'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!