetry and Prose Place (2009)
Exmoorjane, Diary of a Desperate Exmoor Woman (2007)
Jessica Bell, The Alliterative Allomorph (2010)
Allison, Allison Writes (2008)

--------
Image: 'Forest path' by Angel Jimenez, available under a creative commons license. © 2005, Angel Jimenez.

A Kinder Philosophy of Success.

2011-09-01T22:06:00.013+02:00

Dreams of success and the fear of failure seem inevitable components of the writing life - or life in general.

Because it is something so many of us are dealing with, I wanted to share a video of a talk by the famous writer and philosopher Alain de Botton.

At TED Global in 2009, he examined how modern society thinks about success and failure and asked interesting and thought-provoking questions about what drives us in our everyday lives.

To quote but a few of my favourite passages:

'I don't think we are particularly materialistic. I think we live in a society which has simply pegged certain emotional rewards to the acquisition of material goods. It's not the material goods we want. It's the rewards we want.'

'Here's an insight that I've had about success. You can't be successful at everything. We hear a lot of talk about work-life balance. Nonsense. You can't have it all. You can't. So any vision of success has to admit what it's losing out on, where the element of loss is.'

'So what I want to argue for, is not that we should give up on our ideas of success. But we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas. And make sure that we own them, that we are truly the authors of our own ambitions. Because it's bad enough, not getting what you want. But it's even worse to have an idea of what it is you want, and find out at the end of a journey, that it isn't, in fact, what you wanted all along.'

'But at the end of the day we should always remember that whoever is facing us, whatever has happened in their lives, there will be a strong element of the haphazard.'

- Alain de Botton, TEDGlobal 2009

Here's the complete 17-minute talk:

or watch the video (with interactive transcript) at TED.com.

What's your definition of success?

--------
Photo 'Zarko Drincic - Master Key' by Zarko Drincic, available under a creative commons license. © 2005, Zarko Drincic.

Dieting and Decision Fatigue.

2011-08-29T18:37:00.001+02:00

The other day, my husband pointed out an article that 'would interest me'. He was right – as usual.

The article was called 'Do you make too many decisions?', posted at the smart and thought-provoking Farnam Street blog.

Decisions, Decisions ...

Now, before you think this was his subtle way of calling me bossy, you might want to read the article. It deals with the decision density of modern life, and how each decision takes mental effort, thus reducing the amount of energy left for stamina, persistence and willpower.

This leads to what is called 'decision fatigue', which is described in detail in this New York Times article and in Roy F. Baumeister's and John Tierney's book: 'Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength' that's coming out in a few days (September 1st, 2011).

One of the most interesting takeaways of the articles for me was the discovery that glucose plays a vital role in willpower. It explains why dieting is a particularly difficult test of self-control.

The Catch-22 of Dieting ...

Seriously, everyone who's ever been on a diet knows this - myself included. Even people with very strong willpower in other aspects of their lives feel they're lacking when it comes to dieting.

We start the day with the best of intentions, manage to resist the first temptations thrown at us, but each of these brave acts takes up mental energy and lowers our willpower. Towards the end of the day, willpower simply runs out. To replenish it, we'd have to give our brain glucose, hence the sugar cravings.

So here it is, the catch-22 of dieting:

1. We need willpower to resist eating.
2. We need to eat in order to have willpower.

Now, the good news is that, once an explanation has been found, one can start looking for solutions to a problem. *Cheer*.

Dieting and Decision Fatigue ...

Reading the article at Farnham Street came at exactly the right time. Over the past year I'd gained a few pounds, and now the summer holidays have come to an end, I'm working on losing them again. Being a foodie and a wine enthusiast, I have to stay alert. But that's okay; the alternative is worse.

I've written extensively about weight management before in my 'Manage your body weight - the green way' series, but here's a summary of what I'm doing at the moment, in case anybody's looking for inspiration / motivation after some summer indulgence and wants to join in:

1. I register everything I'm eating at http://www.fitday.com - it's very little work and it gives me an overview of how I'm doing. It's easy to miscalculate or lose track of the calories and nutrients you're consuming if you just play it by ear. A reliable food diary shows the facts, which helps by taking away some of the strain of having to make the right decision every time.

2. I manage my environment to reduce temptation, which leaves me with more willpower for when it matters. This means: if I can't or shouldn't eat it, I don't have it in the house. In short: no candy, no crisps, ... and instead plenty of fresh vegetables, low-calorie meals in the freezer, easy snacks like my favourite fruits, nuts, Greek yoghurt, dark chocolate (70% cocoa or more), lemons & soda water (to make stevia-sweetened lemonade), etc.

3. I eat smaller meals but more often: 5 to 6 times a day. (I aim for 6, usually manage 5.) Being able to eat on a regular basis reduces the burden on your willpower.

4. No sugar, except for the bit that's in my daily piece of dark, bitter chocolate, which isn't much, and a bit of grape sugar (dextrose) - see under number 5.

5. My new favourite emergency trick (after reading the articles I mentioned above): if I get a really bad sugar craving and I'm about to give in, I take a teaspoon of grape sugar / dextrose. It works for me, but that doesn't mean it's good for everybody. If you want to do this, do it wisely. Glucose affects your blood sugar levels, so if you're a diabetic, this is probably a really bad idea.

Also, know that 5 grams of dextrose amounts to about 20 calories, so don't exaggerate, register the calories and don't fool yourself into thinking it's good for you. If you focus on eating healthily, you should get a steady release of glucose from the other foods you're eating, so this is just a fix for the most difficult moments.

If you're wondering why I use dextrose instead of normal sugar, cane sugar or any of the other sugar varieties out there: it's because grape sugar / dextrose is 100% glucose. Regular sugar, cane sugar and the others also contain fructose, which is to be avoided. (Read this article / watch the video if you want to know more.)

Recommended Reading ...

Farnham Street blog: http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/do-you-make-too-many-decisions/
Complete New York Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer-from-decision-fatigue.html
The Book: http://www.amazon.com/Willpower-Rediscovering-Greatest-Human-Strength/dp/1594203075

--------
Photo 'Sick and Tired' by Stephanie Lepoint, available under a creative commons license. © 2007, Stephanie Lepoint.
Photo 'Gluttony' by vitaeer, available under a creative commons license. © 2006, vitaeer.
Photo 'Belgian chocolate' by K.C. Woolf, available under a creative commons license. © 2011, K.C. Woolf.
Photo 'Grapes' by Dave Rutt, available under a creative commons license. © 2008, Dave Rutt.

Glorious Rheingau, Ravishing Rieslings.

2011-08-24T01:14:00.016+02:00

Last week, on the way back from 'Holidays - the Sequel', we spent a few days at the river Rhine, in Germany's second oldest hotel: Hotel Krone near Rüdesheim-am-Rhein.

Over the past few years, we've developed a taste for Riesling wines, and after visiting the French Alsace last year, we wanted to continue our discovery of this wonderful grape, in the Rheingau this time.

The Rheingau ...

The Rheingau is one of Germany's smaller wine regions but an important one, especially for Riesling wines. The oldest documented references about Riesling come from this area, and the first vineyards have allegedly been planted as early as the 8th or 9th Century.

Schloß Johannisberg in Geisenheim is supposedly one of the places where it was discovered that grapes affected by Botrytis cinerea (pourriture noble or noble rot) made delicious sweet wines.

For these and many other reasons, the Rheingau had been on my to-visit list for a while, so when the opportunity arose, I couldn't let it pass.

The Hotel ...

Hotel Krone is a charming, old-world boutique hotel, a bit outdated maybe but that only added to its character.

We stayed in one of their suites, with a wide balcony overlooking the Rhine and a huge marble bathroom, complete with private sauna and jacuzzi.

If we hadn't had all this wine-tasting and gastronomic dining on the agenda, we wouldn't have left the room.

I was glad we did venture out, though, because we discovered great wines in the Rheingau, in different price ranges, but nearly all of them of decent quality and fair value for money.

The Wine ...

We started our exploration with a visit to Schloß Johannisberg and a tour of the ultramodern Steinberg cellars at Kloster Eberbach. Afterwards we visited independent winemakers in the nearby towns.

It was interesting to see how in an area that's quite renowned for its wines, many of the local wine growers seemed to have little interest in actually selling their wines. One of them, when we asked if we could sample his wines, looked so surprised one would think he'd never had that request. He even had to check with his wife first, who wasn't home at the time.

When we came back a few hours later, he had recovered from the shock and sat down at the table with a couple of bottles. We ended up having a good chat and bought several of his wines: a lovely dry white, and his personal favourite: a medium dry weißherbst (a rosé made from one type of grape – pinot noir in this case – and harvested from one location). So everything worked out fine, but if we hadn't spoken German, we wouldn't have made it past the doorstep.

Now, my favourite discovery of the entire trip was Weingut Josef Leitz.

Not only were they incredibly accommodating by organising a short-notice private tasting for us; the guy who lead the tasting - Tobias, if I recall his name correctly - was friendly, welcoming, knowledgeable and clearly passionate about wine. He took the time to explain (in English, even) the individual characteristics of the vineyard's winemaking style and the different soils and 'Lagen' they worked with.

The Leitz tasting was one of the most enjoyable ones I've ever experienced. I can honestly say there wasn't a single wine I didn't like, even though they were all quite distinct. Leitz' wines are a perfect illustration of what a difference terroir makes in the final result.

Deciding which ones to buy became a true ordeal. Each of them unique, they all had an irresistible vigour and vibrance, intensely fragrant yet elegant, with a beautiful balance of acidity, minerality and luscious fruit.

After careful deliberation, we settled on one of his more modest dry ones for everyday consumption, and - for more special occasions - my favourite: the 2010 Rüdesheimer Berg Roseneck Spätlese, a sweeter wine with a delicate aroma of rose petals.

But before I get lost in lyrical outpourings, let me share a few photographs of:

The Rhine ...

The Wine Cellar ...

Zum Wohl!

Blog Love.

2011-08-17T16:39:00.005+02:00

Time and time again I'm surprised at how supportive and genuinely kind our blogger-writer community is.

