Lazy, lazy, and the Chicken and the Cat

It´s a very, very lazy Sunday morning. It´s raining a drizzly but constant kind of rain; not cold, but low-hanging clouds and mist in the valley, and a cold tinge on the edges of the day. (Scattered showers, the weather report said - well, it´s been like this for the past 7 hours ...). The cats cannot be anything else but lazy, either, and are sleeping in various catty spaces on the deck; Chicco has found an old blanket to lie down on. The girls are lounging, lazily, reading, watching movies, showering; I am re-reading John Irving´s A widow for one Year (a book I know, for a fact, I read and admired years ago, until, re-reading it now, I realize I remembered absolutely nothing about, until I got to the part that is set in Amsterdam...) 

One of those days when nothing much happens.

I just realised that Tess and Yarrow are staying tonight as well, on account of tomorrow being my birthday, which is really nice! So tonight will be apple-cake baking time to prepare for the ancient ritual of Cake In Bed On Birthdays.

This morning I observed an unusual scene: I had fed Malouf his breakfast and spilled some of the cat food around his bowl. Darren´s chicken, Luna, who occasionally visits, arrived on the scene and companionably pecked away at some of the food. At some point, Malouf looked sideways, and I wonder whether anything else but the smell and taste of food went through its mind on seeing the chicken there, eating ´with him´.

My love, in the meantime, is ´on´ her last weekend in Lisboã - spending time with her best friends Susie and Rita. Rita helped her make an inventory of the apartment on Saturday. On (her) today, she will have a picnic with friends ahead of her trip Down Under at the end of the week. I hope the weather will be nicer than it is here now!

Easter Photos

During the Easter weekend, and the days before and after, which Niki and I spent in Holland with Anjès (see earlier posts), we took quite a few photos. If you click on this link, you´ll be taken to a photo album on Niki´s Facebook pages.

Photos

(This is Niki...) Sooo, you were promised Easter photos! well, if you have Facebook and you're my friend (!) you can see them there. If not, click here for the photos of Holland and here for some tulip ones!

Music performance

Yarrow is now in the middle of her test week, and it started off with a music performance on Monday, which she had to do with a fellow-student. It brought her the coveted 20 out of 20 result. Well-done, Sparrow Of The Golden Voice.

Time...

Soon, time zones will converge when my love flies her way here to Oz to join us again, as the widget to the right (and the still to the left) silently witness...

Every cloud

They say every cloud has their silver lining, right? Well, this morning brought a golden lining to a cloud at the far side of the valley. Which must be significant... Ah! I know! It is telling me that my love will be flying her way to us pretty soon, as in late next week! You have to admit it and the sentiment are beautiful - both the sunrise, and the thought that we will be reunited again soon, even though we are, of course, never far apart in mind and soul.

Pessimists will hold that ´every lining has a cloud´, but not us optimists, oh no. The glass is half full, not half empty. The phrase comes from a masque (a Frenchified word for ´dramatic entertainment´, by John Milton. Milton's Comus gave rise to the current proverb with the lines

'Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud

Turn forth her silver lining on the night?' 

Charles Dickens, in his novel 'Bleak House' , recalled the lines with 'I turn my silver lining outward like Milton's cloud,' and the American impresario Phineas T. Barnum first recorded the wording of the modern saying in 'Struggles and Triumphs' with 'Every cloud,' says the proverb, 'has a silver lining.'"). (quoted in: The Phrase Finder).

Urban dictionary

In my research for thistthatandtheother, I came across the Urban dictionary, the dictionary that ´tackles words that you'd never hear Grandma saying.´ It´s all a bit of a lark, no doubt a tool of some savvy marketing organisation, but it defines two very important words in the English language, well, in any language: Niki and Hans. Not sure how serious this dictionary is (not), but what I read was rather fun. Corpus examples in italics...

