Flip

Ah, girls and their toys ... Niki´s new toy, a Flip, with which one can make very silly videos, such as these two:

Aw, cute...

Ah, aren´t they cute ...

Gaudi

And here are some more pictures of the Park Guel, a 15-hectare area in a posh area of Lisbon that Gaudi had the privilege to design for one of the time´s big industrialists. The Park never became a commercial success and the vision had to be abandoned - Barcelona council took it over, and it is now one of their major tourist attractions.

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Barcelona

And back we are from a quick work visit (well, for Niki that is) to Barcelona. A beautiful but very, very busy city on Spain´s north-west coast, a 2-hour flight from Lisbon. We had the Sunday free to visit the world-famous Sagrada Familia and other Gaudi art, which was wonderful and amazing. We also, on Saturday afternoon, tried to follow in the steps of the author of The Shadow of the Wind - one of the most impressive books of the last few years, but that was a disappointment: the heights of imagination that the author takes the reader to in his pages were no match for the busy, hectic, modern and harsh reality of Barcelona city center. Nevertheless, a nice sejour in the city that Manuel (Fawlty Towers) hails from (I know nooothing...!). (For Fawlty Towers aficionados, did you know that when that series was broadcast in Spain - and dubbed - they made Manuel out to be from Lisbon...?) Here´s a slideshow of photos of the cultural highlights of the trip. First of all, the Sagrada Familia - I think the only Cathedral in the world that you can still see being built. Cathedrals used to take decades, sometimes more than a hundred years to build, and so has this one. We think perhaps a conscious (tourism inspired) decision has been taken to never finish it...

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Yarrow´s poem

And here´s the poem Yarrow and her friends wrote and promised to upload. It was inspired by an article about an accident in the Byron Bay area.

We are going down to the shore to swim,
Said the children to their mother,
But the time is late and the light is dim,
We’ll look after one another.

They gathered their things and ran down to the bay,
Placing their towels on the sand.
As the two children ran, the parents did lay,
Together both hand in hand.

The kinds ran out to the darkening water.
Their dad shouted “Don’t go too deep!”
Both of them led by the eldest daughter,
O’er the crashing waves they did leap,

Ignoring their father’s desperate command;
It was drowned out by the oceans roar.
Their mother could see the trouble at hand,
As their feet left the ocean´s floor.

The parent’s feet skimmed the sand,
They went deeper into the sea.
No longer seeing the safety of land,
They avoided the scattered debris.

The parents reached their struggling young,
Supporting their tiered limp bodies,
They coughed as the cold water filled up their lungs,
Their visions soon became dotty.

They hauled their children into the air,
Up above their heads.
They each recited a silent prayer,
As their tainted hearts bled.

The two scared kids escaped the sea,
They ceased their infinite fight,
But their parent’s lives had no guarantee,
Forever to see an endless night.

Though they are grateful for everyone’s aid,
The gaping hole in their heart
Will never heal, but slowly fade,
As it tears their family apart.

Even now as the sun sets red,
And the moon replays their demise,
They see the silhouettes of the dead,
Dancing the moonlit skies.

I know noothing ...

So off we are to Barcelona, in Spain, on Saturday, back on Monday. Niki´s school has won a contract with a company with branches in Spain and Portugal delivering an English language in-company course. So for this purpose they´ve hired teachers on both sides of the border, and this weekend Niki needs to go and meet the teacher in question, inspect the rooms, meet the company reps, etc. In the meantime, I´ll take the opportunity to do some research into the Spanish English language publishing market and on Sunday, we get an opportunity to see Barcelona where I´ve personally not been yet... According to the hotel info, we should have wireless Internet, so I´ll be looking people up...

The making of...

If you liked our new song, which I uploaded last week, Beyond the photo (or 24 hours as it has become popularly known :), have a look at how Peter and I mucked about putting it together. This clip is after we had determined melody and rhythm and Peter had sorted out what the keyboard should do for him... We spent a few hours pleasantly finding our way through music; recording and rerecording, adding instruments and trying out ideas. It was, as you will be able to see, a lovely evening..