As an example of blog love: last week, the witty and wonderful Margo Lerwill of Urban Psychopomp passed on the Liebster Blog award to me with the much-appreciated words:

'K.C. Woolf at The Woman Condition has an interesting blog. Though many of her posts don’t directly address writing, they often address it in an indirect (and compelling) way.' (1)

Needless to say I was happy, even more so because it felt like she 'got' my blog. Underneath the variety of topics runs my writing. Nearly everything I touch on in my blog plays a part in my novel, be it as inspiration, setting, writing tool or one of the tiny details that make a story more lively and real.

Like most awards, this one comes with a few ~~rules~~ guidelines:

Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
Reveal your top 5 picks (blogs with under 200 followers) and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
Copy and paste the award on your blog.
Have faith that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.
And most of all - have bloggity-blog fun!

As befits a good girl, here we go:

1. A sincere thank you to writer Margo Lerwill of Urban Psychopomp. Go check out her blog if you haven't already!

2. My top 5 picks:

Bards and Prophets by L.G. Smith. She is smart, funny and interesting. A true writer. Her blog seems to attract like-minded people, and I've met a lot of great fellow writers there.
Girl Wizard Suze. Suze has a knack for describing everyday life with an eye for those details that turn the ordinary into an adventure.

Munk Davis, who is ... different, in a very good way. He makes me laugh, think and wonder, and the opening lines he so generously shares are brilliant.
Blue Skies Sunny Days. I only met Linda recently, and I'm gradually reading through her blog. I'm intrigued by her open-minded outlook on life – sometimes gentle and understanding, sometimes sharp and uncompromising. On top of that: she's an INTP (like my husband and several of my friends).
An Endless Fascination with Stories by Toby Neal. I love Toby. She's got tons of personality, is incredibly supportive of her writer friends, and she's about to embark on the next stage of her writing adventure. She lives in Hawaii and often posts great pictures that make me want to move.

3. Done.

4. I do.

5. Okay!

Lucky 13: Women Writers about Friendship.

2011-08-13T13:13:00.002+02:00

"There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature."
-- Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)

"If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends."
-- Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)

"the world is not a pleasant place to be without someone to hold and be held by."
-- Nikki Giovanni

"Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over."
-- Gloria Naylor

"Constant use had not worn ragged the fabric of their friendship."
-- Dorothy Parker

"He was the strangest of strangers in that he was also her oldest friend."
-- Ann Brashares

"Like so many plain cups on the shelves. You can reach for them, use them without thinking. Most of them don't matter. Sometimes you lose your grip on one of them and it falls and smashes to piece, and you shrug and say to yourself, what a pity. Then you reach for the cup that you use every day, one that you love and use so often that as you stretch out your hand it is already making the shape that fits its curve. You are certain that yesterday it was in its proper place, but now there is nothing. Just air. You have lost something that was so familiar, so much a part of your life that you were not even looking for it. Just expecting it to be there, as always."
-- Rosie Thomas (Iris and Ruby)

"I am treating you as my friend, asking you to share my present minuses in the hope that I can ask you to share my future plusses."
-- Katherine Mansfield

"This is what I miss, Cordelia: not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. Two old women giggling over their tea."
-- Margaret Atwood (Cat's Eye)

"My mind is a neighborhood I try not to go into alone."
-- Anne Lamott

"It takes much bravery to stand up to our enemies but we need as much bravery to stand up to our friends."
-- J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)

"The friend who holds your hand and says the wrong thing is made of dearer stuff than the one who stays away."
-- Barbara Kingsolver

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
-- Anaïs Nin

(to my friends)

--------
Photo 'friends' by Ferenc Pohly, available under a creative commons license. © 2006, Ferenc Pohly.

Perspective.

2011-08-05T15:13:00.011+02:00

For a large part of my life, I considered 'money' a dirty word.

I was an ideas person. Something as mundane and tangible as money or earthly possessions didn't seem worthy of my interest.

In the meantime I've come to understand that this attitude could only sprout and thrive in soil that was a) there and b) fertile. In other words: I grew up in the privileged situation where I could afford to deprecate money.

I come from an average, middle-class background. We were never rich by any stretch of the imagination, but our basic and important needs were met and my siblings and I got a good education. That alone puts me in the top quartile of richest people in the world – a gift I never acknowledged.

These last few years, through research my husband is doing, I've come to look at money in a different way: as a representation and carrier of human energy. Money, like energy, is a means to an end, neither good nor bad until it's put to a purpose.

Once I got past my aversion to the world of banking, finance and global economics, new and exciting layers of understanding opened up. This has given me a new perspective on history, human interaction and, above all, on personal responsibility.

Underneath all this, my inner hippie is still very much alive; often enough she rears her wild-haired head. But her job description has evolved. She still gets to rule my dreams, fuel my writing and inspire my choices. However, in the other realms I dwell in, I listen to my other advisers.

Tied in with the topic of this post and in honour of my inner hippie, I wanted to share this:

When thinking about a concept as vast as money, it's easy to lose perspective. The 'Global Rich List' is one of those tools that helps me keep it.

Give it a try. It only takes a few seconds and you might be surprised!

--------
Image: design by: whatshername13 @ deviantart. Text by: unknown.

Inspired.

2011-07-31T18:05:00.031+02:00

I've spent the last few weeks travelling through England and part of Scotland. Now back home, I feel different, refreshed and above all ... inspired.

What had been intended as a final research trip for my Cotswolds-based novel, has become much more. Travelling tends to do that: you start off with an idea of where you want to go and what you'd like to do, and somewhere along the way the real journey takes shape.

We hadn't had much time to prepare in advance, but at least the bare essentials were sorted: a base of operations in my oh-so-beloved Cotswolds, a schedule half filled with meetings with friends and family, and a long list of things to do and places to see. We could wing it from there.

During those weeks we explored many Cotswolds towns and villages; we drove up to the North of England, the Scottish Lothians and the Kingdom of Fife; we spent time with family in Lancashire and Yorkshire, then drove south again to Wiltshire where we visited Stonehenge and Avebury, impressive prehistoric tombs and (more recent) hill figures.

Back in the Cotswolds, a day trip to the Forest of Dean lead us into Puzzlewood, which is said to have inspired Tolkien's Forest of Fangorn.

Inspiration is everywhere, all the time, but it seems more apparent when we're travelling. Whether that's due to a vacation mindset, to having more time, to being more relaxed and aware or to the fact that we're in an unfamiliar environment, the fact remains: away from home our senses feast on details we would normally overlook.

Holidays are the perfect time to say 'yes' to opportunities as they arise. I'm glad we let others decide part of our agenda or we wouldn't have discovered the fascinating historic sites around the famous Wiltshire stone circles – or enjoyed a delicious Thai banquet in the old Roman city of Cirencester.

If we hadn't accepted a lift from a friendly driver on our walk to Woodchester Mansion, we wouldn't have met Jim, the passionate archaeologist, who drove us through the mud and up the hill to show what he was working on and explain it to us with verve and vigour.

Inspiration truly is everywhere – for the eyes to see, for the heart to touch and for the mind to explore.

Over the next few weeks, I will share plenty of stories and photographs of the places we've visited (and maybe throw in a few clues about how some of them tie into my novel), but I want to start off by pointing out a few sites and sights that have inspired other writers (and film makers) in the past:

1. Puzzlewood

Puzzlewood is a 14 acre woodland in the Forest of Dean near Ross-on-Wye, Gloucestershire. It is one of the remaining ancient woodlands in England, and said to have been an inspiration for J. R. R. Tolkien's forests of Middle-earth.

It has also been used as a setting in the BBC series 'Merlin' and 'Doctor Who'.

2. Gloucester Cathedral

Gloucester Cathedral is an architectural masterpiece that has been used in several Harry Potter films. Parts of the historic cloisters, for instance, served as Hogwarts' corridors.

It has also featured in the 2008 Doctor Who Christmas special, and I have no doubt the building has inspired countless of other visitors in their creative endeavours.

3. Woodcarving in Ripon Cathedral

While his father was a canon at the cathedral in Ripon, Yorkshire, Charles Dodgson (better known under the name of Lewis Carroll) might have been familiar with the intricate woodcarvings in the cathedral's 15th century misericords.

One of them depicts a rabbit caught by a griffin while another rabbit disappears – you guessed – down the rabbit hole.

4. Rosslyn Chapel

The Midlothian village of Roslin in Scotland is home to one of the most impressive and inspiring buildings I have ever seen: Rosslyn Chapel.

It was already mentioned in Sir Walter Scott's early 19th century poem 'Rosabelle' (here's a reading on YouTube), but has probably become most famous because of Dan Brown's 'Da Vinci Code' and the 2005 film.

Which sights, sites, trips or tidbits have inspired you?

Enjoy the Silence ...

2011-07-06T12:36:00.003+02:00

My wonderful friends, it is time to take a short summer break on the blog, disappear from everyday reality and dive into the world of my novel.

I will be back at the end of July, refreshed and full of new blogging and writing ideas.

Enjoy the silence ...

And of course, the original:

What Does it Mean to be You?

2011-07-02T19:37:00.000+02:00

I watched an interesting video the other day, in which British philosopher Julian Baggini speaks about the Self, personal identity and what it means to be 'You'.
I found it so gripping I wanted to share it here.

As philosophers go, his speech doesn't give answers, but it does spark a lot of ideas and reflections to eventually come up with our own.

I liked that he doesn't automatically subscribe to the notion that loosening your sense of Self, or detaching yourself from your Ego is the ultimate goal and the ideal way to go if you want to become more compassionate.

I've encountered that idea a lot in very intelligent, caring and spiritual people, but I'm still not sure I agree with it. Maybe it's part of being a Leo, or maybe it means I'm way too attached to my Ego and nowhere near spiritual enlightenment, but I believe more in refining and educating your Self as a means to understand and recognise other people's individual perspectives on the world.

I have the impression that my sense of Self and my personal pride don't so much hinder me as rather help me to take other's Selves into account in my own decisions and in the way I live my life. I might of course be deluding myself.

Either way, here's Julian Baggini's speech. It's about 20 minutes long. Enjoy!

Julian Baggini is the author of several books and articles and together with psychotherapist Antonia Macaro he writes a column for Financial Times Magazine, called 'The Shrink and The Sage'.