Niki (n)

 

Niki is a term used to describe a certain group of people who excel in all they do. They are admired by many and are referred to as being very "cool". They acquire all positive traits and are very attractive.

Note: The term Niki and Nikki share no similarities.

You wish you were like Niki!

Niki (n) 

This is a nickname or shortened name for "Nicole" as well as for "Nikita". "Nikita" is a Russian name and is masculine. "Nicole" is a French, English, and Dutch name, and is feminine.

 

Sara: Hey Nicole!
Nicole: Stop calling me Nicole! It's Niki! N I K I. Okay?
Sara: Okay, okay...

 

Niki (n)

n: an example of a goddess
n: a word to describe someone as beautiful

 

woah....she's so niki

 

And as for Hans, well ... it could either be:

Hans (n)

A person who is consistently bad ass mo-fo. 

That guy was a total Hans, not a Poser like you.

or:

 

Hans (n)

The coolest person in the world. He's the kind of person who everyone worships.

Oh my Hans!

 

Tess´ test results

It´s that time of the year again, and Tess has been doing mid-year tests at school for Year 10. (Yarrow has hers, for Year 9 next week!) A few results ... good, or what?!

PE - 90.5%   
French listening - 80%       
an assessment (not sure which subject) - 47 out of 50    
Science - 85%       
History - 94%        

Well-done, Tess!

Would you believe it ...

Snow in Australia!

Home

Just a small detail from Ton and Ellen´s kitchen calendar ... even though it´s not the right date (my love will be arriving on the 29th) it´s nice... In fact, it´s wonderful...

Earlier

We got some happy news yesterday: Anjès will be coming to Australia sooner! We´re trying to re-arrange her traveling plans to the end of June (rather than September). Anjès decided that the work road she was on (working in the clothes shop) was a bit of a dead-end road making her very unhappy, and caught between a rock and a hard place. She turned to those she loved and decided, after much deliberation, that her best bet was to focus on the future. So, she has resigned as per the end of May, and will join us here Down Under by 26 June or so. As always, Anjès, you are most, most welcome! (Oh, and I am in the process of arranging a set of wheels for you ..., thanks to the lovely Kat!)

Sunrise

Sunrise on Sunday 7 May 2011 ... as seen through our study window ... over a period of about 15 minutes or so ... something to get up for ...

Sunrise at Pearces Creek -

Happy birthday

What better place than this blog, in order to save this for posterity, to wish Peter (Niki´s dad) a very Happy Birthday and many happy returns! Not sure how old you are today, Peter, but you don´t look a day over .... erm, now what would be the politically correct number to quote here ... 20? As Ton always says, ´The 20 year-old, and the 30-year-old, and the 45-year-old, and the 63-year-old and ... There are all there, inside, looking out.´ Anyway - I hope you´ve had a wonderful day and are enjoying the fact that your daughter is celebrating it with you. My present to you on this illustrious day is the fact that your daughter makes me incredibly happy! Can´t wrap that with a bow on, though... but I will, metaphorically.

Mist

On my flight home I read another beautiful book, The Prince of Mist, a novella by Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafón, also author of the magnificent The Shadow of the Wind, and The Angel's Game. Each of these books is a wonderful read which I can highly recommend.

 

UK

My love will be visiting Peter and An from Thursday. This´ll be a nice opportunity for them to have some quality together before the big trip to Ozland. Niki has told me that she will upload the elusive photos of the Easter weekend which I have been promising, of the tulip fields, Lisse, dinner with friends and my mums 75th. It will happen...

For those

For those avid readers who are wondering where the *** He has gone, and What is happening ..., suffice it to say that I am (un)comfortably ´enjoying´ jet lag Down Under. Day 3 today, so (not) looking forward to a, traditionally, short night. 

Unfortunately, my love is not here with us, but in 3 weeks only she will join us here again! Apparently, since I left, some 6 or 7 weeks ago, to go to Europe, it has been constantly raining here. Add to that the four months that we were in Australia, during which it also incessantly rained, and we´re looking at an easy 6 months of rain ... The grass is muddy, and wet; Red had mowed but couldn´t really do much else because of the water.