Piano

Wading through the many photographs of recent trips I came across these nice ones of Niki playing the piano at her parents´place. You should have heard her: the music was quite enervating and boisterous! Lovely...

Good work girls!

When we talked this morning on Skype Tess read a very impressive poem to me she wrote for school which gave her 27 out of 30 points. Well-done, Tess - so well-written and astute observation. She has promised to upload it to the blog. If you have trouble doing so Tess, email it to me and I will do it for you.

Yarrow also wrote a poem a while ago, based on a news event in the area and she is also going to upload this for us. Good writers, they are, them girlseses! Also, Yarrow told me she won a place at the Talent Identification Programme singing workshop. Remember the video clip of her singing a beautiful Missy Higgins song? Well, she got in and will be singing her heart out at the workshop and learning more and more about this beautiful art.

In the meantime, Anjes is working her proverbial off to finish her school this term - working, and studying are what mostly occupies her time at the moment. But when she´s finished her programme this means she will have done a three-year programme in two years! Good on ya!

Mobile

Just an interesting, awareness-raising article that Mieke pointed out. The world is changing, isn´t it - as it has always done and will always do... Guess what the photo depicts, by the way ... Answer after the article...

Teenage girls' phone habit hits 100 messages a day

CRAYTON HARRISON

April 22, 2010

HIGH school girls typically send and receive 100 text messages a day, according to a study, which found that cheaper mobile-phone plans have boosted the technology's popularity among young people.

The percentage of Americans aged 12 to 17 who use text messaging to contact friends daily reached 54 per cent last year, double the figure in 2006, according to a study released on Tuesday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The growth rate outpaced the increase in daily use of email and wireless calls.

The surging use of text messages bodes well for mobile-phone makers because teenagers tend to become reliant on their wireless devices without realising it, said Scott Campbell, one of the study's co-authors.

Texting teens are 42 per cent more likely to leave their phones on or near their beds when they go to sleep than those that don't send texts, the study found. ''They say that if a friend texts them in the night they want to wake up and answer it,'' said Campbell, an assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan.

''Nothing really seems to bother them about their dependence on the technology.''

Three-quarters of US teenagers have mobile phones, up from 45 per cent in 2004, the researchers found. Of those with mobiles, 83 per cent use them to take pictures, 60 per cent to listen to music and 46 per cent play games.

While they were interested in Apple's iPhone, many could not afford the extra charges or get their parents to pay. Girls aged 14 to 17 were the most active text senders.

The study surveyed 800 teenagers and their parents and found their 100-message-a-day habit was double the level of all teenagers.

Answer: Bryony (one of John´s daughters) took this photo from the top of Bald Rock, where they had been camping - see earlier posts- at 5 am: they'd climbed up in the dark and cold to see the dawn, and snapped the dawn PLUS Tess using her mobile phone. Such a telling picture of the reality of our children´s lives! Beauty, nature and technology rolled into one! (observation by Mieke)

Back!

Thank you, Niki, for keeping the family up to date with my whereabouts - it was a journey, but I made it and am now back in Lisboa. Funnily enough, a 28-hour train journey, despite hour-long delays and the fact that all trains were basically packed, is not as tiring as even a 2,5 hour plane journey. I mastered any linguistic insecurities rather well, even if I say so myself, and thus managed to avoid even more delays or missing the final Night Train to Lisbon. Mind you, thanks to the fact that I traveled first-class, I was able to observe the ant-like throng and chaos in second-class, so I do realise I´m a bit privileged. I just felt that hey I can´t afford to travel business class on a plane, I sure as **** can afford a first-class ticket on a train :). So, from Irun, in the North of Spain, to Lisbon I was able to sleep in the comfort of my own compartment, have a shower and use private facilities, have a free dinner in the restaurant and breakfast before disembarking. Even though the facilities seemed to have been created in the seventies, and I narrowly fitted the shower cubicle, it was lovely to rock myself to sleep on the rhythm of the train on its tracks.