Lost in Translation.

2011-06-30T17:54:00.004+02:00

I recently became aware of how much of my waking time I spend thinking and writing in English, even though my native language is Flemish – the variety of Dutch that is spoken in Flanders, the North of Belgium.

I love languages, foreign ones as well as my own, with English as my absolute favourite. They were my favourite subjects at school, and I went on to study linguistics and literature in college.

Belgium is an interesting country to live in for a language enthusiast. It's tiny (about 30,000 square kilometres), has 11 million inhabitants and we have no less than three national languages:

Flemish (spoken by 59% of the population)
French (40%)
German (less than 1%)

On top of that, many people still speak one of the numerous local dialects, which can vary greatly even over a small distance.

Our country is located right in the centre of Western Europe and we're surrounded by countries with a distinct identity, culture, cuisine and language of their own: France, England, the Netherlands, Germany and Luxembourg. Cities such as Paris, London, Amsterdam, Cologne, Bonn and Luxembourg are only a couple of hours away.

This means that, from an early age onwards, most of us come in regular contact with other languages, and – as Dutch isn't spoken widely in the world – we're quickly confronted with the need to learn a language other than our own.

I was raised in Flemish and our local dialect, learnt French and Latin in school, studied English and German at university and took 2 years of Spanish evening classes afterwards.

To me, the biggest benefit of speaking a foreign language is that it gives you access to other cultures in a way you would never get if you have to rely on other people to speak your tongue.

Using the local language – even if you're not fluent – is often perceived as a token of respect for local culture (and its people), and it allows for more personal and often more interesting connections and experiences.

An article I recently read reminded me of another benefit of knowing other languages: it gives access to more shades of meaning, partly through the typical 'untranslatable words' each language has.

Words like the magical Spanish 'duende', the subtle German 'Fingerspitzengefühl', the yearning Russian 'toska', the all-too-human Scottish 'tartle' or the tender Brazilian Portuguese 'cafuné' (see the article) have the power to evoke feelings and memories, to enrich our lives and our way of thinking.

We're diverse and fascinating creatures and our languages reflect that. With each new one we learn, we open up another piece of our universe – and possibly ourselves.

What's your favourite 'untranslatable' word? Which language(s) would you most like to learn?

--------
Image 1: 'EU-Belgium.svg' - Wikimedia commons
Image 2: 'De liefde in het Duits-Nederlands woordenboek' by marie-ll, available under a creative commons license. © 2006, marie-ll.
Image 3: 'graceful intensity' by Kristy, available under a creative commons license. © 2004, Kristy.

Hedonist Hideouts: Huize Colette, Ghent.

2011-06-25T12:47:00.017+02:00

For most of this month, I've been in the middle of exams. On the less stressful side, fortunately, but it's still a lot of work and not the kind that makes one overflow with creativity: grading exams and papers, assessing presentations and then juggling, checking and double-checking hundreds of marks.

On the bright side, this can be a good time to discover new and exciting corners of my home town, when I feel in need of mental as well as physical refuelling.

My most recent discovery is Huize Colette, a chocolate and book house my husband had recommended. He was sure I would love it. He was right.

A few days later, I grabbed my Kindle and took off for a much-needed break in our beautiful medieval city centre, where I found Huize Colette tucked away in the shadow of the town hall.

Huize Colette's ground floor looks like a cosy tea room, which is nice enough, but if you're 'that kind of person', you need to follow the row of books up the stairs and discover the first floor.

Upstairs, the 'chocolate and books' house consists of a landing and what I can only describe as the perfect living room: funky colours, comfy armchairs, lots of bookshelves and friendly people who bring you delicious hot chocolate.

I was so intensely happy when the chocolate turned out to be scrumptious. Underneath the hope, I had braced myself for grave disappointment, but it didn't happen.

When I arrived, I asked the young woman downstairs what she would recommend (always a good way to get a feel for the people behind the place), and after enquiring about my tastes in chocolate, she recommended the 'fondant' hot chocolate, which is the standard name here not just for a dessert but also for the dark, bitter chocolate that is still sufficiently sweet.

She said, if I still fancied a more bitter taste, I could try the 'bitter', which is the darkest hot chocolate drink they're serving.

I installed myself in one of the comfy chairs, took my Kindle, put my feet up and waited for the chocolate to arrive.

The 'fondant' was gorgeous: full of flavour while still creamy, and obviously made fresh. Quite a large mug as well, as you can see.

I also tried the 'bitter' afterwards, which I loved but is not to everyone's taste I'm sure. If you're into dark chocolate, starting off with the 'fondant' is definitely the right choice.

If for whatever reason you don't like chocolate, they also offer a wide range of coffees (including several 'with a kick'), teas, organic fruit juices and a few alcoholic drinks (no beer).

After about an hour and half in hedonist heaven I was more than ready to face the world again and I left Huize Colette in a state of nerve-tingling, chocolate-induced bliss, temporarily in love with the world.

The mood lasted just long enough to get home and grab the next batch of exam papers and my evil red pen, but hey - every minute spent well fuels your inner strength for the times you need it most.

I've already arranged to meet with a friend there next week, and I will drag along several others in the months to come. It's the perfect place for great conversation, as well as for quiet reading or writing.

Too bad it's not open at night, but if this means the ladies behind the business continue to enjoy it for many, many years and keep the place as cosy and authentic as it is now, I am happy they've made this decision.

Contact details:

Huize Colette

Belfortstraat 6

B-9000 GENT

BELGIUM

Open Tuesday to Friday 9:00 - 19:00 and Saturday/Sunday 10:00 - 19:00.

What's your favourite hideout?

Favourite Book Challenge Blogfest and a Game of Tag.

2011-06-21T15:38:00.005+02:00

To celebrate hitting 100 followers, fiction writer Teralyn Rose Pilgrim has organised the Favourite Book Challenge Blogfest, in which we were asked to pick our top 5 favourite books and write one line of what it is about and one line of why we liked it.

If you want to take part, you can still join in (until June 22nd).

I knew both parts of the challenge would be equally hard - there are so many books I love and I'm a woman of many words - which is why I simply had to take part. A challenge indeed!

My Favourite Books.

Patrick Süskind, Perfume.

- The story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a boy born with an extraordinary sense of smell and without a scent of his own, who - after being rejected by everyone close to him - starts to learn the art of creating perfumes and the overwhelming effect scents have on people.

- This novel took me to a whole new level of sensory awareness and made me pay much more attention to scents, flavours, colours, beauty and ugliness in the world around me.

A.S. Byatt, Possession: A Romance.

- In this novel, two academics, each fascinated by a different Victorian poet, meet after one of them has found a mysterious letter that suggests their poets had a secret romance, and when they start investigating the past they get caught up in a complicated relationship of their own.

- I loved Byatt's clever writing, the poetic atmosphere, the depth of emotion and the intricate plot with which she wove together the past and the present.

Jim Butcher, Codex Alera series (beginning with: Furies of Calderon).

- This fantasy series recounts the adventures of Tavi, a young man who is born without magic in a world where citizens control elemental furies to do their bidding, and as a result he has to learn to rely on his intelligence to help save the realm from destruction by powerful enemies.

- I love the complex and consistent world and the unique, highly believable and fascinating characters the author has created. One of my favourite fantasy series so far.

Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere.

- When Richard Mayhew finds an injured girl (named 'Door') on the streets in London, he discovers the existence of a dark, magical parallel world called 'London Below', and as he helps the girl, his old life disappears, forcing him to find his way back or lose his old self altogether - which might not be so bad.

- I liked the characters, the atmosphere and the clever way (and wordplay) with which the author entwines real-life London with this underground fantasy world.

Astrid Lindgren, Pippi Longstocking.

- Pippi Longstocking (or Pippi Langkous as it's called in Flemish) is a young girl with superhuman strength and a suitcase full of gold, who lives without parents but with a monkey and a horse, when she becomes friends with Tommy and Annika, the neighbour's children, with whom she has many adventures.

- This was my absolute favourite book as a child. I must have read it (and the sequels) at least 20 times and I never got tired of them. I loved Pippi's imagination, her chaotic lifestyle and most of all her attitude, especially towards grown-ups who abused their power by mistreating animals or looking down on defenceless others.

And Now For a Game of Tag!

Yesterday I was tagged by the wonderful Rosalind Adam of Rosalind Adam is writing in the rain.

I've decided to be - mildly - naughty and change the 'tagged' rules & questions, so here are my answers to the new, personalised set:

1. Link, upload, ... a picture that makes you laugh:

2. When was the last time you ate chocolate?

Yesterday. Oh wait, that just changed. I'm having some right now - the dark, Belgian kind. OmNomNom ...

3. If people had a theme song that started playing whenever they entered a room, which one would yours be and why (- if you want to share)?

Ooh, tough one! There are many, depending on the situation and the mood at hand, but if I had to pick one, I'd go for Tori Amos' Welcome to England.

4. Tag 3 blogger friends:

Tag, you're it! :-)

About Good Girls, Bad Girls and Why We Write.

2011-06-18T15:22:00.029+02:00

A few days ago, I read Justine Musk's article '"Well-behaved women seldom make history": redefining what it means to be bad' on her website: Tribal Writer.

It deals with how our culture defines women, how women define themselves, the emphasis on desirability and attractiveness on the one hand, and traditional dictates of quiet, pleasant and unobtrusive behaviour on the other.

I don't agree with everything that is said, and I believe we sometimes confuse personality issues with women's issues, but the article is an interesting piece of writing, with insightful comments by both women and men. If you have some time, I would highly recommend reading it.

These past few days, much of what Justine and her readers wrote has been whirling around in my head. This is a topic close to my heart - and as it happens, to the title of my blog.

Ever since I started writing again, I've been confronted with this good girl / bad girl dichotomy on a daily basis. Writing makes it much harder to ignore or suppress parts of you that 'don't fit in', because it's exactly that wonderful source of 'self' we need to tap into to let our stories take root and to make our characters grow.

I was raised to be a Good Girl, yet trying to be one drained my energy for the bigger part of my life. Along the way I've discovered that I'll never be a Bad Girl either. I might not have many boundaries in my mind, but I keep my behaviour on a short lead, which is probably why I'm still alive and well.