The house is rather dusty and grimy, looking a bit tired, so tomorrow Sadie The Cleaning Lady will descend on the house to give it a good Once (or maybe even Twice) over. It´s going to take her at least one day, if not 2, to get everything done, and done properly but then we should be good to keep it in mint condition until my love arrives for inspection ...

Tess and Yarrow are studying for / preparing for / sitting tests this week and the next two, so they are kept pretty busy studying. It is so, so nice to be back with them again, to occupy the same space. I´ve been meeting them after school for an extracurricular end-of-.day cup of tea, at Niki´s and my Alstonville ´haunt´, the Savannah.

The fact that I am refreshing the blog from home must mean that the Internet is working again ... This is true, but it is still quire unreliable and inconsistent so I am working with the phone people for a technician to come out to check out what is happening. A Nice Lady called Andrea contacted me who works for a more regional (i.e. less anonymous, more authentically customer-oriented) part of the phone company and she is going to help me sort the (remaining) mess out. (Would the fact that Andrew, My Man at Hinterland IT, managed to get an MP (yes, Member of Parliament) to ´escalate´ the issue, have helped to kick some proverbial into gear? Who knows. I don´t really care, but I am glad we have returned to a workable situation.)

So, allons-y: on we go with Realtime, China Grammar and Other Bits and Bobs... and counting down the days again ....

Final stage

Now that my love is in Portugal again to finish the final part of her university semester, we've temporarily gone back to phoning, Skyping and emailing again... We're both so looking forward to simply not having to do this anymore! These last few stages of The Move before Niki returns to Australia can be stressful, so we're trying to make it as smooth and enjoyable as we can. The estate agent is still working to get the apartment rented: the final things need packing, the last forms need filling out, building works in Sarzedo need initiating. It's small wonder my love doesn't go crazy as she tries to balance all that with (cue: funny Chinese accent) China Grammar! All supportive vibes to Portugal, please!

Almost ready ...

On Monday afternoon and evening my friend Peter and I spent a few very satisfying hours recording the last song of our upcoming CD, Heartbeat. This last song is called Ride the Wave, of which we'd already recorded a few versions. At some stage, however, the song got deleted (oops!) so a new version had to be made. We were quite happy to find ourselves producing an upbeat song which lasts 'only' four-and-a-half minutes ... (I mean, that's nothing for us - I think there are three seven-minute songs on this one ...).

So after more than three years the collection is complete. Yes, we took our time, but then we're simply doing it because we love doing it. Some 14 or 15 tracks will finally find their way onto the CD: some others have not made it. So watch this spot for further news down the line.

It was lovely to spend time with Peter (and some delicious Belgian brews), and with Trix who was back from Germany looking healthy and set to enjoy life. I was happy to see that my friends are looking forward to the future again and practising Carpe Diem!

Nuther meal

On Sunday evening Niki and I joined some of our friends in Amsterdam for a meal at Dutch restaurant Het Zwaantje. Tess and Yarrow will be pleased to know that Uncle Cees was there, with his partner Eef. Cees and Eef will be moving to Deventer by the end of the year to build their new house of the future (which will sit on a revolving platform following the sun).  



Jacomien was there and advised Niki and me on the ins and outs of Chinese culture, which we can usefully apply when writing our Chinese books.

Bertie was there, whose research project From Text to Political Positions: From Sentiments and Opinions in Texts to Positions of Political Parties involves her deeply in Integrating Cognitive Linguistics, Critical Discourse and Corpus Linguistic Analysis.

Martina was there, full of stories about her recent foal and Anjès was there, full of excitement about her imminent trip to Australia. We had a lovely meal, served by an extremely touchy-feely Amsterdam waiter who gave free shoulder massages as he went along...