Oh, and Niki ... the word for platform is ... Voie ... I knew it :)

Where exactly?

At this late hour, this is the best map I could find. This is for Tess and Yarrow really so that you can see where your Dad is! Find Paris - that's where he was this morning(lunch time) ... then down to the bottom of the black line - and over into Spain - Hendaye ... and then follow the green line down - Burgos, Salamanca, V. Formosa (border of Spain and Portugal) , Coimbra, Entroncamento and finally Lisboa!

So he got the trains ok and I just got a text message saying he'd had dinner and a shower. I guess that he is somewhere between Hendaye and Burgos. I'm imagining a kind of Orient Express train but I suspect it's not that luxurious! I also had a message about how planes are simpler! Well, we have just got out of the habit of train journeys and the trains themselves are not equipped for those of us who are used to seeing exactly where our loved ones are. I have become adept at finding out plane arrival times, gate numbers and the like. Finding the Gare de Bayonne was challenging and only when I went to google.fr did I find it. On their site, I found the station notice board and learnt there that the French train drivers (some) are on strike. As for Irún, no online notice and the same for Lisbon station. It's good that we have mobile phones and texting!

To sum up today then it was breakfast in Holland, lunch in France, dinner in Spain and tomorrow breakfast in Portgual! Now THAT is traveling!!!!!

Which platform for Irún?

So to keep avid readers of this blog updated. Hans safely arrived in Paris; got across Paris to Montparnasse uneventfully (I think!) and got on the train to TGV down to Bayonne. But the train didn't leave. Infact it only left 3 hours later. So... I am now busily searching on the net to find the platform in Bayonne - as he'll have a mere 30 minutes if there are no further delays to get off the train and onto the Irún train - and I'm sure there'll be a lot of Excuse - moi, ou est-ce que.... quel est le....and will he be able to remember the word for platform in French???? ahhhhh!!! In any foreign language , it's always a difficult one to pull up from the dregs of memory!!!

Meanwhile, news reports are mixed telling us that some airlines are trying out flying at low altitude (is this safe - not only for those in the air but also for those on the ground?) , Germany opened airspace and then closed it; the volcano is erupting again - and the cloud is once again headed for the British Isles. Madrid is the 'hub' for Europe with many planes taking off in different part s of the world heading for 'Europe'. If they land in Madrid, they will be met by bus/ship and taken to the UK. That's for UK nationals - the BBC didn't know what other countries were doing!

More as it happens - literally!

Thalys

Your intrepid reporter reporting ... 6:28 a.m. and on board Thalys to Paris Nord. The luxury of a first-class seat gives me free internet and even a powerpoint to charge my computer. Lush! as Niki would say... Let´s see if I can stay awake and report along the way. I see the Dutch countryside zooming past me as Thalys picks up speed. Traveling backwards, so - as one writer once put it - looking into the past... Endless miles of greenhouses preparing a colourful spread for the flower season...

'What's your mother tongue?' he had asked her. Português, she had answered. The o she pronounced surprisingly as a u; the rising, strangely constrained lightness of the é and the soft sh at the end came together in a melody that sounded much longer than it really was, and that he could have listened to all day long. (pp7)

And so Hans is going to actually do the journey. In an incredible twist of fate, (well, it's the volcano in Iceland) he is booked onto the 6.16 a.m. train departing Amsterdam on Tuesday to arrive in Lisboa at 10.31 on Wednesday. Regular readers of this blog will recall that this book was referred to last year (June 1st 2009 post) . Hans had bought it and we read parts of it together in Sarzedo last year. So it's quite a special book for us - just wish I was doing the journey with you my love!