This contrast fuels my writing and much of my life, and I've come to love it. It's hardly ever dull in the borderlands where a wild heart and an exacting mind co-exist.

In her article, Justine writes:

'I once said to someone, “I don’t know if I’m a good girl with a bad streak, or a bad girl with a good streak.” But I was being ironic. My real point was that, like any other woman (or man), I am both and neither.'

I think she hits the nail on the head there: women as well as men are complex and diverse creatures. We live on a planet and in communities that don't necessarily have our individual best interests at heart, and we try to get by and live meaningful lives - whatever that means for us individually.

In living our lives, we need to understand that culture - like statistics - focuses on large numbers and quantifiable majorities. As a result, social norms and widely held views will rarely reflect or respond to minorities' needs.

That does not mean we need to accept this, shrug and keep silent.

To the contrary - we need our role models, our Maya Angelous, our Isabel Allendes and our Margaret Atwoods. We need our Neil Gaimans and Amanda Palmers to fly their freak flags proudly. We need them, not so much to confront majorities with an alternative, but to show those who don't fit in the standard moulds it's okay to be who you are.

I couldn't help wondering if this is partly the reason why so many of us are drawn to being a writer, blogger, photographer, teacher or artist, or why we share our work, our thoughts or emotions on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, ...

I'm sure we first and foremost respond to a need within ourselves to create and to share with others. But could the driving force underneath our work be that we know first-hand what it feels like not to fit in?

Could that be the reason why we want to put our work out there – as beacons that might have given us strength, hope or courage at a given point in our own lives?

If that is the case, it only makes it more important that in our writing or whatever it is we do, we stay true to ourselves, with pride, dignity and confidence - an authentic, living, breathing tribute to our own uniqueness and to human diversity.

We are lucky. We have a voice, energy and an audience, be it big or small. That gives us great opportunities to show how within, underneath and on the side of mainstream culture there are other, valid ways to get by, to do well and to live meaningful, fulfilling and creative lives.

What makes you unique?

--------
Photo 1: '365:299 Choices' by Jehane, available under a creative commons license. © 2008, Jehane.
Photo 2: '365:140 Fairy Liquid' by Jehane, available under a creative commons license. © 2007, Jehane.
(Check out her wonderful - and brave - photography project: 365 days (of me).

Lucky 13: Women Writers about Truth.

2011-06-13T13:13:00.009+02:00

"There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure truth."
- Maya Angelou

"And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking."
- Audre Lorde

"With a secret like that, at some point the secret itself becomes irrelevant. The fact that you kept it does not."
- Sara Gruen (Water for Elephants)

"You can tell the deepest truths with the lies of fiction"
- Isabel Allende

"Why, if it was an illusion, not praise the catastrophe, whatever it was, that destroyed illusion and put truth in its place?"
- Virginia Woolf (A Room of One's Own)

"You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."
- Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird)

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."
- Flannery O'Connor

"There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic."
- Anaïs Nin

"It must have been then that I began to lose faith in reasonable argument as the sole measure of truth."
- Margaret Atwood (Bluebeard's Egg)

"There is no truth on this island of yours. Rather, there are as many truths as there are stars in the sky; and every one of them different."
- Juliet Marillier

"The truth is not for all men but only for those who seek it."
- Ayn Rand

"Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken."
- Jane Austen (Emma)

"A scientist can pretend that his work isn't himself, it's merely the impersonal truth. An artist can't hide behind the truth. He can't hide anywhere."
- Ursula K. Le Guin (The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia)

--------
Photo 'how sweet it is to be loved by you' by eli santana, available under a creative commons license. © 2009, eli santana.

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.

2011-06-12T13:42:00.008+02:00

I first saw the video of Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford University Commencement Address a couple of years ago, and since then I've watched it numerous times, especially when the demands of the more formal and bureaucratic aspects of modern life threaten to take over.

With about a month to go to my summer vacation, I really needed to watch the speech once more and I wanted to share the video with you in the process.

My favourite fragments:

'You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road, will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.'

'No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. [...] Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.'

'Stay hungry, stay foolish.'

Favourite Book Challenge - Another Blogfest Coming Up.

2011-06-09T00:23:00.001+02:00

The It's All Fun & Games Blogfest is barely over and I have already signed up for another one.

Historical fiction writer Teralyn Rose Pilgrim of A Writer's Journey is organising the Favourite Book Challenge Blogfest.

Between June 20 and 22 2011, participants will each pick their top 5 favourite books, describe in 1 line what each book is about, and in another line why they like it.

With a title and a challenge like that, how could I not take part?

I expect it will be a great opportunity to connect with other book lovers. As a bonus, it will be great practice to try and summarise the essence of a book in just one line.

If you want to join in, you can sign up at Teralyn's blog. I hope to see you there! :-)

It's All Fun & Games.

2011-06-06T00:08:00.074+02:00

Last Friday, L.G. Smith of Bards and Prophets mentioned Alex J. Cavanaugh's 'It's all fun & games' blogfest, which sounded like an opportunity I couldn't pass up.

Alex' idea was to list our 3 favourite games (board games, card games, RPG, video games, physical games, drinking games - even mind games!) and why.

In my day job I teach applied psychology and game design to budding game developers, so you can see why this blogfest caught my eye.

I had expected this post to be easy, but narrowing down my list to only 3 games turned out to be quite a challenge. I have a number of board games I really like - like Samurai - but in the end I narrowed down my selection to just computer games, because overall they've been more important in my life.

1. Planetarion

Planetarion is a browser-based MMOG (massively multiplayer online game), which I started playing shortly after its release, when a couple of my students alerted me to its existence.

The game is set in a Science Fiction world, where each player owns a planet and has to mine nearby asteroids for resources. In between scanning for asteroids, you build a fleet to defend your home base or attack other players and steal their asteroids. In short: it's all about space battles!

Planetarion was the first online game of this type and scale I encountered, and I played it like a maniac. I hardly ever slept more than 4 hours a night, and I worried more about my planet's well-being than my own.

I remember seeing coffee mugs for sale with texts like: 'Not now. My planet is under attack.' or 'I need to cancel this meeting; I've got incoming.' I could relate ...

I was most fascinated by the social and communication side of the game, the alliance politics and the negotiations, but I also loved organising alliance battles and calculating the defences needed to stand up against an attack.

However, after playing Planetarion for about a year, I needed to get my life back, so I quit the game and promised myself never to play anything like it again.

2. Diablo II

Diablo II is - or better, was - a popular computer game, in which you played a character that ventured through a dark fantasy world.

In the original game you could choose to impersonate an Amazon, Barbarian, Necromancer, Paladin or Sorceress; in the expansion, 'Lord of Destruction', an Assassin and Druid were added to your character choices. I preferred both Amazon and Sorceress.

As your hero ventured through the world, he or she had to chop up (or blast away) monsters in order to find armour, weapons and magical items.

What I most liked about Diablo II was its story line, atmosphere and the overall feeling of empowerment while playing. The game presented its players with tough challenges and - especially in the dungeons - we needed to proceed with an interesting mix of caution, courage and stubborn determination, which felt every bit as real as emotions in the outside world.

3. Everquest

Everquest was the game I broke my post-Planetarion promise for. I had managed to stay away from massively multiplayer online games, so when one of my best friends at the time - now my husband - recommended it to me as a 'game I would like', I knew he was right, so I tried to stay away. Tried.

After a few months I gave in when another friend showed me the game's website where I could read up on the different races and classes that populated the world. Once I had discovered 'the Enchanter', I was hooked.

So I made a Dark Elf Enchanter, called her Triksi (after my Diablo II sorceress who'd been called Trixi) and took my first tentative steps into the world of Norrath.

I spent every free moment playing, levelled up in no time, joined a guild and in a matter of months I got to the level I needed to join the higher-end guild my friend was in: Xanadu.

In Everquest I discovered that I am not a casual gamer - and never will be. When I like a game, I need to give it my all. If I can't do that, I'd rather not play at all. Come to think of it, that's true for most aspects of my life.

I played Everquest for about 3 years and my character ended up as one of the top 5 enchanters on the PVP server. (PVP = player-versus-player, i.e. a server where players can attack other players as well, not just computer-generated monsters.)

When I could no longer play the game the way I wanted to, I quit, once more promising myself never to play anything like it again.

So far I have managed to keep that promise. It's been easy, really, because once I had more free time and a more relaxed mind, I realised how much I missed writing, and how it's even more rewarding to create my own worlds and story lines.

Which are your favourite games?

Stop Motion: Her Morning Elegance.

2011-06-04T15:27:00.000+02:00

I have written about stop motion before. It's a video / animation technique I really like, especially when it's applied in new and original ways.

One of the most impressive stop-motion videos I've ever seen is Oren Lavie's music video 'Her Morning Elegance', which has received several awards and has been nominated for a Grammy.

The video consists of 2096 still images, played as a sequence to give the illusion of motion.

It's so well done, and I love the song and its lyrics - but I'll let you judge for yourself:

If you want to know more about how they made this video, have a look at the 'making of' and the photo gallery on the project's website. You can also order photographs from the video.

Books in the Closet.

2011-06-02T23:22:00.004+02:00

I recently came across a gorgeous decorating project I just had to share.

Last month, Sarah at Thrifty Decor Chick turned a fitted wardrobe into a fabulous book nook.

I love nooks. As a student, one of the rooms I rented had a large cupboard-under-the-stairs with a sloping ceiling and painted bright red on the inside.

First thing after I moved in, I lugged my bed in there and turned the space into a cosy miniature bedroom.

The bed barely fit and it took great agility to get in and out every day, but that only added to the fun. Really.

Still, charming as it may have been, my improvised bed nook was nowhere near as beautiful as this book nook.

What a clever and creative use of space. I think this will soon be everyone's favourite part of the house, kids and adults alike.

On her website, Sarah tells us all about how she made the nook and she shares plenty of gorgeous photographs. She even posted a detailed how-to of the entire process, in case you feel inspired.

Thanks, Sarah, for sharing this wonderful idea and letting me use your pictures!

The Giant's Tomb.

2011-05-30T19:27:00.007+02:00

Le Tombeau du Géant, Belgium. May 2011.