Niki was satisfied that she'd had her 'bespoke' Dutch evening with carpets on the tables...

Heb je tulpen?

'Heb je tulpen?' is one of the extremely useful phrases that Niki and I practise from time to time in an attempt to boost my love's Dutch language skills. 'Heb je rooie tulpen? Heb je blauwe tulpen?' She could certainly have employed this phrase this weekend...

On Monday we decided to venture into the tulip fields some 45 minutes from Amsterdam. My love so much wanted to see tulips fields! What we hadn't realised, or at least I hadn't stopped to think, was that on Monday (which in the Netherlands is referred to as 'Second Easter Day') everybody in Holland goes out to see the tulips at the Keukenhof in Lisse, especially when the sun is out, which it - uncharacteristically- was. On their website this 'spring garden' informs visitors this day was one of the 5 or 6 busiest in the year ....

Anjès spent the Easter weekend with us, from Saturday to Monday evening. She drove up, and drove us around Holland ... very, very competently and safely. She's a great driver. Thanks, Anjès!

So, we had set off early, fortunately, but the mere sight of the rapidly-filling car park, packed with tourist buses and cars, and the queues at the entrance made us turn round and go into the pretty town of Lisse instead. We were hunting for some breakfast... However, in Lisse the entire population seemed to have turned into a congregation, as we found most of the locals in Church. (There's a bout 15 churches of all kinds of denominations in Lisse!) Hungry though we were for breakfast, everthing was closed and eerily quiet in this tourist town, even at 10 a.m.

On our way out of Lisse we stopped at the side of the road and (illegally) jumped a fence to sit down among tulips (together with other adventurous tourists who also baulked at paying E14,50 pp for the Keukenhof...). Photos of this will be put on the blog as soon as I get my hands on them - they are at present in Portugal, on Niki's camera...

Later that day Anjès was so kind as to help drop Niki off at Schiphol airport.

75

It's been another Internet-challenged week over here in Europe, so I've been rather remiss in keeping the journal up to date. Last weekend my love and I spent Saturday and Sunday in the south of Holland to celebrate (belatedly) my mum's 75th birthday. We had a lovely dinner at the Heeren van Oranje restaurant in Breda, with my sisters and brothers-in law, Anjès and mum. Oh, and Mazzel, the dog trotted along as well. Lovely evening, mellow, excellent food. On Sunday morning my sister Marielle and brother-in-law Arthur threw a delicious breakfast spread, followed by a doggie walk in the woods and lounging on a pavement cafe for afters. A very relaxing weekend.

Kilworth house

Today we had lunch, with Peter and Ann and auntie Jane, at Kilworth House, one of the many stately homes in England that have been converted into hotels and restaurants. Situated in beautiful surroundings, among rolling hills of yellow koolzaad (or, in English, oilseed rape) we enjoyed the unusual 26-degree spring day with a glass of wine and lovely food (although the waiters, according to some of the company present, did need a bit more training to explain to customers the menu they were offering...)

Conference

Phew. I think that is the word that best sums up how my love and I feel at the moment. We have just come back from the IATEFL conference in Brighton. We have to admit that we felt Brighton was a rather downtrodden and seedy place, despite its fancy Royal Pavilion and The Lanes, with lots of homeless people, drunks along the seaboard and dirt. The conference, however, was good! We´ve met many of our professional friends there, and networked till the cows came home for future contracts. We´ve met our Chinese publisher, and have talked with many other people about current and upcoming projects. (And I know somebody, who reads this blog, and who doesn´t like the word ´upcoming´...).

We stayed in a nice B&B with a crazy landlady, and trekked 20 minutes every morning and afternoon to walk to the conference centre. This had been built in the 1970s, so (?) it has no windows to speak of ... rather depressing after five days ...

Tess and Yarrow might be interested to know that Brighton has pebble beaches, as the photo below shows. Rather strange, I must say - it´s as if it´s not a ´real´ beach...