24 hours

These are the lyrics to the new song Peter and I recorded last night: Beyond the photo. Inspired by the idea that we have only little time to do whatever it is we are meant to be here for... Capturing our lives in 24 hours. I´ve turned the sound file into a static video because it´s rather complicated to upload sound to this blog. When you listen, please realise that this is an unmixed version, so a ´rough cut´ as it were - an unfinished painting. After mixing and mastering (and who knows Peter might add some more instruments or change the whole thing :) it´ll come together better. Also, if you listen via your computer, the sound is likely to be tinny and ´bare´. A good set of headphones do the present rendition a lot of good. Anyway, enough excuses (b***y sensitive artists...) Oh, there is a bit of a blip somewhere along the song - a tiny bit missing, no idea why...

Peter and I

It was a chilly Spring evening but the view from Peter´s jetty was beautiful, and it was quiet and still. A good place for a chat among friends after a tasty meal. And a great evening of music followed during which we recorded a new (!) song, called Beyond the photo.

Still stuck

Well ... Still stuck ... Not an ash cloud in sight, but The Powers That be have still got airspace locked ... Quite a surreal feeling, really. No flights until (at least) Sunday. Starting to seriously look into the Night Train to Lisbon - I can take it down the road at Amsterdam CS. What´s twenty-one hours in a lifetime? I´m starting to warm to the idea... A tad expensive, but I love train journeys and with the refund on my ticket... hmm, I´ll sleep on it. The journey would take me straight through Holland, Belgium, France, Spain to Lisboa, with two changes, one in Paris and one in Irun, Spain. Unusual, to say the least.

Now that the opportunity has arisen Peter and I will get together tonight to do some music and work on the CD which is nice as we haven´t been able to yet this time round.

Hot

Walking down the Spui today, in the centre of Amsterdam, I happened upon this trio of musicians who were playing what I believe is called Hot Club de France. Enjoy!

Peter and E & M Duet

My friend Peter, whom I have made two CDs before (and we´re finalizing our third!) was performing in the village of Medemblik (see movie clip in previous post), together with two friends of his. Peter´s friend Frank has a restaurant in the village and organizes dinner theater evening where, to the enjoyment of music, cabaret or stand up company, you eat lovely food and enjoy great company. We shared a table with Trix, Peter´s partner, and let the music play...

Filmette 1


Filmette 2


Filmette 3

Bits

A few impressions from my Amsterdam and Medemblik, the latter a village one hour or so north of Amsterdam where on Thusday night we went to see Peter perform.

Wallabies in Holland?

This is taking global climate change to a big extreme...

Albino wallaby spotted in Frisian woods

Friday 16 April 2010

An albino wallaby has been spotted in woods by the Frisian town of Makkinga, the Telegraaf which carries a photograph of the animal reports.

The wallaby with a baby in her pouch, was spotted by local Rene van Hes. 'I have seen brown wallabies in the area but this is really special,' he told the paper.

The Telegraaf says it is well known that there are wallabies living in the wild in the north of the country.

'There are around 10 of them. They don't cause any problems but a couple have been run over,' a spokesman for the local council said. (Source: Dutchnews.nl)

Ash

Oh yes, I am affected ... You can´t actually see the ash cloud here, but it has stopped all air traffic in and out of Dutch (and most European, I think) airspace. I even read in the SMH that flights from Oz have been canceled because of it. And you know what (as the KLM lady sighed to some foreign guests, including me): ´It always rains here, and there is always wind in this country - but just not now when we need it.´ So, the cloud sits above Holland and doesn´t shift much... Anyway, we´ll see where and how we go ... It could be tonight, tomorrow, Sunday - who knows ... No flights until 6 a.m. Saturday.

And then I thought - let´s see if I can get a Night-train to Lisbon ... Well, the thousands of stranded airline passengers waiting at the ticket offices of the National Railways sort of put me off that idea. I´ll see if I can book online! Sounds like an exciting thing to do :)

Stuck

Volcanic ash...? Iceland...? Yes ... I, too, seem stuck, with many many thousands of people, stranded in Holland because of the volcanic ash clouds covering Europe.