I spent the past weekend with a bunch of friends in the Belgian Ardennes, in a former water mill near the river Semois and a site called 'Le Tombeau du Géant' (the Giant's Tomb).

It is one of the most beautiful and unspoilt parts of the country, and very special to all of us. Some of my friends have been going there for over 20 years, and are still as much in awe as the first time.

I'd been looking forward to this weekend for a while. After a busy few months, I needed some time away from my computer with nothing but good friends and my Kindle for company.

Two days later, I've come home with sun-kissed skin (sun-nibbled and sun-bitten here and there), recharged batteries and a brain buzzing with the remnants of laughter and good conversation.

Of course, being me, I can't help pondering the paradox of wanting to go to places that are wild and virtually untouched by mankind, while by going there, we touch them - inevitably.

However, there are ways of being a respectful visitor, and I count myself lucky to have found so many people who understand this and try to live it.

Here's to friendship, laughter and heart-warming, mind-blowing beauty!

What are your favourite places to unwind?

Urban Gardening Update.

2011-05-26T22:32:00.004+02:00

What a great spring we've had so far. June hasn't even started and I've already managed to spend more time in the garden than I usually get to do in an entire summer - reading in the hammock or enjoying a glass of wine on the patio.

The vegetables are growing well, and I picked the first strawberries today. I swear I've never tasted better ones in my life; I wish I had planted more.

We've harvested so much lettuce already, yet we can hardly keep up. Apart from preparing lots of salads, I've started to experiment using the leaves in other, hot recipes.

They do well in quiches and frittatas, and soon we'll have a fresh batch that will be perfect for making lettuce soup - one of my favourite kinds: velvety goodness with a blue or goat cheese for extra flavour.

It's such a versatile vegetable. You can also use the leaves as wraps, on burgers (vegetarian or not), to make pesto (instead of basil, mixed to taste with other fresh herbs), juice them with other herbs and vegetables or wilt them into pasta or mashed potatoes.

I've found a lot more recipe inspiration here:

And to conclude, a few more photos of our patio garden in evening sunlight:

What are your favourite seasonal recipes?

And the Winners Are ...

2011-05-22T16:29:00.001+02:00

And the winners of the giveaway are ...

*drum roll*

Small Footprints
Angela Felsted
L.G. Smith

Congratulations! You each win a $15 or £10 gift card at amazon.com or amazon.co.uk, whichever is most convenient for you.

If you could just confirm in the comments whether you prefer the .com or .co.uk version, I will have them emailed to you asap!

(What I've done to determine the winners fairly is add the names of the people who wrote eligible comments to a list, assign a number to each (in the order of commenting) and then use the random sequence generator at random.org to sort it. The 3 numbers that came out first have been declared the winners.)

Thanks again to everybody who joined in, to my fabulous followers and to those of you who blogged or tweeted about this giveaway!

2 Hours to the Giveaway - Last Chance to Enter!

2011-05-22T14:00:00.013+02:00

Have a glass of champagne with me. Or a bottle. Pick your size!

Last Sunday I announced an Amazon gift card giveaway to celebrate getting close to 100 followers.

The celebrations will continue to 4pm CET today, which is in 2 hours and exactly 8 months after I published my first blog post.

If you haven't entered yet: don't be shy! Old as well as new followers are welcome to join in.

You can find the details of the giveaway and enter your name here.

The 3 winners will be announced shortly after 4pm. Stay tuned.

They Are Beautiful and So Are You.

2011-05-18T23:55:00.029+02:00

Some time ago, I posted a list of life questions, and one of them dealt with beauty. A few of the comments struck a chord with me and made me think about how we define 'beauty', and 'being beautiful'.

I find myself surrounded by beautiful people, yet if you would ask most of them if they consider themselves beautiful, they would say no. Too often we confuse beauty with other ideas like 'young', 'skinny', 'curvy', 'desirable', 'wearing make-up', 'dressed up', etc.

Somehow, along the way, we have come to accept this new, narrow definition of beauty. We've even invented phrases like 'being beautiful on the inside', with an unspoken 'instead' underneath.

Yet languages are living entities. The meaning of words evolves over time to suit people's needs. Our needs.

'Portrait of Villager, Jongkhar'.
© 2009, RadioFreeBarton. - CC

I want to play an active part in saving the word 'beautiful' from limited and one-sided interpretation.

Let us reinvent that powerful and uplifting word to suit the needs of real women, of all ages, shapes and colour.

I believe we can give a nudge in the right direction by stopping to play ourselves down and presenting a wider variety of images to the world, showing a richer, more diverse and much more interesting interpretation of 'beauty'.

After all, we are a diverse species, and that's a wonderful thing. What a shame it would be if we and the generations to come would lose the ability to see that.

To illustrate my point, here are a few more photographs of absolutely fabulous, beautiful women:

Who is the most beautiful person you know, besides yourself?

Almost 100 Followers: Time for a Giveaway!

2011-05-15T12:00:00.005+02:00

It's been almost 8 months since I started blogging, and I just hit 90 followers, which I am really happy with. Over that time my blog has grown and developed into something I am quite proud of - when I allow myself.

After a couple of months of slow but steady traffic, when 'The Woman Condition' was mainly visited by family and friends, it is now reaching a wider audience, and the A to Z blogging month of April has been a major step in the process.

What a journey so far, from my first tentative steps out of the safe(r) shadows of internet lurking, to discovering my online voice and connecting with others as 'me' instead of one of the many facades that get me through everyday life.

What blogging has taught me more than anything else so far, is that it's okay to be less paranoid. Probably. Most of the time.

Anyway, in order to celebrate the nearly-100-followers and thank you for sticking around, I want to give away a few presents.

If you're anything like me - and I'm sure we have enough in common - one can't go wrong with Amazon gift cards, so I will be giving away 3 gift cards of either £10 at amazon.co.uk or $15 at amazon.com, whichever you prefer.

If you want to take part in the draw:

Be a follower of this blog.
(Old or new followers are equally welcome to take part.)
Comment on this post what you most like about my blog.
In your comment, mention which 3 posts on my blog you like/remember best.

This celebration giveaway will run until May 22, 2011, 4pm CET, which is exactly 8 months after I published my first blog post.

On the 22nd, an innocent hand (well, mine, but I give you my Leo Word of Honour that it will happen fairly) will draw 3 names from the qualifying comments. I will announce the winners here and inform them personally (via email, blog, FB, ... depending on what contact information I have).

Your answers should help me get a better idea of topics you'd like to see more of in the future, and (with any luck) I'll have a post to come back to every time I think my writing is awful and pointless and nobody could possibly be interested in what I have to say. I might be a Leo, but those days still happen. ;-)

Thanks for following, for your comments and your support!

Lucky 13: Women Writers about Life.

2011-05-13T19:00:00.004+02:00

"I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it."

- Maya Angelou

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."

- Anaïs Nin

"Perhaps we are in this world to search for love, find it and lose it, again and again. With each love, we are born anew, and with each love that ends we collect a new wound. I am covered with proud scars."

- Isabel Allende

"That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet."

- Emily Dickinson

"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swaps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all."

- Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)

"I knew it like destiny, and at the same time, I knew it as choice."

- Jeanette Winterson

"What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question."

- Margaret Atwood

"Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining."

- Anne Lamott

"Ah! The terror and the delight of that moment when first we fear
ourselves! Until then we have not lived."

- Willa Cather

"So much working, reading, thinking, living to do! A lifetime is not long enough."

- Sylvia Plath

"I live in my own little world. But it's ok, they know me here."

- Lauren Myracle

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

- Maya Angelou

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

- Mary Oliver

Of Awesome Things and Thanks.

2011-05-10T13:30:00.001+02:00

I'm a bit low on energy these days, probably because it's a busy time of year and in the background, my brain is working overtime on my novel.

In order to give myself an energy boost, I want to remind myself of the many things I have to be thankful for:

- the big and little things that are going well in my life

- the wonderful spring we're having

- the fact that summer is coming, which will give me more time to write and opportunities to spend quality time with people I love and care about - some of whom I haven't seen in way too long.

- my family, who remind me of aspects of life I might otherwise overlook or undervalue.

- the inspiring online community I've begun to discover a few months ago, and of which I feel I'm gradually becoming part.

... and last but not least I am thankful for coming to understand that not everything has to be Complicated or Perfect in order to be Awesome.

In the spirit of being thankful for the good things in life, I want to share 2 recently discovered links that helped me to notice and remember:

- An Awesome Book of Thanks by Dallas Clayton

- The 'time-ticking countdown' of 1000 Awesome Things. Thanks to Shelli of A*Musings for pointing me to that one.

What are you most thankful for right now?

It's Raining ...

2011-05-08T20:32:00.004+02:00

... awards at the moment. Well, maybe not raining them, but I did get another one: the Versatile Blogger Award, passed on to me by the wonderful cyberpunk / paranormal romance / urban fantasy writer Sarah Mäkelä. Thanks!

This award, too, comes with the tradition attached to share 7 things about yourself, and to pass it on to other bloggers.

Reusing the 7 facts from the last award felt like cheating, so I've come up with new ones. Here we go:

1. I love Thai food.

2. I'm a total night owl - always have been.

3. I learnt to read when I was 4.

4. One of my favourite singers / musicians is Tori Amos.

5. I love the smell of campfire lingering on my clothes and in my hair.

6. I often struggle to balance cynicism and optimism in my life.

7. I wrote my Master's thesis about an obscure female poet from Berlin, Germany.

Now, it is my pleasure to pass on this award to the versatile, multi-talented:

- scientist and writer Alison Pearce Stevens.
- Rosalind Adam, writer and teacher who introduced me to the wonders of Leicester.
- artist and jewelcrafter Suzanne Redmond at Blue Sand Studio.

Eco Flash Mob.

2011-05-06T15:20:00.004+02:00

This video brought such a smile to my face, I wanted to share it.

Stylish Blog Award.

2011-05-05T21:47:00.001+02:00

Karen Walker at Following the Whispers passed on the Stylish Blogger Award to me. Much appreciated. :-)

As the award tradition goes, I'm supposed to share 7 things about myself, pass the award on to other bloggers and notify them about it.