The Lanes

Pebbly beach

Different

It´s the last night in Portugal before heading off to the UK and Holland with my love.  Even though I had to think for a moment when Niki asked me earlier today whether I felt different now than before, or whether this moment in time feels strange, or unusual. Even though I initially felt that I didn´t, it is a bit strange to think that I may not be sleeping in this house anymore - a house that has been a home for my love and I, off and on, depending on where we were, for more than two years now.  I don´t expect, being the Aussified country bumpkin I´ve grown to be over the last decade, that I´ll miss the concrete urban reality of modern Portuguese city suburbia, and yet, it has become familiar and ´close´, part of that inimitable mix of experiences, a space in the removal boxes of our lives which we carry along as we develop and grow. Another new phase begins...  and my love and I will embrace it with vigour!

Ellen

News has just reached us that Ellen is in hospital, suffering from adverse side effects of minor surgery earlier today. Hang in there, Ellen! Fight yourself out of this - you are a fighter! Channeling all our love to you!

It´s a moving business...

We just got confirmation ´that [we] have booked the packing / collection [of goods and chattels to Australia] into our work schedule for Friday 29th April - commencing at around 0845 / 0900´. As I said, it´s all happening...

Libraries

I have always been fascinated by libraries. These could be real places, or they could - equally impressively - be fictional entities that play a role in works of fiction, such as the famous labyrinthine library of the distant and wind-swept lonely monastery in Umberto Eco´s Name of the Rose (even though that wasn´t real but based on an amalgam of libraries in the writer´s imagination.) The eighteenth century ´rendition´ of this mysterious fictional Abbey, the Abbey of Melk, is shown below. Wouldn´t you just want to be there to breathe the words, thoughts, scents, and emotions of old in this amazingly beautiful repository of knowledge?

A while ago Mieke sent me a photo of a beautiful library, the Philosophical Hall, a Baroque reading room in Prague´s 868-year-old Strahov monastery library, holding just about every important book available in central Europe at the end of the 18th century — more or less the sum total of human knowledge at the time. It made me think of a library Niki and I visited in Mafra, close to Lisbon, in the Palacio Nacional de Mafra. The latter has en entirely different ´feel´ to it, although it is equally impressive - its colours are less vibrant, more subdued, milky than, for instance, the Prague library. Does anybody know of any other architecturally beautiful or otherwise impressive libraries around the world?

The library of the Melk Abbey, Austria

The library of the Palácio Nacional in Mafra, Portugal

The library of the Strahov Monastery library, Czech. (Go here to ´walk inside´ this library, thanks to a 3D photography project only recently completed in March 2011. It takes a while to ´get´ the controls, but then it´s worth it)

It´s getting serious...

It´s all happening... On Friday night, with the help of our friend Susanna, we packed a substantial part of the contents of the Lisbon apartment into a big (I mean, BIG) van which we rented for Saturday. I love driving vehicles like that, and decided that I will be a bus driver when I retire (laughing smiley here). As the photos below show we managed to pack it to the rafters (if it only had rafters).

Saturday morning saw us leaving Lisbon at 6:00 a.m. (how dedicated is that!). High and dry above the highway we rocketed towards the Serra de Estrela. Niki decided that our next car would have to be a van, because she now saw so much more of the countryside around us and things she could never have imagined as they were simply not visible from the little carette that she normally drives.

About 3 hours later we arrived in Sarzedo where the roads (well, there are only two and one of them is in need of repair) are so narrow that we were somewhat concerned the van might not even fit. With  mirrors folded in we just scraped through ... As you can see we professionally (!) stored all the things on the ground floor (which at the moment is not much more yet that a sandpit with French doors, but will at some stage be a lovely kitchen looking out over the mountains), off the floor (bricks quickly scored at the local DIY) before going up the mountain, under / in tarps. We were quite chuffed with ourselves!