Different, as Peter, Niki´s dad, wrote to me in an email:).

Different indeed, especially when one is wanting to get back to one´s love pronto! Anyway, not much, i.e. nothing, I can do right now (quarter to two in the morning of Friday) as the KLM service desk seems to be unattainable. I´ll just have to try again tomorrow, and hope they might start flying again before 14:00 (my scheduled flight is at 13:00).

Musiking!

One of the things Niki did in Harrogate was giving an excellent one-hour presentation / workshop on the role of music in Young Learner (primary) classes, under the title Musiking along. Under this link you can see the workshop if you like: join in, it was fun! Just in case you are wondering what I was doing there ... Niki and I are both on the committee, and I was introducing Niki as joint coordinator of the YLT SIG. You can ignore my waffle :)... I wasn´t wearing a microphone anyway - Niki was, and as soon as she starts it´ll all become clear...

What we did...

Just to give you an idea of what we did to while away the time in Harrogate... meetings, meeting, meetings... and cake! Because the YLT SIG that we all work for was 25 years old!

Looksee...

Gosh

Gosh, and then all of a sudden more than a week had flown past! During this week Niki and were in the UK, first visiting (and meeting, for me) Niki´s parents, and then to a conference in the beautiful mid-UK city of Harrogate, close-ish to the Yorkshire Dales. Spring had definitely sprung in the UK and daffodils, cherry blossom and flowers all sorts were popping up everywhere!

For part of that week, Tess, Yarrow, Bryony, Mieke and John went camping near Bald Rock and, having spoken to Yarrow this morning, I gather they had a great and relaxing time. Yarrow has promised to put some photos up but here, on Mieke´s blog, you can already see some. Niki and I were running around like headless chooks in Harrogate, so I´m afraid there aren´t many photos of note to be shown...

I´ll be off to Holland tomorrow, for meetings with my publishers (Real English, my primary course, which is going to be extended with new components; and Realtime, the secondary course I´m working on as a content editor), as well as to see my mum, possibly Anjès, my sisters and brothers-in-law Jos and Arthur, and my friends Bertie, Denise and my Peter and Trix. All that in three days ...? Erm, yup. Back on Friday...

In the meantime Niki will also be working her proverbial off - as there is loads and loads to do.

Easter Chocolate

This is my easter bunny for daddy,which I am kindly trying to save for him... (: attempting, may I say...

Harrogate

And off we go after a very pleasant weekend at Niki´s mum´s and dad´s to Harrogate for the IATEFL conference. Peter and Ann are kindly driving us up to the middle of the country, a 2- or 3-hour drive, I believe, and will drop us off at Ascot House where we will spend the next few days (until Sunday morning). The conference is going to be a busy affair with lectures, workshops, presentations, plenaries, meetings and daily dinners with colleagues and clients.

Bunnies

Last week Tess and Yarrow had their term social for which the theme was (I believe) Things I wouldn´t be seen dead in going to a social... I have no photos yet of Yarrow, whose friend Teagan apparently has some, but Tess has kindly supplied some pics of her teen social madness :) ...

Flowers in spring

Flowers, though late this year, are blooming... a swan in nesting in the reeds... signs of life re-affirming itself.

Golden voice

For those who ´are in the know´ go a few posts down to see our Yarrow and listen to her wonderful golden voice... I wrote the post a few days ago and had trouble uploading the video, so it placed it where it was dated...

Polebrook update

And here we are, in Northamptonshire. As I am writing this, the sun is shining over the back yard and green paddocks behind Peter and Ann´s house. It´s really beautiful country here- green fields with villages strewn around, church steeples peeping up everywhere, rivers and brooks, willows, pheasants in the wild. Niki´s parents have been extremely kind and welcoming. Today an old school friend of Niki´s came to visit and we went and had lunch at an old Mill in a nearby village.