So here we go - in random order of importance:

1. I always have chocolate in the house. The dark, bitter kind.

2. I hardly ever read newspapers or watch the news. If something is truly important, I'm sure I'll find out another way.

3. My hair is dark cherry red at the moment. Like really red ->

4. I have very eclectic reading tastes.

5. I am easily distracted, unless a deadline is looming.

6. I have the best husband in the world - for me.
I don't think anybody could be a better match.

7. My first job was in an independent bookstore.

--------

Now, in turn I would like to pass this award on to the following Stylish Bloggers:

- L.G. Smith at Bards and Prophets because I love her style of writing, the way she thinks and the topics she picks.

- Toby Neal at An Endless Fascination with Stories because of the stylish way she deals with porn (as a topic for her latest posts :-) )

- Queen Mahin for being stylish even when spring cleaning.

Stop motion: City of Books.

2011-05-04T14:00:00.006+02:00

Stop motion (also called 'stop action' or 'frame-by-frame') is an animation technique where you create individual scenes, take a photograph of each scene and then play the photos as a sequence, creating the illusion of movement.

In previous years, we have made a few stop-motion films with our students, using clay figures they'd modelled. It was great fun - and a lot of work. Every movement and every position has to be thought out, set up and photographed.

To give you an idea of what this technique can accomplish when wielded by professionals, I want to share one of my favourite stop-motion animations: 'City of Books'.

'City of Books' is a delightful little film that was produced by Apt Studio and Asylum Films in 2008, to celebrate 4th Estate Publishers' 25th anniversary. It took them 3 weeks to make, and I'm not surprised!

What a great commercial this video would make for libraries worldwide, and what a great technique to use for a creative book trailer!

This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.

If you want to see how the animation was made, check out these timelapse videos.

Book Review: The Tapestry of Love, by Rosy Thornton.

2011-05-02T23:28:00.017+02:00

About two months ago, in honour of International Women's Day, I bought Rosy Thornton's latest novel, The Tapestry of Love.

I finished it a few days later and started writing the review, but with April's A to Z blogging challenge ahead, I didn't manage to complete it at the time.

Now I'm glad I didn't, because I've made so many new friends through the challenge, I can now recommend the book to a much larger audience - which it deserves.

I don't often review books on this blog, but I wanted to devote some time to this one, for several reasons:

1. I really liked it.
2. Through my previous blog post, I came in contact with Rosy (we're both on Litopia, a great online writers' community), and she's a lovely person - in other words: the kind of writer whose books you'd gladly recommend to your friends, especially when they're a great read like this one.

The Story.

A few years after her divorce, Catherine Parkstone sells her house in England and moves to the idyllic, rural French Cévennes.

Surrounded by beautiful scenery and in often harsh living conditions, she rebuilds her life and starts a business, under the watchful eyes of her Cévennois neighbours - one of them being the charismatic Patrick Castagnol.

We follow Catherine on her journey through the seasons, from foreigner and outsider to a woman who weaves lasting and meaningful threads into the community fabric.

The Novel.

'The Tapestry of Love' is one of those novels you need to read slowly and savour to the full. Rosy is as much a painter as a writer: she sketches the scenery and the characters with care, then colours them in with a beautiful sunset palette.

This is the kind of novel you want to read in summer, lounging in the garden, relaxing in a rural or Mediterranean holiday setting - or on a cold day in front of an open fire. Every page takes you one step further into the beautiful Cévennes region, and into the lives of the people who've grown up there.

What I loved most about 'The Tapestry of Love' is the romantic realism that oozes from the pages. Rosy writes with a gentle touch, with wisdom and a mature, assuaged acceptance of the ups and downs of everyday life.

She takes an honest approach to human relationships and emotion, showing joy as well as pain, love as well as loss, without overdramatising.

In my blog as in life, I look for sparkles of 'life, love and authenticity', and I can assure you I found plenty of each in 'The Tapestry of Love'.

Therefore, on the threshold of summer, I would recommend you to buy this book, curl up on the couch with a good glass of wine, and reserve a good chunk of time for yourself, to transport your mind to the Cévennes in the company of Catherine, her neighbours and her lively English family.

For more information, visit Rosy Thornton's website.

--------
Image 1: 'Vue d'Alès depuis l'Ermitage (Gard, Cévennes)' by Modestine l'ânesse des Cévennes. Available under a creative commons license. © 2009, Modestine l'ânesse des Cévennes.
Image 3: 'Cévennes automne 2010' by Association Djivan. Available under a creative commons license. © 2010, Association Djivan.

Z is for Zzzzz ...

2011-04-30T13:51:00.012+02:00

Wow, I've made it. This is the last day of the A to Z blogging challenge. 26 mad days of posting every day, visiting tons of other blogs, commenting and connecting.

What a ride it has been. I've met a bunch of people, who feel like they've become friends. I've discovered a number of blogs that inform me, entertain me, make me think or put a smile on my face.

My blog has grown and become more lively, with a lot more visitors dropping by and adding to the party. It feels like it's got more of a soul now, and will continue to thrive.

Over the course of 1 month, I've gone from a wonderful 10 followers (I owe you all at least one of those legendary caipirinhas!), to an even more fabulous 72.

And what I like most, is that those 72 followers all have a face to me, an identity of their own - even those I've never met in person. I've read pieces of their writing, I've exchanged ideas and information, and I feel like I know them a little bit - enough to want to learn more.

The Web is a huge place, where it's easy to feel tiny, insignificant or intimidated. What initiatives like the A to Z challenge do, is to fence off a piece of that vast universe and define the borders of a (temporary) playground.

All of a sudden the blogosphere doesn't seem so big any more. Even though there were over a thousand participants, the challenge we all had in common made it more manageable and accessible.

At first, you see just names and profile pictures, but soon, those names start looking familiar and turn into people. Then they become individuals you respect and appreciate.

With some, I feel I've connected on a more personal level, because we think alike or because we're complementary and can teach each other a lot; because we're all writers or because we share a love for particular books or genres; because we've been through similar experiences, or because we're drawn to the same people.

Whatever the future brings, I'm happy and grateful for this experience.

I would like to express my special thanks to Lee (Arlee Bird), word and idea juggler extraordinaire, for coming up with the A to Z challenge, and to science fiction guru Alex J. Cavanaugh, whose tweets informed me about the challenge in the first place.

And now it's time to relax, take a weekend off, catch up on some sleep, and then I'll be back with a whole list of topics, dealing with writing, life, love and my quest for authentic and worthwhile experiences.

See you around!

Funky fact: at a given point I had 666 unread messages in Google Reader, ànd 66 followers. I'm sure it was a sign, but of what?

--------
Image 2: 'web' by Brenda Anderson. Available under a creative commons license. © 2005, Brenda Anderson.
Image 3: 'Friends' by Leon Rice-Whetton. Available under a creative commons license. © 2010, Leon Rice-Whetton.

Y is for You.

2011-04-29T15:52:00.002+02:00

During this A to Z month, I've written about what I'm interested in and what makes me happy. Now, towards the end, I want to devote this post to 'you'.

Caring about yourself and caring for yourself are not selfish acts. You are the most important person in your life, and the better you do and feel, the more you can give to others - whether it's love, friendship, time, attention or even money.

Therefore, I want to encourage you to take some you-time this weekend. I'm sure you deserve it.

Here are a few suggestions:

Plan a trip. It doesn't have to be long, far, or expensive. Alone, if you prefer, or with the people you would most like to spend time with.
Read a book you've wanted to read for a long time. Switch off your phone & computer and let everyone around you know you're not to be disturbed. If your home is too busy, take your book to a coffee house, tearoom, bar or park.
Do something that makes you laugh.
(Watching Blackadder episodes works for me.)
Take a walk to a nice spot nearby and spend some time there, enjoying the view.
Open a good bottle of wine or champagne and savour every sip.
Get your hair done, enjoy a massage, a pedicure if you're on your feet all day, or a couple of hours of pampering at a spa.
Sign up for yoga, cooking or foreign language classes, learn to paint, or join a choir or a book club.
Call a friend and arrange to meet up for dinner.
Make a list of what you'd want to do if you had no 'have-tos'. Then do at least one of the items on your list.
Put on a cd you love, sit or lie down, close your eyes and listen. (Or dance.)
If you have pets, play with them. If you have a dog, take him/her out for a walk and pretend it's the other way round.
Think about what you most dislike about your life and think up all kinds of crazy and creative ways to solve that problem. Who knows, you might come up with a real solution, and if not, you'll at least have smiled.
Remind yourself that you don't have to wait until later to live the life you want.

What do you do when you need time for yourself?

--------
Image: 'Photographing Friends Is Too Much Fun! - Day 4' by Sleeping Sun. Available under a creative commons license. © 2010, Sleeping Sun.

X is for Xanadu.

2011-04-28T19:26:00.006+02:00

In between being a reader and a writer, I used to play computer games. I loved roleplaying games in fantasy or science fiction settings (no surprise there).

My absolute favourite game was Everquest. I played it for several years and met an amazing group of people because of it.

Everquest was an MMORPG, a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, in which hundreds of thousands of players took control of their elf, dwarf, ogre, ... character to overcome challenges in an elaborate fantasy world.

I played a dark-elf enchanter called Triksi, and for the bigger part of her virtual life, Triksi was a member of a great guild called 'Xanadu'.

Playing this game and being in Xanadu taught me a lot of skills that have proven useful in other areas of my life.

You don't play MMORPGs on your own. You need others to get ahead in the game, sometimes smaller groups, sometimes a raid party of 50 or more.

When any group of that size gets together to accomplish a task - whether that's slaying a dragon, organising an event or creating a product - you inevitably learn about organisation, multitasking, communication, perseverance, offering and accepting help, applying strategies, problem-solving, human interaction and putting individual differences to good use.

Along the way, we became friends. Online friends at first, but many of us met up in real life. Our first big gathering took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, and it was interesting to see how close those online friendships came to real-life friendships: the people I got along with in-game were the same people I connected with when we met up.

Several of them have stayed good friends up to this day, even after we stopped playing Everquest.

Others have disappeared in the cracks of time and distance, some to reappear on Facebook or other social networks in recent years.