At some stage one of the elder ladies in the village came in muttering and (as far as we could tell, in a bad mood) asked us to move the van. I said to Niki, ´I bet you she´s ignored the safety sign that we set up 50 metres or so down the street, and is now waiting behind the van with her cart. Lo, and behold - she was indeed, but she was not alone ... look for ´ít´ in the slideshow.

About 2 hours later, having left a few chairs, a table and a doll´s house in the part of the house where building is taking place, so the builders would have something to sit on and play with during their infrequent (!) coffee breaks, we were able to set off again (squeezing the van out of the village) towards Lisbon where at the end of the afternoon we delivered it back safely and returned home to do more clearing and shifting.

It is now Sunday morning. Unfortunately, my back is protesting after yesterday´s adventures. We´ve just had breakfast at one of the local bakery / coffee houses. As I blog, Niki is at is again / still at it - tidying, bagging, chucking away, and cleaning so by the end of this weekend we´re all ready to rock!

As I said ... it´s all happening.

Move

Hairdresser

Typing away briefly with Denise in Amsterdam on Skype this morning, in between exercises on the simple past and present perfect tenses for China Grammar (how exciting...), she tells me she´ll chat with me later because she is .. at the hairdresser! OK, fair enough, but imagine my surprise when she phones (on Skype) and on the little video screen I see ... Denise ... erm, Denise? Or some sort of futuristic alien from Mars, perhaps? Ah! She is, indeed, at the hairdresser´s and, in true form, being a Modern Interactive Woman and all that, she is Skyping with me from her iPhone - so what she is looking at is me, on her phone. I must admit I´d never actually had anybody phone me that way before, so I was quite excited. It deserved a post, if only because it looks, well, rather funny.

Real

I haven´t really celebrated this yet, but just before I left for Europe the latest two levels of Real English were published in Holland! Real English is my primary course for the Netherlands, and these two new levels are for 8 to 10-year-olds. They consist of workbooks in colour and an impressive interactive whiteboard application offered via the web. The Real English brand has now been on the market since 1984. It offers materials for 8-12 year-olds. These last two levels are a mighty fine candle on the cake! So, here´s to (big?) bucks rolling in... Proost!

Facing book

A little Facebook exchange between Niki, Tess and Yarrow after our chat just now ...

Half a chat

Just had a lovely chat with Tess and Yarrow. Sitting in the Grange kitchen, where Mieke was preparing dinner, we chatted about home, school, friends, torn knee ligaments and broken noses - and how much we are all missing each other! Unfortunately, these conversations seem to end up being half conversations sometimes (a bit like in the snapshot I took during the chat...) because the quality of the Internet varies and today it was particularly bad. Anyway - it was lovely to see and hear you both, my lovelies, and don´t worry - as the removal boxes piling up around us all over the apartment are telling me we are packing things up to come back to you!

We are also sending Good Health wishes to Grandpa / Ton who is having a bit of a dip at the moment. Ellen, will you convey our good wishes?

Snow?

Snow? Yes, snow. Tess and Yarrow will remember the snow on top of the mountain near Sarzedo, which is where we went with our friends Tony and Rita who came from Merida in Spain and visited us in Covilhã, near Sarzedo. We stayed in the Residencial Panorama, which was nice enough in itself, but was managed by what we would like to refer to as ´The Demon Manager´ (think Mr Fawlty in Portuguese) who had a rather disturbing look on his face most of the time (as if voices in his head were competing for talk time) and didn´t seem to have any sleep for all the time we were there ... 

We had a lovely time, chatting, walking, dining and driving up to the Torre, the highest point of the area (and of Portugal) although we decided not to go down the hill on the black tyres or the slides – it was simply too cold and too wet …

Personally, I had a bit of a linguistic breakthrough this time around as I jumped in and tried to speak Portuguese as much as I could - mind you, it apparently sounded like a combination between Spanish and Portuguese, which we aptly dubbed Iberian for the time being...