To this day, the word 'Xanadu' still makes me smile. It rings of friendship and great accomplishments - against all odds.

It also reminds me of the temporary nature of many friendships. Some friends are there for life, others will cross your path, walk with you for a while and disappear - quietly, or with a bang.

Does that make those friendships less valuable? I don't think so. Duration and longevity aren't the only ways of measuring quality. We don't judge the beauty of a rose or the flavour of a dish by how long they linger, do we?

So this post is dedicated to my Xanadu friends, past and present. Wherever you are now and whatever you're doing, I hope you're well, and I think a reunion is due.

W is for Wine.

2011-04-27T23:42:00.037+02:00

To regular visitors of my blog, it should come as no surprise that my 'W' post is about wine, especially because this whole A to Z series is dedicated to things that bring me joy and make life more interesting.

I love good wines. Over the past years, I've taken a few wine tasting courses, but I'm still more an aficionado than a connoisseur. However, next time I can free up a larger chunk of time, I am planning to go through the full sommelier training.

Until that time, I'll settle for sampling and enjoying wines, attending wine fairs and tastings, and visiting wine regions and vineyards when I'm on holiday. An alternative I can live with, for sure.

In this post, for those of you who are interested, I want to share some basic information about what makes a good wine, and about wine tasting in general. I suggest you pour a glass and savour it while you read on. Cheers!

Wine Quality

The most important thing about wine, apart from the health benefits (when drunk in moderation), is that the person who drinks it, enjoys it.

All too often, people act snobbish about wine, often to disguise that they don't know much about it. It's true: wine tasting is an art and a skill, but that's not necessarily the only - or the best - way to enjoy wine.

If you love the taste of a particular wine, don't let anybody tell you that's bad. Personal enjoyment isn't linked to price or critics' opinions, and a wine doesn't have to be expensive to be pleasant, interesting or exciting.

On the most basic level of enjoying wine, reviews and ratings are irrelevant. However, as is the case with many aspects of life, when you learn more about a product or a process, you discover new layers of enjoyment, fascination and respect.

By studying wine and training your palate, you open yourself up to new levels of appreciation, not just for the product, but also for the craftmanship of the people who grew the grapes, harvested them, composed and produced the wine.

Compare this to an experienced musician, who would notice more intricacies of a piece of music; a basketball player who detects hidden strategies and opportunities when watching a game; or a writer, who can admire a good example of 'showing rather than telling' where other readers just see a sentence.

Winemaking truly is an art, which requires expertise in many areas.

The main factors that determine the quality of a wine are: the climate in which the grapes are grown, the soil, the grape itself, how the grapes are harvested, the winemaking process and the treatment / conservation of the finished product.

I don't want to go into too much detail, but to give an idea, I'll point out a few aspects that affect the taste and quality of a wine:

whether grapes are harvested by hand or not. Machines rip the grapes off the vine, but they're not selective: they take parts of leaves, branches, insects, unripe or overripe grapes along. All this ends up in the mixture of which the wine is made. A wine made of hand-picked grapes will usually have a more elegant, deep and complex flavour. (It will also be more expensive, as it was more labour intensive to produce.)
the type of soil and age of the vines affect the flavours present in the grape. Old vines (or vines in particular types of soil) tend to have deeper roots, which means that they can take in nutrients and water from more layers of soil. Each layer adds a nuance to the final taste, i.e. more depth and complexity.
the climate and microclimate in which the grapes grow. Temperature, the conditions and the length of the growing season, all affect the quality and sugar content of the grapes. The greatest wines tend to come from vineyards with the best location, due to temperature, orientation towards the sun, the presence of a river that reflects sunlight, surrounding vegetation, ...

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it should give an idea of the complexity of the process, and of the fact that in many cases, a wine's price is an indication of quality, at least in the definition of craftsmanship, human energy that's gone into the process, complexity and depth of flavours.

Wine Tasting

I have chosen a video here to replace the 1,000 words I would need to convey the same information. I like how it summarises the most important basics:

Are you a wine person? Do you have a favourite wine?

--------
Image 1: 'Wine' by jhenrirose. Available under a creative commons license. © 2008, jhenrirose.
Image 2: 'Wine Cellar in Tuscany' by Delicious Italy. Available under a creative commons license. © 2007, Delicious Italy.
Image 3: '2003 Christmas House Wine Cellar' by Gatsby. Available under a creative commons license. © 2002, Gatsby.
Image 4: 'Vineyard 002' by Viña Caliterra. Available under a creative commons license. © 2008, Viña Caliterra.

V is for Venice.

2011-04-26T00:23:00.010+02:00

For our honeymoon, we took a wine and gastronomy-themed road trip to Venice.

It was a fabulous vacation. We stayed in beautiful boutique hotels in the French Bourgogne region and the Italian Alps on the way over. On the way back, we spent a couple of days at the Lago Maggiore and in the French Alsace.

As a bonus, the journey gave us an opportunity - and the perfect excuse - to try out different sparkling wines: crémant de Bourgogne, several Italian spumanti, prosecco, and the crémant d'alsace. But I digress - 'W for Wine' is tomorrow's topic.

My post today is about Venice, possibly the most romantic city in the world. Also a very hot city, in early July, but we survived.

It's hard to say which were my favourite sights in Venice, because there were so many, but I'll disclose one treat that might not be in the standard tourist package: the Scuola Grande di San Rocco.

The scuola was, like other scuole in the area, a kind of guild hall for wealthy citizens, built in the 16th century. Now it's a museum.

It consists of 2 floors, each decorated with lavish paintings by artists like Tintoretto and Titian. The upper hall also has amazing wood sculptures by Francesco Pianta.

It's such an inspiring place. I'll just have to use it in a novel one day!

A few more views of Venice

U is for Urban Gardening.

2011-04-25T01:43:00.007+02:00

My parents had - well, have - a large vegetable garden. I am pretty sure that to this day, they've never had to buy a single vegetable in a store, ever.

They grow their own potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce, zucchini, cucumbers, onions, garlic, leeks, carrots, chicory, spinach, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, green beans, peas, celery, pumpkins, cabbage, and much more. Not to mention lots of fruit and herbs, all organic.

As a child, I hated having a garden. It meant we had to help out with tedious tasks like weeding, picking green beans or podding buckets of peas.

It also meant we ate vegetables in cycles. During tomato season, we'd eat tomatoes until I had nightmares about them. We had to eat soups that contained so many different, fresh veggies, they always tasted more or less the same.

It's taken me a long time - and many years of city life - to understand how fortunate we were.

Ever since I moved out of my parents' house, I've grown herbs, even when I only had the balcony of my flat at my disposal. When I moved here, the herb patch was the first part of the garden to be finished.

The past few years, I've taken an interest in low-maintenance urban farming. I'm not the kind of person to spend hours a day (or week) digging and weeding. Believe me, I've tried.

After the herb garden, we moved on to fruit trees: apples, cherries and plums. They're easy. You plant them. Water them for a while. Done.

That went well, so last year, we planted berry bushes and got 2 lemon trees for the patio. If all goes well, they'll provide a lot of fruit this year.

And about a month ago, I started growing strawberries and different types of lettuce, in containers. The plants are doing great, and we've harvested our first lettuce leaves last week. They're delicious, but I might be a little biased here.

The container garden on the patio, April 2011.

More vegetables on the fence, April 2011.

Our harvest for yesterday's lunch ...

... transformed, with a little help from non-home-grown ingredients.

It takes little to no effort, you can't get veggies any fresher than that, and they taste even better because you've seen them grow!

So, if you want to give it a try, here are a few websites with great ideas for city and balcony gardens:

Urban Organic Gardener
Urban Gardens
You Grow Girl
Life on the Balcony
NYCGardener
Farm Apartment
How To Make a Hanging Gutter Garden (@ Apartment Therapy)

I also wanted to share this video, of a Canadian woman, Carol Bowlby, who feeds her family of 5 with gorgeous organic vegetables, grown in a small back garden in the city. She's inspiring and gives a lot of practical tips.

Do you have a green thumb?

T is for Travel.

2011-04-23T17:30:00.024+02:00

I've mentioned before how much I love travelling. So far, I have been to 20 countries on 3 continents, but there are hundreds of places, cultures and cuisines I still want to experience.

Here is my wish list, checklist and reminder to myself: the top 10 of places I want to visit before I die (in alphabetical order):

1. Australia

2. Caribbean

3. Cozumel

4. Croatia

5. Cyclades

6. Egypt

7. Finland

8. Iceland

9. Seychelles

10. Thailand

Have you visited any of these? Any places you'd recommend?

S is for Samaria Gorge.

2011-04-22T02:38:00.007+02:00

In the summer of 2005, I went on holiday to the Greek island of Crete, with my then-boyfriend-now-husband, his brother and their dad. It was an amazing holiday: we explored the island, enjoyed great local food and sampled the entire cocktail list of the nearby bar(s).

One day, my father-in-law suggested we'd go for a hike in the Samaria Gorge. I don't remember my exact response, but it will have resembled: 'Uh-uh. Right. Hm.'

I had read about the gorge, and decided it wasn't for me. The guidebooks described it as breathtakingly beautiful, but it was also a 16 kilometre (10 mile) walk on steep, rough terrain, in the blistering July heat.

I was 30 at the time, overweight and in the worst shape of my life. A few months before, I had decided to turn my life around, quit smoking and started working out, but it would take me longer than a few months to see and feel the results.

In spite of those good intentions, when my father-in-law suggested the trek, I resisted. I thought of a hundred excuses why we shouldn't go, but they all came down to this: I was afraid. Afraid it would be tough, afraid I wouldn't make it, afraid everybody would see how weak I was, afraid to be confronted with how much I had let myself slide.

To this day, I'm glad he insisted. Unable to say no, I decided I would go along. The trek would be hell, but once I was in the gorge, I would have no choice but to plod on and get to the end. If it wouldn't kill me, it would make me stronger.

So a few days later, we got up before daybreak to take a taxi that would take us to a bus that would take us to the entrance of the gorge. Armed with brand new hiking shoes, a white hat and a bottle of water, I began my journey.

The first 3 kilometres of the walk consisted of a steep descent along a stony path. By the end of it, my knees ached and I had blisters. Then the real walk began.

Let me tell you: I struggled and suffered, but I also conquered and cheered. I can't even remember how long it took me to get to the end (way over 6 hours would be my guess) but I made it.

The Samaria gorge was to my body what writing is to my soul: a perfect blend of beauty and agony. And after all that misery, when I reached the exit, walked through and turned around to look back, I felt happier, stronger and more proud of myself than I had in a long, long time.

This hike has taught me a few invaluable lessons about life: the importance of facing my inner resistance and fear, how strong (or stubborn) I really am, to put my money (or actions) where my mouth is, and that I never want to go back to the abysmal physical condition I was in - at least not before I'm 80.

Oh yes: and sometimes it's okay to listen to your father-in-law.

I said sometimes!

Here are a few more pictures of what I would have missed, had I stayed on the couch that day:

What was a big turning point in your life?

R is for Restaurant.

2011-04-21T00:08:00.011+02:00

The Bar at The Horse & Groom. November 2010.

I love going out to dinner, especially to places that have a unique character. Fortunately I live in Belgium, in the heart of Europe, famous for its Burgundian lifestyle and surrounded by interesting culinary neighbours, each with a distinct focus and flavour.

A few days ago, the top 50 of the world's best restaurants was revealed, and I was happy to see that 2 of the top 20 restaurants were places I consider 'local'. Hof van Cleve - #15 and Oud Sluis - #17 are both less than an hour's drive away from where I live.

If I would ever get tired of those, there are 5 more top 20 restaurants in Paris, which is less than 3 hours away, and of course there's The Fat Duck in Maidenhead, just past London, about 4 hours.

My novel is set in the Cotswolds, so I spend quite a bit of time in England. I'm lucky to have great friends in the area, who love good food (and wine) as much as I do.

A few years ago, one of those friends introduced me to 'The Horse & Groom', a restaurant in the Cotswold village of Upper Oddington, England, and it's become my favourite in that area.

I've posted this review on my side-project blog 'The Enchanted Traveller' before, but in honour of my 'Restaurant' topic, I thought to give it a place here as well.

Part of the bar and dining area. Nov 2010.

There are so many aspects to 'The Horse & Groom' I like, it's hard to say what I like most.

First of all: it is cosy, with a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Simon Jackson, the owner, welcomes his guests warmly and really goes out of his way to make you feel at home.

The inn itself is a 16th century building and its character has definitely been preserved, even though the interior has a more contemporary rustic touch now.

As soon as the weather gets damp or chilly, the fireplace is lit, which fills the space with a warm glow and a scent of burning wood that is just right for a perfect evening full of joy and good conversation.

Window seats near the fireplace. November 2010.

The seasonal menus offer a wide range of choices, without being so overloaded that it becomes difficult to choose.

Dinner menus contain about 6 to 7 starters, mains and desserts, and a few side orders. On top of these, there are daily specials on the board.

The vegetarian options are equally attractive, very well prepared and with the same amount of care put into flavours and textures as is the case with the other dishes.

The prices are fair, possibly at the higher end of what you'd expect in a village inn, but the quality of the food is so superb that what you pay is more than justified.

The chef, Jason Brewster, works with local produce as much as he can, and is committed to really cooking from fresh. As a result, everything you get on the table has been prepared in house and is just bursting with flavour. He and his kitchen team bake their own bread, make the stocks, sauces, chutneys, ice creams, puddings, even smoke the meats and fish.

Simon at work. November 2010.

This is all wonderful, but as far as I'm concerned, the characteristic that really sets the Horse & Groom apart is that Simon knows his wines. He knows them, and he loves them.

He will not push his knowledge on you or bore you with endless descriptions if you're not interested in wines, but when he spots that spark, and you get him talking, you immediately see that this is no marketing gimmick or put-on pretentiousness.

He genuinely cares, about the wines as well as the stories behind them: who has made them, what makes them special, and what you could drink them with to experience them in the best possible way.

The Horse & Groom offers over 25 wines by the glass, which gives you a lot of flexibility when you're dining with a smaller group - or if you just like variation.

To get an idea of the extensive selection, have a look at their wine list here.

(For completeness' sake: they seem equally passionate about their beers, but I'm more of a wine person so I can't speak from experience there.)

'Wine Staircase' in a cosy corner. Nov. 2010.

If you're in doubt which wine to choose, depending on what you like and/or what food you're having, you can always ask for advice. If someone else is taking care of your table, don't hesitate to ask if Simon would have a minute. He's definitely the man you'll want to talk to.

If you're getting a dessert, which I'd really recommend, you might want to consider one of the gorgeous 'sticky wines' to go with it. I think we've sampled the full range by now, and my absolute favourites are the Californian Quady 'Elysium' - Black Muscat, the Australian 'Cordon Cut' Clare Valley Riesling and the mouthwatering Pieropan 'Le Colombare'. These wines are truly liquid gold.

Before I get all lyrical, let me refer you to the Horse & Groom website for all the practical information you might need, and assure you that when you're in the Cotswolds, this restaurant is well worth a visit.

Even if you find you're not that close to Upper Oddington, you won't regret the detour. Do take someone who doesn't like wine, though. Chances are you'll need a designated driver!

What's your favourite restaurant?

Q is for Questions.

2011-04-20T00:08:00.003+02:00

Some time ago, I wrote a series of posts about life stories, in which I asked a number of important questions about life, love and authenticity, 3 topics close to my heart.

The letter 'Q' in this A to Z Challenge month seemed like a perfect opportunity to breathe new life into the series.

Therefore, without further ado, here is a new list of life questions to reflect on, share or discuss:

What makes me smile?
What is my biggest talent?
What am I most proud of in my life?
Do I allow myself to make mistakes?
How can I make my life less stressful?
What was I like as a child? How have I changed?
Who could I not live without? Have I let them know? Recently?
What does 'beauty' mean to me? Am I beautiful?
When have I last said 'thank you' and really meant it?
When have I last said 'I love you' and really meant it?
What is my passion? How much time do I spend on it?
Am I as good a partner as I expect my partners to be?
Which 3 things I could do would really improve my health?
If I had to eliminate one emotion from my life, which one would I choose?
Which people have contributed to the person I have become?
If I found out, with certainty, there was a heaven and hell after death, what would I change about my life?

Which question(s) struck a chord?

--------
Image: 'Day Dream (Explore!)' by Gauri Ma. Available under a creative commons license. © 2008, Gauri Ma.

P is for Poetry.

2011-04-19T00:08:00.034+02:00

Years ago, around the time I started my MA in English and German Literature, I discovered my love for poetry.

Shortly before, at precisely the right time in my life, the film 'Dead Poets Society' had come out. It resonated on many levels, and not just because I had spent several years at boarding school myself.

I've always preferred poets whose works breathe Power, Passion and a Pure, raw intensity. There are so many: Pablo Neruda, Maya Angelou, Lord Byron, Walt Whitman, W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Adrienne Rich, P.B. Shelley, Robert Frost, Sylvia Plath, Audre Lorde, William Blake and many more.

In this post, I want to share one of my favourite poems, 'Acquainted with the Night' by Robert Frost, and - for old times' sake - the original trailer of Dead Poets Society.

Acquainted with the Night

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
A luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

- Robert Frost

Who are your favourite poets?

--------
Image: 'The Night at Azcuenaga' by Luis Argerich. Available under a creative commons license. © 2010, Luis Argerich.

O is for Openings.

2011-04-18T00:19:00.009+02:00

In writing, as in dating, a lot of attention is paid to opening lines.

Do opening lines really have the ability to draw a potential ~~lover~~ reader into a ~~relationship~~ novel? Maybe, but the rest of the ~~person~~ story will have to live up to those expectations.

Here are 13 opening lines (from novels) that managed to grab my attention and set off my imagination:

'The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault.'
Jim Butcher (Blood Rites)

'Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians. They met upon the third Wednesday of every month and read each other long, dull papers upon the history of English magic.'
Susanna Clarke (Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell)

'If I am out of my mind, it’s alright with me, thought Moses Herzog.'
Saul Bellow (Herzog)

'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.'
Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)

'The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.'
William Gibson (Neuromancer)

'It was the day my grandmother exploded.'
Iain Banks (The Crow Road)

'It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.'
Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Love in the Time of Cholera)

'It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not.'
Paul Auster (City of Glass)

'All children, except one, grow up.'
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)

'It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.'
Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)

'I looked at my notes and I didn't like them. I'd spent three days at U.S. Robots and might as well have spent them at home with the Encyclopedia Tellurica.'
Isaac Asimov (I, Robot)

'The night before he went to London, Richard Mayhew was not enjoying himself.'
Neil Gaiman (Neverwhere)

'When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.'
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings)

What are your favourite opening lines?

N is for Nature.

2011-04-16T18:03:00.042+02:00

Like many people, I have a complicated relationship with Nature.

I love being outdoors, surrounded by lush foliage, flowers and trees
- yet I choose to live in a city, because I like all the options and opportunities it has to offer.

Walking along a rugged coastline and hearing waves pound against the rocks under my feet, calms me down (not an easy job, I can assure you)
- yet I spend a large part of my weekends and holidays indoors, writing, blogging, reading or catching up with friends.

I know I am part of nature. I live and breathe because of the world around me
- yet so often I focus on boundaries, walls and differences.

In the middle of my have-tos and want-tos, I wanted to take a moment to stand still and remind myself of the beauty that can be found in nature.

So I've spent most of the afternoon out in the garden and made a moss carpet for the bathroom (more about that later). Then I've come in to go through my travel photographs and pick a few of my favourite nature shots to share.

Borders, Scotland. 2007.

Mount Rainier, USA. October 2004.

Mount Rainier National Park, USA. October 2004.

Norway, July 2009.

Olympic National Park, USA. February 2009.

Champagne region, France. July 2009.

Borders, Scotland. July 2006.

Botassart, Belgium. March 2005.

Samaria Gorge, Crete. July 2005.

Neuschwanstein, Germany. July 2008.

Now I'm off to the garden again to enjoy the rest of today's sunshine. Have a great weekend!

What kind of relationship do you have with Nature?