Cherry blossom

It´s the season of blossom in Europe and all over the Beira Baixa, where we went on the weekend, we saw beautiful cherry blossom spreading its white charm over the countryside!

Anjés

The other night Niki and I spoke with Anjès for a while, on Skype. She was lounging on a ´loungy´ Sunday, having worked her proverbial off the whole week in the clothes shop. She´s really looking forward to coming to Australia, as are we! She told her boss of her decision to go away, so she now finally feels free to talk about it with everybody!  She´s thinking about what she might do while she is Down Under (in terms of work, study and travel), but hasn´t quite made up her mind yet. She´s especially looking forward to being with family!As we chatted we checked out her visa, just to make sure it was still OK, and  yes, she´s all set to  simply ´go home´ on her permanent residency visa...

Mooooove ...

Having been through a number of moves myself over the years, the one we are ´embroiled´ in at the moment is no different – we´ve been diligently packing Stuff In Boxes for more than a week now. I think we´ve probably covered about 85% of the home contents and sorted them into ´For Australia´ and ´For Sarzedo´ piles. It´s all coming together – we want to have basically everything packed before we go to England (for the IATEFL conference) and Holland, so that in May Niki won´t have to be doing much more than tidying up and overseeing The Removal Of Stuff. She will be staying with her friend Susanna after England – living out of a suitcase for a few weeks while the house gets thoroughly emptied and made ready for renting out. Our friend Carlos did a wonderful paint job (of the Marquise, for instance, and the bathroom) while we were in Sarzedo.

I am so proud of my love for going through this ´upheaval´ - OK, voluntary of course, and she has a vested interest :), but still, it´s a Big Thing and we are both looking forward to finding our feet again Down Under.

Pousada

One one of the days we spent in Covilhã and Sarzedo we went up to a Pousada – pousadas are often converted convents, so rather majestic buildings that have been turned into luxury hotels, usually in the most impressive places. This one was particularly impressive, as some of the photos will witness and it was lovely writing there with a view of the mountains while being plied with cups of tea and home-made cakes by extremely friendly staff. 

Pousada

Sarzedo revisited

Niki and I went up to Sarzedo this weekend, to carry Some Boxes (the First Of Many) over to the little house in the mountains. We´re bringing things there that a) cannot stay in the apartment in Lisbon, which is going to be rented out, and b) do not need to go to Australia. We may have to bring another load of stuff and some furniture there the coming weekend. The house is getting along - walls have been created inside, electricity cables laid; and the bathroom has been half shaped. 

One of the other reasons we were there for was to talk to builders to repair The Wall along the road, which holds up the garden. Quotes have been asked for and Considerations Are Being Made.

Not much

Not much to report. Niki worked at the university today, and I worked on Realtime. Niki´s friend, Jane, took herself into Lisbon after sitting in on Niki´s classes. She´s looking to see whether a teaching career might be something for her. As I write, skies are blue but it´s quite cold outside. Portugal is without a Prime Minister and the political mood is grim. Tomorrow we´re off to Sarzedo for a few days, trying to get the electricity connected, taking A Few Boxes There, and looking around for materials and writing China Grammar units... In other words, all is calm and well. The photo, by the way, if of a church in Povao de St Adriaõ (the part of Lisbon where we live when we´re here), which was where we´ve dropped off No Longer Needed Clothes the other day. A remnant of what once must have been a very nice village...

Quotes

Are you reading the Quotes to the right of this blog with any regularity? A gem just sprung up, catching my eye at exactly the time when I told myself that enough was enough for today: ´Oh! do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.´ Looking up a half-forgotten quote on the Net about the sound of deadlines swooshing past, I came across this article, The Uses And Abuses Of Setting Deadlines. Thought-provoking. Make no mistake, I love my job. But I can also let out a hearty guffaw when reading Leunig´s masterful cartoon to the left.